Thursday, 31 May 2012

Home Cleaning Service For Chores You Don't Want To Do

It can be hard to find the time in the course of your busy day to address some of the domestic concerns of owning a house. At the end of a long day of work the last thing you want to do is to come back to your place and have to clean and straighten up everything. While it can be hard to find time to do it, there is no denying the fact that it needs to be done. Fortunately, for those with busy lives who are in need of assistance there are home cleaning service professionals who are happy to come out and do the menial tasks that are so often overlooked.

Home cleaning service allows property owners to feel at ease and comfortable in their space. A clutter free and dirt free living area offers peace of mind, but on the other hand when things are messy it can be stressful. These companies are skilled at coming in while you are away at work and doing all the little chores that are so hard to schedule time for. They will scrub out bathroom walls and sinks and also wash kitchen counters and stovetops. They will sweep and mop the floors and perform deodorizing tasks. When a person gets come back everything will be washed and smell fresh. This allows a person to simply enjoy their space in the evening and not worry about trying to stay abreast of domestic needs.

The trick to finding a home cleaning service to offer this incredible assistance is that it is difficult to find someone who can be trusted to be alone in the house during the day. This is a most sacred space and when a stranger is there alone it can be disconcerting. By hiring a professional company you get the added protection of knowing that a larger organization is standing behind the trustworthiness of a person. Hiring a local person does not assure this protection.

On the other hand while a larger home cleaning Service Company is more likely to protect a person against theft or damage, they have their drawbacks as well. They are generally more expensive for the same work and they also do not always send the same people to the house every week. That means that special requests or preferences may go unheeded. With a local person you have the benefit of dealing with the same person every time and you can instruct them to your needs and wants as necessary.

Home cleaning service from a professional company or a local contractor gives peace of mind and comfort while offering a much-needed service. Each have their benefits but both will give a person the satisfaction of knowing that their house will be in order when they return.


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Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Inexpensive Ways to Clean Your Toilet

Baking Soda:

To clean your toilet bowl naturally, dump in half a box of baking soda and let it stand in the bowl overnight. In the morning, flush the toilet several times to remove all the dirt and grime. Run a brush around the ring to loosen any part of the ring that remains. Flush again and that's it!

With this toilet cleaning method, you can be the Queen of Green by using the baking soda that you've had open in the fridge to soak up musty odors and moisture. Just open a new box of baking soda and place it in the back of the refrigerator. Take the old box and put 1/2 box in your toilet bowl. If your home has two toilets, you can clean both of them at the same time, using 1/2 box in one toilet and 1/2 box in the other.

Baking Soda and Vinegar:

Pour one cup of white vinegar into your toilet and let it soak for half an hour. Now dip your toilet brush in the toilet bowl and sprinkle it with baking soda. Scrub the inside of the toilet bowl. Re-sprinkle the brush with baking soda a couple more times. Flush twice, and your toilet will glisten.

Note that vinegar is an excellent fungus and mold killer. If you have black mold in your toilet, especially under the rim, be sure to dip your brush in the vinegar and run the brush under the rim. Wait 30 minutes and scrub with baking soda and brush.

Borax:

If you were a child in the '50s or '60s, you may remember 20-Mule-Team Borax. This stuff will blast through lime deposits and black mold. Make a paste of Borax and lemon juice or white vinegar and rub under the toilet bowl rim and on ring. Let it sit on porcelain for awhile, scrub and rinse.

Tea Tree Oil:

Tea Tree Oil is a natural disinfectant and cleanser. Add one tablespoon to a gallon of warm water. Pour in the bowl for a few minutes. Scrub and swish. It smells good, too. You can put some of the liquid into a spray bottle and use it on the outside of the toilet, too. Since tea tree oil is an essential oil, you can buy it anywhere that natural cleaning products, essential oils and supplements are sold. A little tea tree oil goes a long way.

What About the Ring?

Bleach, Vinegar and Borax Power will obliterate a toilet bowl ring. So will scrubbing a toilet bowl ring with a pumuce stone.


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Tuesday, 29 May 2012

Surviving Home Disasters, Major or Minor: Fire/Water Restoration and Other Pro Services Can Help

Damage from fires, floods, and other incidents don't have to mean your home is beyond repair. Turn to fire, water, and other restoration professionals to preserve your house and weather the storm with minimum loss and maximum peace of mind.

Your house is your biggest investment, but it's very often so much more than just an inhabitable savings account. It's also your home, the place were lives are lived and memories are made. Which is why when disaster strikes, the devastation can be doubly costly. When your property has suffered from a fire, flood, or other incident, major or minor, you need to act quickly to not only preserve the structure in terms of a financial investment but also to restore your house into a home that's safe and welcoming for you and your family.

