Welcome to Keeping The Home

Maybe you've been extensively busy, or unforeseen circumstances have paid you an unexpected visit. Now as you look around your house, you wonder how in the world it has gotten to be such a mess! You have company coming over soon (or you're just plain sick of the mess), so you have to get that house cleaned, and quick.

The Emergency Quick Clean can help you, but please remember this is only for emergency occasions, when you've fallen behind on your housework, and don't have time to take a week to clean up the whole house.

Depending on the extent of your messes, the Emergency Quick Clean will generally take 10 minutes to 2 hours or so to complete. The steps in this process are in a specific order, so that as you complete each step, your house is considerably better. That way, if your company arrives before you're done, it'll be close enough. ;-)

Emergency Quick Clean - in nine simple steps

Before You Start - Get the laundry going, and reboot it as needed. After you've completed the below nine Emergency Quick Clean steps, take some time to put away any laundry that is clean and waiting.

1. Go into your kitchen, and wash your dishes. If you have a dishwasher, then use it. It's one of your many "servants". ;-)

2. Go to every sink in your house, and spray them all down with a solution of half vinegar and half water), and give them a quick wipe down with a rag.

3. Depending on the amount of mess in your house, this step may be the longest one for you... Go through every room in your house, and throw away any trash (and take the trash out, if needed), and put away things that have wandered away from their homes.

4. Grab a feather duster, and go from room to room, dusting top to bottom. Focus mostly on fan blades, shelves, and the tops of TVs and computers.

5. The hard part is over. :-) Grab a rag and a spray cleaner (vinegar and water), and wipe down your kitchen/dining room table(s), kitchen counters, and bathroom counters. This is also a good time to clean your TV and computer screens, and bathroom mirrors.

6. Toilet time. Squirt/spray in vinegar, bleach, or Soft Scrub, and clean those toilets. Don't forget to clean the flush handle; on, under and around the seats, on the toilet the bases, etc.

7. Almost done! Grab your broom, and do a quick sweep of your kitchen and bathrooms. This is a quick sweep - this means that you just sweep the middles of the floors. Don't worry about moving chairs, etc, just sweep around them.

8. Time to spot mop. Turn on the hot water in your kitchen sink, get your mop wet, and then look at the floor for messy spots, and mop over each messy spot. Remember, this is an Emergency Quick Clean, so we're not mopping the whole floor, just the visibly dirty spots. Now do this in your bathrooms as well.

9. Quick Vacuum time... Vacuum your living room and dining room. Focus on the middles. Don't worry about the edges, or under furniture, etc. You can do a serious vacuuming later, when you get back into a regular cleaning routine.

All done! :-)