A messy or dirty room impedes your life. You might not realize it at the moment, but there have been several studies which have shown that a messy and cluttered space can hinder productivity, and can also keep you from reaching your goals.
Read on to find some ways on how to clean a dirty room fast.
1. The first step is to remove disposable items.
Most of the time, messy rooms are a result of neglect. You simply keep putting off cleaning your room, thinking you will do it some other time.
It is a chore that you do not want to take up before leaving for office because you will run late. You cannot do it after coming home from work because you are too tired, and you do not want to give up your weekends for it too.
Before long, it becomes a humongous task that you just have to take up because there is no room on the floor or any of the surfaces for your essential things in life.
One of the best ways to declutter a room in 30 mins is to remove disposable items. These are:
- Used boxes of pizzas
- Empty or half-empty bottles of drinks
- Empty cartons of food
- Disposable coffee mugs and trays
- Used napkins and paper towels
- Wrappers of chocolates and biscuits
- Empty packets of chips or popcorns
- All outdated magazines, pamphlets, old bills, and receipts
If you tend to shove packets and wrappers under the carpet or behind the sofa, now is the time to work on changing your habits.
2. For more intensive cleaning, the next step to clean a cluttered room is to remove all items of dirty clothing.
If you are extremely messy with your belongings, then chances are you have clothes strewn around the floor, over the back of chairs, or the headboard on the bed.
- Grab a laundry basket and start putting every item of used clothing into it.
- Hunt for socks and handkerchiefs and check if they have been pushed under the bed in your messy bedroom.
- Look for unwashed underwear and towels. Put them in the laundry basket and do your washing as soon as possible.
- Send your better items of clothing like trousers, shirts, or suits to the dry cleaners.
There are hardly more things in life than freshly washed laundry to give you an instant pick-me-up.
3. Thereafter, you have to get rid of all hoarded items.
One of the reasons why it is so hard to clean rooms at times is because we often tend to hoard. If you have a habit of hoarding or someone in your home does, then you will know there is a constant urge to stow away every item one comes across.
You might not need the item anymore, yet you are incapable of throwing it away. Before long, you end up with a box full of old mugs, a rack full of towels, a drawer full of redundant stationery, and many other similar items.
- The key to clean a hoarder’s room is to let go. You have to train your brain to understand that a particular item has done its task and now it no longer has a place in your life.
- While you can forcefully throw away one or two items in the beginning, if you do not constantly train your mind to do so, you will again end up indulging in the same habit.
- To clean a hoarder’s bedroom, you should simply pick up and discard the objects that you haven’t used in a while. If you stop to analyze whether you are again going to need it or not, you will never be able to throw it away.
- Empty notebooks from three years back, unused pens, expired items of makeup, items received as promotional gifts are some of the things we end up stocking in our house.
These items clutter our space as well as our minds, and they are among the first things which should be discarded when you start your cleaning process.
4. To clean a really messy room, you also have to concentrate on dirty upholstery.
If you have not been in the habit of cleaning, then your curtains, bedsheets, carpets, upholstery, and mattresses are in dire need of cleaning.
If you keep them unwashed for too long, you will end up with allergies as dust and mites tend to dig deep into carpets and mattresses. The curtains will gather a layer of dust which could lead to breathing problems.
- First, put your carpet out in the sun. You can either beat out the dust, or you could use a vacuum cleaner. You could also use a professional carpet cleaning agency to clean your carpet, especially if it has gathered stains over time from spilled coffee and ketchup.
- Pull down the curtains and replace them with fresh ones. Folds of unwashed curtains are the perfect spot for pests and insects to hide in. Not only will it bring a welcome change to your room, but it will also instantly remove one of the major repositories of dust from the room.
- Clean your upholsteries like chairs and sofa covers. If they are removable, you can simply send them to the laundry and replace them with another set. If not, you can use mild soapy water to give them a good rub.
- If there are stains on the upholsteries, mix some white vinegar in the solution. It is effective for most stains, but you should do a patch test first.
- The messiest room always tends to have an unwashed mattress. Foam mattresses can quickly gather dust because it penetrates the layers of foam.
- The best way to get rid of the dust is to vacuum it thoroughly. The bedsheets will go straight to the laundry as well.
5. The next step to clean a really messy room is to get rid of the stains from surfaces and walls.
No matter how much you clean a room, if these marks and spots are not removed, your room will never acquire the spick and span look.
- To get rid of stains, you can use a commercial stain remover. Alternately, if you are allergic to chemicals, or if you have pets or children around, you can make your stain remover at home as well.
- Just mix three parts of vinegar with five parts of water and a teaspoon of baking soda. Give the mixture a slight shake. Baking soda and vinegar can take care of almost all kinds of stains and is one of the best household cleaning hacks. Just remember to do a little patch test on colored items.
- You can also use warm soapy water to scrub grease off your windowsill, tables, or other kinds of surfaces.
6. Thereafter, it is time to take care of the dust and cobwebs, because their presence can result in a disgusting room.
- You can use a vacuum cleaner to clean all the corners of the room. You can also reach into the corners of the ceiling, and clean out the cobwebs.
- Make sure you wear shades and a mask to avoid dust entering your lungs.
- You can also use a long-handled brush to dust all the surfaces.
- Use a wet cloth to mop to the messy floor. You can also use a disinfectant which will leave your room smelling fresh and clean.
7. Finally, it is time to organize a messy room. Once you have removed all the unnecessary and dirty objects out of the way, it is time to organize and rearrange the necessary items.
- Keep all the things where they should belong. Books go into bookshelves. Only the one or two that you are currently reading should stay on the bedside table.
- Keep your fresh laundry in the cupboards and make it a point not to leave them lying around on the floor or chairs.
- Coffee mugs and other cutlery should be neatly arranged on the kitchen shelves.
- Rearrange the furniture a little. The dressing table, the wardrobes, or the TV cabinets can be shifted around for a new look to your room.
- Add a touch of vibrancy with some cushion covers or pillows. They are hardly expensive but will also help you alter the look of your room.
- Place the rugs where they should be and avoid shoving items under the bed.
If you have trouble keeping back things in their places, you can also compartmentalize your cabinets and drawers, and put labels on them. Visual markers like labels can guide you about how you should store your items until it becomes an ingrained habit.
With these simple steps, you will find that the messy room before and after effects are quite stunning. You are sure to feel better about yourself when you enter your home, and it will provide you the comfort that you are meant to have.