Water Damage Restoration
Natural disaster, roof leaks, burst pipes: no matter how the water entered your home, when you're dealing with a flood, you've got a real mess on your hands. It might be easy to just throw your hands up and call your property a total loss, especially with both fire and water damage, but instead of giving up on your home, bring in a professional flood restoration company. You'll be amazed at what these experts can do to evacuate standing water, dry out absorbed moisture, and stop the damage in its tracks. You may have to replace soggy drywall and refinish your floors, but when you call for water damage restoration in time, you'll be surprised at how well this professional team can contain the damage and stop the problems from compounding with concerns like mold growth and wood rot.

Fire Damage Restoration
When you have a fire in your home, you typically end up with the double trouble of both damage from the fire itself and damage from the water used to extinguish the flames. However, even these dual concerns don't always mean the space isn't salvageable. Modern technology offers a full range of fire restoration techniques including structural drying, smoke and soot removal, and odor elimination. Fire/water restoration companies in your local area have the necessary tools and training to tackle these problems and help you minimize losses.

Additional Services
In addition to the large-scale drying and cleaning services offered by nearly all fire and water damage restoration companies, you may also find yourself in the market for specialized services such as mold removal, carpet cleaning, or tile and grout cleaning. These additional options can help you to clean away evidence of the incident from walls and floors that are in good enough shape to preserve. By revitalizing these finishes, instead of tearing them out and starting over, you're able to help keep the cost of the job down while still returning your home to a clean, beautiful condition.

For major home disasters such as extensive flooding or serious fires, you might want to ask around until you find a disaster restoration company that is also a general contractor. That way, if/when your project requires rebuilding walls, reinstalling flooring, and other major changes, you won't have to deal with juggling multiple service providers. Working with a general building contractor from the get-go who also specializes in fire and flood restoration can help make your life just a little easier during this stressful time.


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Monday, 28 May 2012

Keep the Mess in the Washing Machine With These Laundry Room Storage Tips

If you had to name the most cluttered and disorganized room in your home, you might pick the laundry room. Dirty clothes mingle with clean ones, containers of detergent and softeners sit wherever you last placed them and, if the laundry room is near the back door, you're likely to find a collection of shoes underfoot as well. Get organized with a few laundry room storage tips that will allow you to keep the mess inside the washing machine.

First, get some of that mess off the floor. That means starting with all those piles of dirty clothes. The Triple Storage Bin with Black Frame and 2.5 Inch Casters is the perfect organizer for holding your laundry while you're waiting for wash day. What makes it perfect is the fact that it provides you with three bins that provide instant sorting ability. As your family members bring in their dirty clothing, they can place each piece in the appropriate mesh and cloth bag. That will save you loads of time when laundry duty comes around because you won't have to sort it yourself. And if you need to remove the bins to go and collect laundry around the house, you'll discover that each of them is actually a removable bag. A heavy duty steel frame holds everything together, and there is even a wire frame bottom that provides you with storage space for whatever you need to keep with your laundry.

Next, you'll want to clean up the miscellaneous mess that so often finds its way into the laundry room. The Rectangular Storage Container is made of canvas with a water-resistant vinyl lining that makes it a perfect gathering place for plastic water bottles and other recyclables. You'll even want one for your kids to toss in their dirty shoes until you have time to clean them. Each of these storage containers is fitted with sturdy handles so you can haul everything outside for cleaning or to the car to take to the recycling center. You might even want to keep one on hand to contain damp laundry such as bath towels.

Another great tip to organize the laundry room is to gather all of your laundry supplies into one convenient location. The back of the washing machine is the most convenient spot to store detergent and softeners, and the Washing Machine Wire Shelf gives you the room that you need. This shelf is made of coated finish wire and it fits right onto the top back of the washing machine. It is strong enough to hold all your laundry-day supplies, and you'll find everything is close at hand when you need it. If dryer lint builds up on the wire, it's easy to brush or wipe it clean, too.

If that shelf isn't large enough to hold all your laundry supplies, you might want to put the Roll-Out Caddy between your washer and dryer. This coated wire unit has three shelves that are only nine inches wide, but that's plenty of room to hold boxes of detergent, bottles of bleach, containers of softener sheets and other items. The casters make it easy to roll in and out, so if it attracts dryer lint, it will be easy to clean. This is a rugged little unit that will last for years, and will store everything you need to do your laundry day chores.

