Spring Cleaning Checklist for Renters

It’s spring again — the season when everything comes back to life after months of hibernation! Birds start to chirp, days are longer, the sun shines more often, and the temperatures get higher and higher. Spring is often considered a new beginning, and what’s a better way to start over than by deep cleaning your house with a spring cleaning?

It’s high time we tackled all the cleaning tasks you have been putting off for weeks. Even if you aren’t the owner of the house you live in, it is still your responsibility to keep it clean. And while tasks such as garage door opener maintenance or changing the filters in the water heater are the responsibility of the landlord, you should use the opportunity to deep clean the house at least once a year.

Don’t know where to start? You’re in the right place then! In this article, we’re not only going to tell you what to do during this deep clean of your home, but we’ll also explain its importance, how to best organize yourself to create the perfect spring cleaning checklist, and share with your some expert advice on this topic.

The Importance of Spring Cleaning

As we’ve already mentioned, spring is the perfect time to reset everything in your home. It will have a positive effect not only on your physical health but also on your mind and overall well-being. Robert Harold, Regional Manager at Morgan Properties, told us why exactly it is important for renters to do this:

“As residents transition out of the winter months, spring cleaning helps to reenergize us for the warmer weather and longer days ahead. It’s a great opportunity to revitalize your home by opening up the windows and letting in some fresh air, while also helping to improve your indoor air quality.

Often, when doing a deep cleaning and pulling items off shelves or moving around larger furniture, it creates an opportunity to identify potential maintenance issues that may have been hidden or hazards you may not have been aware of. Simple things like minimizing clutter beneath the sink and around furnaces or hot water heaters helps as maintenance teams perform unit by unit inspections. This is the perfect time to have service teams replace air filters, test smoke detectors, and examine carbon monoxide alarms. But remember, when it comes to major appliances or permanent fixtures, be sure to check in with your property management company or landlord before making any changes.”

Besides, by doing it at least once a year, you can prevent bigger issues, such as mold. This is especially important for renters because, if it turns out that such a problem occurred during your stay, your landlord might take a part of your deposit to cover the costs of fixing it.

Organizing Your Cleaning Checklist

Setting your mind on spring cleaning is a great first step, but it’s not enough – after all, you actually need to do it. Once you have decided that you are 100% committed to this cleaning project, tell someone, be that person your spouse, housemate, parents, friends on social media, or others. Announcing it will make you accountable: since you have already told someone you would do it, you now have a stronger feeling that you have to!

Next, you need to make a plan. It doesn’t have to be detailed, but you should have a rough idea about what you are going to do. Ideally, you should create a checklist, either with what needs to be done in each room or a whole-house task list. It will help you stay organized, and you’ll avoid making an even bigger mess.

“It’s less important to choose the ‘best’ place to start and more important to simply get started,” Harold says. “Pick any place – I often suggest that you look for the most disorganized or the most cluttered space in your apartment home and start chipping away.  An informative book recommendation, ‘Eat That Frog!’ by Brian Tracy, can serve as a great source of inspiration to get you over the procrastination hump. The idea behind ‘eating that frog’ was to tackle the worst task first, because once that was out of the way, everything else seemed easy. By doing the worst task first, you feel a sense of accomplishment, which will help to motivate you to take on the other smaller cleaning tasks.

Also remember to start high — think ceiling fans and top of the cabinets. You do not want to dust the surface once and then have to do it again if you work from the bottom up. Whether it be the bathroom or the kitchen, the closet in your bedroom or the storage unit nearby … just get started!”

Spring Cleaning Checklist

Here are some of the tasks you should include in your spring cleaning session. Although this is not a complete list, it is a good starting point:

• Bedding

You probably wash your sheets, pillowcases, and duvet covers regularly, but your pillows or comforters also need a refresher every once in a while.

• Mattress

Sprinkle your mattress with baking soda, let it sit for a few minutes, and vacuum the mattress slowly with the brush attachment. Use the crevice tool to vacuum around the mattress’s top and bottom seams. Last but not least, flip your mattress; make sure you can do it, though, as some types shouldn’t be flipped.

• Curtains

Curtains are great dust collectors. Remove them from the rods and either wash them at home or take them to be professionally cleaned. If you don’t want to remove them altogether, you should consider vacuuming them while they are hanging.

• Blinds/shades

These also collect a significant amount of dust. If you don’t dust your blinds regularly, then spring cleaning is the perfect time to take care of them — just grab a damp dust rag so that you can remove any grime. Shades, on the other hand, can be cleaned with a lint roller, vacuum cleaner, or a slightly damp microfiber cloth.

• Ceiling fan

Once the temperatures start rising, you are bound to turn on your ceiling fan. However, before that happens, you should stave off an avalanche of dust. You can try cleaning it with an extendable duster.

• Cabinets

Even though the cabinets are one of those places that rarely get cleaned, they definitely need it, with the number of hands that touch them frequently. Start with the kitchen cabinets, and make your way throughout the rest of the house. Make sure to use a cleaning solution that cuts through grease.

• Windows 

The best time to clean your windows is during a cloudy day, as your windows won’t be left with spots or streaks. Start by cleaning the dirtiest parts first (sills and tracks), and then proceed with the screens, if you have them. Finish with washing the windowpanes.

• Baseboards 

The visible baseboards probably get dusted every once in a while. However, what about those behind your bed or a living room console? Spring cleaning is a perfect opportunity to take care of all of them.

• Patio furniture 

Soon, it will be warm enough to spend more time outside, so why not use this opportunity and get the outdoor furniture ready? All you need to wipe it down is a simple water solution with a squint of dish soap. If the furniture is dirtier than you thought, you can always rent out a power washer.

• Closet

Spring is the perfect time to reorganize your wardrobe. Take a look at your clothes and you are bound to find some things that you don’t wear anymore. Put them aside and donate or sell them. Once you’re left with only the things you want to keep, sort them by type, length, or color. This will not only make your closet more visually pleasing, but it will also be easier for you to find stuff.

• Carpets

The first thing you should do when it comes to cleaning the carpets is vacuuming every inch of them, including the areas under the furniture. Once you’re done, remove the rug and vacuum the rug pad, as well as the floor underneath it. If the carpets are dirtier than you initially thought, schedule an appointment with a professional carpet cleaning service.

How to Organize Your Spring Cleaning

Now, a lot depends on how many tasks you are actually planning on writing down on your spring cleaning checklist. Obviously, if you are thinking about performing a really deep clean, chances are you won’t be able to do it in one day. That’s why you must divide the tasks across a few days. How do you choose which ones to perform first? Here are a few tips:

• Choose whole-house cleaning tasks

Look through your spring cleaning checklist and pick those tasks that involve more than one room or item, e.g., washing the bedding or cleaning the windows.

• Select the chores you keep putting off

By doing things that you don’t like first, you’ll not only have a clean house, but you can also relieve yourself from the guilt you might be feeling from not completing them sooner. Although those tasks will differ from person to person, some of the most commonly procrastinated ones include deep cleaning the shower or the oven.

• Base your choices on time

Some of the tasks might be slightly more time-consuming than others, such as washing the bedding. Although collecting the bedding itself doesn’t take a lot of time, you need to remember how long it will take for it to wash and dry. The good news is that, while you wait, you can complete other chores that don’t take as much time.

• Put labor-intensive tasks at the top of your list

If you don’t know which tasks you should get over with first, then you should try starting with those that require the most energy.

What Is the Most Important Aspect when Spring Cleaning?

When we asked Robert Harold for his advice on the most important aspects related to spring cleaning, he told us the key “is to stay focused.”

“As the weather outside improves, it is easy to be lured away by outdoor activities. Do not try to do it all at once, pick a room and see it through before you move on to another area. Too often you end up with small piles scattered around and the task feels even more daunting.

It can also help to develop an annual Spring Cleaning Checklist, similar to how we approach the overall preventative maintenance efforts across our properties. Who doesn’t love the feeling of checking items off a to-do list or having a tool to help keep you on track?

Spring cleaning is also the perfect time to check the labels on your cleaning products. Are they safe and effective for the surfaces they are being used on? Are they pet/kid friendly? Often, these questions go unanswered and can cause surface damage or harm the family pet.” Make sure to do this before you start your tasks!

The Bottom Line

Spring is the perfect time to finally take care of all the cleaning tasks you have been procrastinating for the last couple of weeks, if not months. Since it’s time to think about new beginnings, why not give your home a fresh start too? As Robert Harold said: “Declutter. Disinfect. Destress.”

We hope you now have a better idea about how to start your deep clean, what tasks should make your spring cleaning checklist, and how to pick the ones you should complete first. You’ll see that, once you finish cleaning the house, you’ll feel a lot better, not only physically but also mentally. Good luck!