Some Help with Spring Cleaning

There may still be ice on the lakes and the last bits of snow melting, but Spring is fast approaching.  Spring means a lot of things to people: more time outside, the start of longer days, summer vacation is coming, and also taking time to clean out your house.

De-Clutter your wardrobe:

With winter ending, many of the clothes you purchased  for the cold weather or had lying in your closet will not see use for another 9 months or so.  This is the perfect excuse to go through your closet and get rid of things you didn’t wear this last season, or you know you won’t be wearing again.

Tip: Take all of the clothes hanging in your closet and turn the hangers around so they are hanging facing the opposite direction than usual.  When you wear an item of clothing, turn the hanger around when you put it back.  That way, at the start of your next cleaning, any clothes that are still hanging the wrong direction can be recycled or donated because you know they weren’t used.

4 Container Cleaning Method

One other tip to think about when cleaning is 4 container cleaning.  You can use this to help declutter your house and make cleaning areas out much less stressful.  The system works by setting up 4 distinct areas or containers for your things; each container has a distinct purpose:

1. Keep

2. Give Away/Sell

3. Storage

4. Toss

This can help you make tough decisions about clothes or items and move on.  Ideally, you don’t want to keep everything, but don’t give away objects that you will need to repurchase later.  Hopefully you can put this to use and lose any unnecessary chaos in your home.

Where to donate

Ofcourse, once you fill those boxes, you need to know where to go with them.  We started a list that by all means isn’t fully complete, but if you are frantically searching for places to go, try any of these stores:

Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and St Vincent de Paul all offer both drop off locations as well as free donation pick-ups.  To learn more about what you can donate or scheduling a pick-up with them, check out their websites.

Freecycle is another place that you can look to donate materials.  This website is like craigslist, except everything is given away.  All you have to do is make an account, post what you’re donating, and wait for requests to pick up.

Curbside

Everything that isn’t good enough to be kept or given has to go somewhere.  Madison Streets and Recycling has a fantastic resource for curbside deposits that can come in handy when cleaning out your house.  If you are unsure what to do with different materials you find, check out Recyclopedia; it’s pretty much all inclusive and has an index in the back to help you out.

Clean Sweep

Clean sweep is a Madison City program that aims to help residents dispose of any hazardous materials they encounter in their home.  The hope is that by providing people with a free site to drop off hazardous waste, those chemicals can be treated correctly and the environmental risks associated with them is drastically lowered.  Clean Sweep will be opening their new, year round facility on May 1st, if you experience any hazardous materials (Oil-Based Paints and Paint-Related Products, Pesticides & Poisons, Household Products Containing Organic Solvents, Ignitables, and Aerosols, and Rechargeable Batteries) while cleaning, make sure you handle and get rid of them correctly.

 

This is a somewhat diverse compilation of resources for your Spring Cleaning, but I’m under the impression, if you are ready to undertake the challenge of cleaning out your house, you don’t necessarily need a checklist of rooms to clean, but would rather have a few interesting and helpful tips along with some great programs that benefit your community.

Hopefully your cleaner house puts a new Spring (pun intended) in your step.

Thanks,

EnAct Intern Adam

 

image credits: www.ezytiger.net
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