If your ironing board stands in a corner and you constantly have to straighten it and your iron sits in the way on top of the dryer, you'll appreciate this tip. Use the back of your laundry room door to store those items. The Over the Door Iron Board Holder is a powerful organizer that hangs over the door or mounts on a wall. The iron sits in its own spot in the center of the unit, while two bottle holders flank it. The ironing board itself hangs from the bottom, out of the way and off the floor.

Another easily mounted organizer that will quickly clear space in your laundry room is the Overdoor Laundry Hanger. This durable chrome piece is small but powerful enough to hold up to ten pieces of clean laundry. Hang clean shirts or trousers on clothes hangers and then slip the hooks into the slots to get them out of the way. This hanger features a locking hinge, but you can fold it down when you're not using it. There is a felt pad on the inside of the bracket so you won't have to worry about scratching your door when you put it up.

These are just a few laundry room organizers that you'll be able to put right to work in de-cluttering your home. Inexpensive, sturdy and convenient, they will quickly right any mess that you have, and make your laundry day chores much more pleasant.


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Sunday, 27 May 2012

Cash For Clutter - Decluttering Tips That Earn You Money

What could be better than getting decluttered? Fame, a genie in a bottle, a new car? Ok, ok, that might be a little out of reach right now, but we can make money from our clutter! How nice would it be to get rid of some of your extra things that are taking up space and making your house cluttered and end up with extra money?!?

The best way to go about this is to integrate it as part of your "normal" decluttering. For instance, let's say that you are cleaning out your basement and going through all the shelves of games, books, and other items that have accumulated. Odds are that you have some items that someone will want; our goal is to make some quick money from these items. What we need to remember is that the end goal is still to be decluttered, we don't want to wait weeks or months for someone to buy our $3 book when we would gain more from donating it and getting it out of the house.

An interesting side note - if you are considering selling your home in the near future, you should really be decluttering now! On top of the fact that no one wants to come into a home that is full of clutter and think about the work that will need to be done before they move in, the value of your home (as well as the perceived) value is increased by keeping it free of clutter and organized. A study conducted in 2003 showed that at a cost of around $400 (which we can do by following the Get Rid Of Clutter program for a tiny fraction of that cost!) home owners realized a profit of $2,000 - that's a 500% profit! That is quite a good return for the time and money used, not to mention the fact that a decluttered house is much more likely to sell quickly instead of staying on the market costing you money in bills, taxes, and more.

Ok, back to the task at hand - making some money from our decluttering efforts! Keeping this in mind as we go through our decluttering can really help to focus us on getting rid of items that we might otherwise make up a reason to keep. Remember, ask yourself these questions as you go through the process of decluttering an area:

Is this item useful? If it is useful, is it used? An object that is not used is not useful.Does this item make me happy to see it? If it is hiding in the back of a closet, how happy does it really make me?Does this item bring back joyful emotions when I see it, hear it, or smell it? Again, if it is hiding in the back of a closet or shelf somewhere, how important is this to me?

If the things that we are going through do not fit into one of those three categories, then we really need to consider putting them into the clutter pile and moving on.

After deciding what it is that you want to sell, you need to develop an idea of the price that you want to sell it for - remember, the idea is to get rid of clutter AND make some extra money. Do not price items too high or you will end up holding onto them. Selling used items usually means selling them cheap. Make life easy on yourself and discount your items so that they sell fast - you will be happier in the end instead of holding out for the sale that might not happen with a higher price.

If you have trouble deciding what to charge for your item, look at the same places where you might sell to get an idea of what prices other people are charging. Go ahead and look at the list below to get an idea of where to look.

So, how can we turn the clutter into cash? We have many options! Here is a short list - each one of these could be a short article, or book chapter on its own (several of these are discussed in the book and via our training course). Some of these work better for others, sometimes it can take a little trial and error to see what works best for you. Look at the options and comments below to see what you think could make you the most money from your decluttering.

Craigslist - a great online site for selling anything and everything. Great for selling furniture and large items locally. Pro: you can sell just about anything from Craigslist and there is likely a buyer out there for it. Con: You will have to meet in person, whether at your house or at a meeting spot.Amazon - Amazon can sell your used items and takes a small fee. Pro: great for selling books and you only need to mail the item once it sells. Con: Setting up the item to sell can take a bit longer and Amazon takes a cut that is proportional to the sale price.eBay - eBay lets you set the price in its auction environment, a good place for some electronics and other niche items. Pro: Fairly easy to setup, if you have a good item you can start a bidding war and get top dollar. Con: Competition can be fierce in certain categories.Garage sale - The tried and true way to get rid of clutter in a local fashion. Pro: No need to post anything online (except for advertising your garage sale). Con: Dependent on things like weather, your neighborhood, etc.

