2024 Spring Cleaning

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekend warriors home improvement show, built by bar lumber. When it comes to big or small projects around the home, Tony and Cory have got the know how and the answers to make your life just a bit easier. Here they are, your weekend warriors, Tony and Corey. You know, Tony, spring is here. The weather's changing. And what does that mean to you? [00:00:32] Speaker B: Swim trunks. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Swim trunks. Spring. [00:00:38] Speaker B: The weather's changing. [00:00:39] Speaker A: No. Spring man cleaning. [00:00:41] Speaker B: Spring. Spring cleaning. That is definitely not what comes immediately to my mind when you say spring. [00:00:47] Speaker A: Well, that explains a lot, actually. [00:00:51] Speaker B: Spring cleaning. Yeah, spring cleaning. Absolutely. Of course. That's what comes to my mind. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about right now. [00:00:59] Speaker A: Tony and I compiled a big list of stuff that. That you should be thinking about when you're going to get ready to spring clean your house. It's a really good thing to do in the springtime because the house has been sealed up. You've got all your windows closed all winter. The h vac is blowing stuff around, and it just cakes. [00:01:16] Speaker C: Right. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Everything just settles and gets stale inside your house. So it's time to refresh it, open it up, get your house nice and clean, ready for the summer. So that's what we're gonna talk about. [00:01:26] Speaker B: We definitely have had a few weekend days where the windows were all open and there was a fresh breeze blowing through the house. It's nice getting there, but I definitely am seeing, you know, the marks that the dog makes with his nose or her nose all over the glass. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:44] Speaker B: There's a lot of stuff like that around the house that needs to be cleaned up. Dust bunnies on top of the ceiling. [00:01:49] Speaker A: I can blame it on my kids, but, you know, the dog's just really short. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Right. So, anyway, we got a list of spring cleaning things not to forget. Right. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:01:59] Speaker B: It's easy to go through and start a project and forget some things. So we're going to help you remember all the things you need to be to doing and starting with the easiest of them. The first one, declutter. That is the simplest thing to do. I feel like we do that all the time without cleaning or deep cleaning. Regularly. We regularly. We declutter regularly. [00:02:23] Speaker C: We. Yep. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Regularly. [00:02:24] Speaker C: We. [00:02:24] Speaker A: I actually have a rule. If, like, if clothes, for example, your closet's super cluttered. If you haven't worn it in a year, at least a year, sometimes two, get rid of it. Take it to goodwill. [00:02:38] Speaker C: Wow. [00:02:38] Speaker B: But I'm not the size that I was a year ago, but I could get back there. [00:02:42] Speaker A: Oh, you're saying, you know, get back into your skinny clothes? [00:02:44] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. [00:02:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:46] Speaker B: Maybe, maybe just. I can just save some of them from a year ago. [00:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah, why not? [00:02:52] Speaker B: Number two, dust. This is the thing we don't always do. Well, it's not. I'm not saying everyone. Maybe this is a less often item that we cover, wiping down shelves and surfaces and using whatever type of cloth it is that you use. [00:03:10] Speaker A: Well, think about the things that you dust. You might dust, but are you being super thorough? Are you dusting the tops of your door jams? Are you dusting your light fixtures? Are you dusting, you know, things that you normally wouldn't dust? That's spring cleaning. [00:03:27] Speaker B: And do you use one of those, like, fluffy tail type things on a long swiffer? [00:03:33] Speaker A: Is that what those things are? [00:03:34] Speaker B: I don't know. One of those things that gets in between figurines and that sort of thing. [00:03:38] Speaker A: Can I like those? Or microfiber cloths, although there's a new thing. Not really new, but microfiber cloths are known as dropping microplastics. [00:03:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:51] Speaker A: So it's. [00:03:53] Speaker B: Be aware. [00:03:54] Speaker A: People are looking for alternatives. [00:03:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Be aware. I'm going to give a tip here on the dusting and the cleaning as a whole. If you have a, if you have a furnace or a central air, right. And you can turn the heat off, just, just run that air, cycle that air through, that will run that dust that you're stirring up through the