Cleaning your house from the inside is an important chore and no wonder then that each new spring ushers in a huge cleaning spree. However, most homeowners forget that the outside of the house needs cleaning too. It has been exposed to the elements all winter long and a combination of snow, water, and the chilling cold took its toll on the structure. In addition to picking up the cleaning tools and stepping outside to clean your house, you need to take care of the environment. Just as you open the windows when you use a strong chemical on the inside, you have to take care of the environment when cleaning from the outside. The cleaning should really be done in the most eco-friendly manner possible. If you are unsure how to go about eco-cleaning and which solutions exactly to use, here are some tips on keeping you outdoors clean, all the while nourishing the surrounding nature.
Declutter outside too
Clutter on the inside is the number one reason for the pile-up of dust and other kind of dirt. By decluttering, you are saving yourself a lot of trouble when the time for cleaning comes. However, clutter forms on the outside as well. We are not referring to your front façade, but rather the backyard one. If you treat our backyard like an open storage space, they you are bound to generate heaps of all kinds of stuff leaning against the wall. Not only is this unattractive looking, but it can be a potential source of disease if a colony of rats decides to move into your backyard clutter. That is why decluttering outside is important. And to be environmentally friendly, why not put all that debris to good use and construct a birdhouse from old chair parts, for instance?
A universal lemon-based cleaning solution
All the tips we provide you with here are aimed at saving either your money or your time, or both. Saving money on numerous cleaning chemical is essential. Using a cleaning solution that is versatile and eco-friendly is considered a huge advantage. One such chemical is made from lemon juice which is placed in a microwave and cooked for three minutes. Once it cools down after some five minutes it is ready to be used for cleaning walls by soaking the juice onto a simple cloth. It is ideal for breaking muck that ended on the façade by kinetic energy, like a car passing by and splashing dirty water from a rain puddle straight onto your house. Citric acid is excellent for breaking down any hardcore dirt and muck.
Calling in the professionals
Just as the spring cleaning can take days to complete, so can sprucing up the outside of the house take forever. Each house has at least four walls and by the time you are finished cleaning them all, you will have lost an entire week of free time. That is why cleaning large mansions, like the ones you see in the suburbs of Australian cities, requires some professional help. Any thorough house washing in Sydney is far too intricate to be carried out by the homeowner alone, so people there often outsource. These are just the facades that we have discussing so far, but you have to wash the roof and clean the concrete and hard surfaces as well. The fact is, not many households have the equipment necessary to complete these tasks.
Cleaning the gutters
An important item on the to-do list for the outside is cleaning the gutters. They mostly get clogged by leaves and other kinds of debris such as branches and an occasional lost baseball. The easiest way to clean this part of your house is to pick up a ladder and slowly remove this pile-up using hand gloves. Don’t go for any chemicals that dissolve organic material as they can corrode the metal when rain falls and they will be washed down the drain straight onto your lawn. Also, don’t even think of setting the leaves on fire to get rid of them, as urban fires can rarely be controlled and you will get into trouble with the law. Plus, hasn’t our planet’s ozone layer had enough damage from factories? It doesn’t need your makeshift bonfire to damage it further.
As you can conclude from just these 4 simple examples, there is no reason to any longer delay cleaning the outside of your house. When doing so, just don’t forget to “go green” and actually protect the environment rather than harming it with all those toxic cleaning solutions. Finally, once our neighbors see how much eco-aware we are, they will wish to nourish Mother Nature as well.
Author bio
Sarah Jessica Smith is a young blogger from Sydney. She is in love with life and all the things that can make her daily routine easier. She loves to write about home improvement, lifestyle, and all the small things that make life such a great adventure.