Most people have enough clutter in their homes to make them a decent amount of money. From good condition books to extra furniture, it is not unusual for people to find that they have several hundred dollars or more or surplus items sitting around their homes not being used. Think about what you could do with that extra money! Enjoy!


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Saturday, 26 May 2012

How to Keep Your New Carpet Looking Beautiful

When you buy a home, you want to decorate it with carpeting to match your personal style. Over time, carpet can get dirty and dingy from being walked on constantly. Luckily, there are measures you can take to ensure your carpet will last as long as possible. Here are some tips to care for your home's carpet to keep it looking nice and new.

Vacuum Regularly

Be sure to vacuum your carpet often; one to two times a week is best. Vacuuming will help to remove any soil that can ruin the fibers of your carpet. It is important that you continue to vacuum since much of the dirt that can slice your carpet fibers is not visible to the naked eye.

Check Your Carpet Warranty

When you first, make sure read the manufacturer's warranty. The warranty should spell out any specific instructions on what you need to do to keep your warranty valid. If the carpet manufacturer has any recommendations, try your best to follow it.

Spot Clean When Your Carpet Gets Soiled

It is inevitable; eventually something will get spilt or dragged onto your new carpet. New carpet typically comes with an anti-stain barrier to help protect your carpet from such events. Some anti-stain technology is better than others, and your first spill is the perfect time to test yours out. Your manufacturer warranty should list what types of stains are covered under warranty, and also what their recommended method for spot cleaning is.

Protect Your Carpet

Carpet is made to be walked on. The more people you have living in your home the more wear and tear your carpet will endure. Carpet tends to wear down first in high-traffic areas, such as those in front of the front door or in a hallway. To protect your carpet from such wear and tear, use runners or mats in those high-traffic areas. Runners can be placed down your hallway to protect rug burn, the wearing down of your carpet. You can also use a sticky-backed plastic on your stairs to help protect the carpet from constant use. Rearranging your furniture every now and then can also help by changing the pattern of heavy traffic in your home.

Get Professional Cleaning

In general, it is best to have your carpet clean by a professional carpet cleaning company once a year. If you have areas that are subjected to really heavy traffic and a lot of dirt, you may want to have it cleaned more often than. Professional cleaning does not leave any residue, and completely and thoroughly gets the dirt and stains out of your carpet. Many anti-stain carpet manufacturers state in their warranties that you should have your carpet professionally cleaned every other year. Cleaning by a professional can remove the dirt and soil that vacuuming may leave behind.


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Friday, 25 May 2012

Residential Air Cleaning Services

Every homeowner should be aware of the state of their home's indoor air quality. Every building has many different allergens threatening the air. Dirty dryer vents and HVAC vents are just two examples of appliances that can infect a living space. Thankfully there are professional residential air cleaning services that can help with these problems. Professional cleaning services not only help keep the air healthy, but they help improve breathing, keep appliances working most efficiently, and can even help save money on energy bills. These professional services and air quality testing is suggested every 2 years.

Having your home's air ducts cleaned is one of the best maintenance services you can do. Your HVAC system is literally the source of all your breathing air. HVAC systems feed the entire home and can acquire up to 40 pounds of dust a year! That is an outrageous realization to think how much is contaminating your home just from everyday living. Professional cleaning services take advantage of negative and positive air to clean the ducts. This is a chemical free service that prevents the dust and particles from blowing back into your home when the cleaning is being done. There are also chemical cleaning treatments available. Duct cleaning is an extremely thorough service where virtually every inch of the system is cleaned. Not only does this help improve air quality but it keep the HVAC unit running its best. An efficiently working system means less energy use and lower bills.

Your dryer vent should also be cleaned! Although dryer lint should be removed by users regularly, this service is still recommended for many reasons. First off, there are generally signs that it is time to have your dryer vent cleaned. If the flapper on the vent hood won't open when the dryer is going, if the laundry is especially hot at the end of the cycle, or if clothes are taking an extra long time to dry, then you should clean the vent. This helps improve the performance of the machine, increases the dryer's lifetime, prevents mold and moisture, and prevents fires. Did you know that around 15,000 fires happen each year because of dirty dryer vents alone?

Having clean air is important to your health and can help prevent allergies and the symptoms that go along with them. Professional companies are available to help with a full range of cleaning services from duct cleaning to moisture barriers. Keeping up with air quality testing and cleaning is a smart thing for every home owner do to.


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