air filter on your furnace or central air. I don't have central air in my house. So I went to the store and I bought a couple of those air filters and, you know, they're good for about 500 sqft or so. But I cranked that thing on and let it run for a few hours on cleaning day. And it helps to suck that dusty air. [00:04:40] Speaker A: What do you put it on, a box fan? [00:04:43] Speaker B: No, it's that trick. No, it's. No, I have it. It's a unit. [00:04:47] Speaker A: Oh, it's an air cleaner. Yeah, it's an air cleaner. [00:04:49] Speaker B: An air filter. [00:04:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:50] Speaker A: Because I've actually used that trick when we had the fires, I took air filters, furnace filters. [00:04:57] Speaker C: Oh. [00:04:57] Speaker B: And put it on a. Yeah. [00:04:58] Speaker A: And like, duct taped it to a box fan. Actually worked. Fantastic. [00:05:01] Speaker B: No, yeah, it seems like it would. It's a pretty basic concept. [00:05:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:04] Speaker A: You're just drawing the air through it. [00:05:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Capturing the dust. [00:05:07] Speaker B: But yeah, if you, if you turn on some sort of filtration system while you're working on those are not expensive you can go to buy Mart or Fred Meyer or target, get one of those for $30, and turn that thing on, and it will be sucking that. That dusty air down in Shopco and filtering it. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Vacuuming and sweeping, obviously, same thing. You can be running an air filter during that time and get all that stuff sucked up out of the carpets, and it's gross, the stuff that's in there. [00:05:39] Speaker A: It's a good time to actually shampoo. [00:05:40] Speaker B: The rugs too, if that's an option for you in the time that you have allotted. Definitely get it vacuumed. Mopping the floors. A good time to mop the floors. I feel like if you've got hardwood floors, you probably make plans to do this periodically, but this is a good time to get that done. Wash the windows. This is a big project. [00:06:03] Speaker A: It is a big project, especially if you're washing both sides. Washing inside. A lot of times people are washing the inside of their windows more red, you know, at least we do. Cause we're. It's warm during the winter, and we're cleaning the glass, but you start to see when the start's coming up, the sun's coming up. You know, it's a little bit higher in the sky, and you start getting that reflection through the glass. You start seeing how filthy it is on the outside. Oh, yeah, that's a project. [00:06:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:30] Speaker B: It's washing the outside, but it's something that needs to be done, and this is the time to do it. You'll feel so much better about it after it's done. We were talking about dusting and wiping down blinds and curtains also. Curtains take down, maybe run them through the laundry. Blinds need to be dusted. Air filters, huge help with that. [00:06:51] Speaker A: You'd be surprised how much dust collects on surfaces like those. You know, when you start, when you climb up there, like, if you've got tall, we've got tall ones in our living room. You get up there when I'm putting up, like, Christmas lights, and then you can see the dust collecting up there. [00:07:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:06] Speaker A: So it's so high up, you just don't notice it. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:09] Speaker A: But all things collect dust. So if you haven't washed your curtains, that's a good one. [00:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that is good. There's. There's dust on them. There's dust. There's dust on the texture of your wall. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:07:22] Speaker B: That's. That is a straight up and down, right? Yeah, that's the texture on your wall. Collects dust. Everything collects dust. Wash. Oh, that's the next. That's the next good tip. Wash the walls and the baseboards, because, believe it or not, they have dust on them. And this will. This is a really good head start. These are very basic things, but it's something you just need to make a commitment and get after it. [00:07:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:47] Speaker A: Let's move to the kitchen. What do you think, Tony? [00:07:49] Speaker C: Yep. [00:07:49] Speaker B: Kitchen. [00:07:50] Speaker A: First one on the list is deep clean your appliances. Empty out the fridge. You know, if you got a garage fridge, move everything out there into the garage while you clean. Like, clean everything. Pull the drawers out. You know, in my fridge, for example, I have these, you know, the drawers in the bottom. You put all the vegetables in. Well, sometimes when things spill in there, they kind of collect down below those and you don't see it. [00:08:15] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. [00:08:16] Speaker