While Southern California isn’t known for its harsh winters, San Diego residents still recognize the changes in season. With spring on the way, many homeowners find themselves thinking about the annual need to clean their property before the weather gets warmer. Sure, you don’t need to spray road salt off the driveway or remove insulative material from your windows, but there’s still more than enough to do prior to summer getting underway.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at several spring cleaning tips for San Diego homeowners:
Do-It-Yourself?
Deciding whether or not to do it yourself will be the first step. While many homeowners in Southern California have the means to afford maintenance services, not everyone is so fortunate. Given the ability of homeowners to successfully clean on their own, ask yourself if outsourcing the job is worth the money. If you and your partner are too busy with work and raising a family, and earn enough to justify hiring a professional cleaner, then by all means. But if doing so will stretch your money too thin, keep reading to learn how to do it yourself without losing your mind.
Dedicate a Day (or Two)
If you decide to do spring cleaning yourself, then set aside a day or two, based on the size of your property. Generally speaking, smaller two-bedroom homes in San Diego can be thoroughly cleaned in a single day. Larger dwellings with more than one bathroom and one or more outbuildings will take at least two days to clean. Don’t want to ruin your weekend? Use up some of that vacation time you’ve accrued over the last year or so!
Declutter
With record demand for housing in Southern California and prices skyrocketing as a result, there’s a good chance you live in a relatively small domicile. If this is true, then decluttering is key to keeping yourself sane this summer. With so many affordable storage units in San Diego and surrounding areas, consider renting one to safely store items you won’t be using in the foreseeable future. Never fear; if you ever need something in storage, you can easily retrieve it at a moment’s notice, thanks to 24-hour access.
Downsize
Those fortunate enough to live in larger homes throughout the San Diego area may benefit from downsizing. Doing so enables them to rent out a portion of their home to someone else. Given the uptick in would-be renters during the warmer months, taking the time to downsize can lead to a substantial boost in income. Depending on the layout of your home, you might be able to rent out a part of it without ever seeing the other residents – except when collecting the rent, that is.
Donate
Whether you rent a small studio apartment or own a multistory house, decluttering and downsizing call for the removal of items from your property. While self-storage units are suitable for the items you want to keep, what about the things you’d rather throw away? Rather than condemning every old item you own to the garbage, consider donating as much as possible to local thrift stores and nonprofits. While your holey old socks are better off in the landfill, your old appliances, electronics, and quality clothes can be handed off to someone else who needs them more. With so many thrift stores and nonprofits in the Greater San Diego area, there’s no reason not to donate as much as possible before throwing the rest away.
Deep Clean
Now is the time to clean hard-to-reach areas that otherwise won’t be cleaned for another year. That’s what spring cleaning is all about! Get behind the entertainment center, under the sofa, and on top of the armoire and eradicate those dust bunnies! Move bulky appliances from their usual spots and clean the areas thoroughly. Do you have carpeting? If so, rent or buy a rug cleaner and get to work. It’s a lot of hard work over a short amount of time, but the result is peace of mind for the next 365 days.
With spring here and summer around the corner, now’s the time to clean your home inside and out especially if you happen to capitalize on semi-renting out your home as a luxury vacation rental. Whether hiring experts or doing it yourself, the goal is to ensure it’s done right.
