It’s often sad when the festive season ends, mainly because the post-holiday cleanup can be grueling. From drink spills to multiple decorations, getting your rental back to its normal usually takes a lot of work. However, this article is here to make your job easier.
Do you want a look at our post-holiday cleanup guide? Would you like to see the benefits of hiring a real estate professional? Then, stick around till the end to ensure you enter the next season smoothly.
Post-Holiday Clean-Up Guide
1. Declutter the House
It’s pretty in character for the festive season to get out of hand. The house can get messy with many people, cooking, and Christmas decorations. Try to declutter the home by recycling the waste, returning gifts, and trashing the non-recyclable effects.
2. Take Down the Holiday Decor
Once the holidays are over, you can get to work taking down the decor. As fun as it is to put up Christmas lights, stockings, and other decorations, they all eventually have to come down. So be careful when you’re removing decorations that are high up. Instead of standing on a chair, try renting a sturdy ladder that is much more stable and can reduce the incidence of falls.
3. Store the Decorations
Once you’ve taken down the decorations, store them away properly so you can reuse them next year. You can trash the torn or no longer working, but keep the viable ones in an easily retrievable box for the next holiday season. Remember to store them in a way that makes it easy to bring them out. After all, the last thing you want is to spend hours carefully detangling Christmas lights next year.
4. Clean out the Kitchen
The kitchen experiences a lot of foot traffic during the holiday season because of guests’ cooking and coming and going. Thus, it’ll need special attention worth having on your cleanup guide. Remove moldy or excess food in the fridge, and wipe down the counters and stove. If anything is broken, you might also have to replace it. You can hire an expert property manager to plan your maintenance and repairs.
5. Clean the Common Areas
If it’s not your responsibility to clean your tenants’ kitchen, like in a vacation rental, the previous tip might not apply to you. However, you can still get to work cleaning the common areas. Keeping the stairwells, porches, pool, yard, and similar regions tidy is often the landlord’s obligation. The post-holiday period is the best time for deep cleaning, so get the work mopping the floors, doing some landscaping, and cleaning the pool.
Benefits of Making a Cleaning Schedule
1. It Makes it Less Overwhelming
Taking on the cleaning task can initially seem overwhelming, but listing everything you have to do significantly reduces the burden. It lets you plan how to approach each task, and if you co-own the property with someone else, it makes the duties more easily divisible. It also reduces decision fatigue which can make the chores seem longer and help you finish in no time.
2. It Makes Your Work More Efficient
Another perk of using a cleaning schedule is making your work more efficient. For example, if you have a Christmas tree in the foyer of your building, you’ll have to take down the decorations before cleaning up the area. Trying to clean up first would mean double work as you have to clear the tree residues again. A checklist allows you to coordinate your activities so you don’t have to repeat the same task twice. Hence it can help you get rent ready for new tenants faster.
3. It Makes it Safer
A cleanup schedule is also essential because it makes your job safer. A checklist makes it easier to get the job done, reducing the chances of accidents in an unkempt house. In addition, people are less likely to trip when your floors are neat, and your decorations are removed and stored correctly.
When to Hire a Professional Cleaning Service
1. When You Don’t Have Time
Although cleaning can be a mundane chair, it’s also time-consuming and extremely tiring. If you’re pressed for time, mainly because you’re working alone, it might be better to outsource such tasks to a pro.
2. When You Have Other Priorities
A landlord’s job is never complete, and dedicating several hours to cleaning means taking time away from other tasks you could be completing. So instead of bothering yourself with mops and decor, hire a professional cleaning service to do it right while you focus on other things.
3. When You’re a Long-Distance Landlord
Even if time is on your side, the distance might not be. Many landlords no longer allow distance to restrict them from lucrative investment opportunities. But that also means they need a hand in maintaining their property. Therefore, finding a reputable local cleaning service is crucial.
Conclusion
Tidying up your rentals after the holidays can be chaotic, but a cleaning schedule makes it more effective and less overwhelming. Some tasks you should add to your list include taking down the decorations, decluttering the house, and cleaning the common areas. Since these chores can be stressful, you can outsource the role to an expert professional cleaning service. Although, if you need clarification on the best service in your area, you can speak with a local property manager with more connections.