B: Pull it out in the bottom drawer. [00:08:17] Speaker A: So pull all that stuff out. Clean them. I like to take the drawers out and actually wash them in the sink. That's how we do it. And clean out the freezer. A lot of times when you're getting in there and you got the chicken nuggies for the kids, the little crumbles are getting everywhere, and the whole bottom's full of food. [00:08:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:35] Speaker A: So it's a good time to do that. [00:08:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:37] Speaker A: Descale. If you've got a coffee maker and you have hard water, it's one thing that you probably aren't doing is descaling. Like, we have an espresso maker in our kitchen, and it tells me regularly to run the descaler. And you buy the stuff, you put it in the water, and then you just run it through. And it basically takes all of that minerals that gets, you know, collects inside the pipes, on the inside of that machine, and it cleans it out. But if you haven't. [00:09:10] Speaker C: If you. [00:09:10] Speaker A: If you have a coffee maker that you use a lot and water gets in there and you're not emptying it out, letting it dry, scale can build up and you can, like, Clr is one that you can use, but you can also buy, like, food safe ones that you run it through. That's what I use. [00:09:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Sometimes they give you a. They tell you online to use vinegar or some sort of. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah, you can do that. [00:09:31] Speaker B: Vinegar mixture. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Vinegar works okay. Yeah, you can do that. One thing I would say is just make sure you run the fresh water through it several times after. After. [00:09:40] Speaker B: Don't want to have that cup of vinegar. Coffee. Yuck. [00:09:44] Speaker A: You get that little spicy coffee. [00:09:50] Speaker B: That's good clean to clean your cabinets. [00:09:53] Speaker A: If you haven't cleaned them out in a while, especially down below, like, all of our lower cabinets in our kitchen, are drawers, so we're pulling them out all the time, and they. Things just fall off the cabinets into those drawers. So we'd like to empty them out, vacuum them out, wipe them down. Any food, you know, food falls off and starts dripping down the cabinets, and you're quickly wiping it. Now's a good time to deep clean those cabinets. Sanitizer countertops. This is one thing that not many people do. They clean. They wipe them off. But if you have quartz or granite, you actually should use polishing compounds on quartz. And there's grant. There's granite sealers that you can put down and wipe down, and it prevents food and liquids from soaking in. Granite's actually very porous, so that's something you want to take care of and then sanitizing them with bleach and water together. You want to do that regularly. Uh, next one on the list is to organize the pantry. How many. How many times? When's the last time you organized your pantry, Tony? [00:11:04] Speaker B: Right now. Do you know why? Because I have a leak from my exterior spigot. It's a frost free. [00:11:13] Speaker A: Anyways. [00:11:14] Speaker B: It's leaking into the wall. It's behind my dryer. Washer and dryer is in the pantry. So right now my pantry is. Yeah, right now, my pantry's torn apart, so it's getting revamped right now. [00:11:25] Speaker A: I have a funny story about that, because we remodeled the kitchen at our little vacation house. We have. And we own it with family, and they built the house in 1984, and now we just came in, and we bought a little share of it, and we remodeled it. I've talked about it on the show, but we remodeled the kitchen, and we emptied out the pantry, and we found cinnamon sticks that expired in 1981. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [00:11:58] Speaker A: It literally says, good till. And, I mean, you know, dried cinnamon sticks. How long were those good for when you bought them new? Five, six years. [00:12:06] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [00:12:07] Speaker A: This is really funny, stuff like that. I mean, cinnamon sticks are as old. [00:12:11] Speaker B: As I am on my own. [00:12:11] Speaker C: I know. [00:12:12] Speaker A: Have you ever moved? And you go to the kitchen and you go to your pantry, and you're pulling out food. That best buy date was 17 years ago. I mean, it's really funny because people don't cycle through their old food. Now's a good time to do that. [00:12:28] Speaker C: Yep. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Absolutely. And if you're surprised how much room. [00:12:30] Speaker B: You have after that. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Absolutely. And, like, my pantry, for instance, it's all drawers. You know, we open the double doors, and there are all these little drawers. But over time, things fall out and they spill, and there's, you know, crumbs and things. You're just waiting for mice. If you have food, especially sweet food in those cabinets, mice will find a way. It's crazy. [00:12:53] Speaker B: It is crazy. [00:12:54] Speaker C: Ooh. [00:12:55] Speaker B: I don't even want to think about it. I don't have any mice in my house. [00:12:57] Speaker A: Get a mini vacuum. I don't love my. [00:12:59] Speaker B: I don't want to jinx it. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Next one list is to empty and clean your trash. Bands. If you trash bins. If you have trash bins inside, like under your kitchen cabinet or under your sink, that's where a lot of people keep their garbage. They pull it out. They pull the bag, put a new bag in. But sometimes things get around that bag. You might get a little hole, and the next thing you know, the inside of your garbage can is gross. [00:13:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:26] Speaker A: Maybe got a little mold. [00:13:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:28] Speaker A: And they get a little stinky, a little funky. [00:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:31] Speaker A: So it'd be a good time to fill it up with some soap and water, scrub that thing out, rinse it out, and start from new. [00:13:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:38] Speaker B: Those good tips. All right, here, this one is. This is big. This is really big. This is maybe the biggest room that needs to have deep cleaning, and it's the bathroom. The bathroom is even more so than the kitchen, maybe the dirtiest room in the house. So this one needs lots of attention. If you have tiles, the grout needs to be scrubbed. It needs to be addressed. [00:14:09] Speaker C: I'm. [00:14:09] Speaker B: They sell lots of products out there that will help to lighten the color of your grout or remove stains. But you need to give. Spend some time on the tiles and the grout. That's very important. Clean the shower and the tub. Of course, those showers and tubs are white, Corey. They're white, and keeping them white is challenging, but fortunately, mold is black. And so when you see, not always. When you see that growing in there, you know, it's telling you that you need to get in there and get that fixed. [00:14:42] Speaker A: But something else that happens in your shower that, like in mine, we had our shower redone with all white subway tile. You know, we had this whole bathroom remodel we did about five, six years ago. All brand new subway tile. It's, like, white and shiny. When it's all going brand new and over time, it starts to look a little dull. And that's from soap scum. So if you have dull shine top tiles that are no longer shiny, they make products to get rid of the soap scum. And it's hard. Scrubbing that soap scum off of there is pretty hard. [00:15:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:17] Speaker A: One of the coolest tools that I've ever seen is, I think it's. Ryobi makes a. It's like a brush with an extension handle and a motor and a battery. And you turn it on and it almost looks like a weed whacker with a brush on the end of it. [00:15:33] Speaker C: Interesting. [00:15:34] Speaker A: You can scrub. It's for scrubbing your tub and shower. [00:15:36] Speaker B: Wow. It's awesome, huh? Gotta break out the big tools and get in there and get that job done sometimes. Also the caulking in there, if you're looking in your tub or your shower and you can see where it's caulked to us, another surface, whether it's the wall or the floor. And you can see black speckles or mold in that. In that. You can't just caulk over that. You have to remove that old caulk, that old dry caulk. You gotta get in there with a. Whatever it is, a knife or something. [00:16:07] Speaker A: Razor blade. [00:16:08] Speaker B: A razor blade. Cut that old caulk out. Clean it up as much as you can before you put in the new stuff. And just make sure that the new stuff is mold and mildew resistant. And so that'll help you out and you'll be much happier. Perform better for you in there, and it's going to look amazing. Replace your shower curtain and or a liner. If you have a liner and a curtain, maybe the curtains, fine. But you know what? It's also nice to have a fresh, clean look. So maybe if the shower curtain is okay, fold it up, put it in the closet, save it for the next refresh. Buy a new shower curtain and maybe change that out once in a while. [00:16:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:49] Speaker B: Gives you a fresh, clean feel. But the liner, throw that in the garbage can and buy a new. And they are very inexpensive. [00:16:56] Speaker A: I agree. [00:16:58] Speaker B: There's no reason not to replace that liner when it starts to look yucky. [00:17:03] Speaker A: Dingy. [00:17:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Disinfectant. This is another room where you want to use bleach and disinfectant to clean the countertops, the surfaces of the toilet and the floor. And, you know, all of the stuff that's in there. