One word comes to mind when homeowners contemplate spring cleaning. And it’s not Lysol.
The word would be “overwhelming,” Julea Joseph said. The owner of Reinventing Space in Palos Park, Joseph said spring cleaning is best done in small doses.
“If you look at the house as a total entity, it’s enough to make you drop everything and go to a movie. You have to look at each room by itself,” she said.
Joseph, who recently returned to the Chicago area after 10 years in San Francisco, said Midwesterners are the worst when it comes to collecting household clutter that makes cleaning so difficult.
“We don’t go anywhere. We stay here for generations. So things are important to us. We never throw anything out,” she said.
Rhea Hathaway, owner of Rhea’s Professional Cleaning & Classic Maid Service in Worth and Frankfort, said it doesn’t have to be that way.
She and other cleaning experts said it’s possible to conduct the annual spring cleaning rituals and eliminate clutter in the process.
The key is to not attempt to do everything at once.
“It’s going to take a couple days, depending on how big your house is,” Hathaway said. “You want to do things bit by bit. That way, you’re not so exhausted. So what if it takes a week or a couple weekends? Sometimes, it’s easier to take this way.”
Hathaway, who’s been in the professional cleaning business since 1999, has eight employees working five days a week cleaning houses and offices throughout the Southland. Most of us don’t have that large a team working on the homestead and rely on family members to pitch in.
The key word there is “pitch.”
“People like to keep stuff, but you have to take a look at it this time of year. If you haven’t used it in a year, pitch it,” Hathaway said.
“More than likely, you’re not going to use it again if it’s been a year. This is spring cleaning. You want to get rid of dust. You want to get rid of things that have been sitting around collecting dust,” Hathaway said.
Since dust falls to the ground, it’s a good idea to start cleaning at the top floor and work your way down, said Alta Mae Frobish, a professional organizer based in Valparaiso, Ind.
“It is amazing how quickly you can get things done,” Frobish said. “You can set aside 10 minutes or a half-hour a day for cleaning, and you can get a lot done in that time.”
She suggested cleaning one room at a time.
“You can start by doing a closet. You need to have containers. A trash container, a recycling container, things like that. I find a lot of times that it’s easier to let things go if you know they are going to a good home. If you have some way of recycling it, instead of putting it into the trash, a lot of times that’s easier to take,” she said.
She suggested starting by making piles of clothing arranged by seasons.
“You can move the fall or winter clothes to the back of the closet or box them up for the attic or move them to a guest closet,” she said.
Eventually, items that are seldom worn are easier to get rid of, she said.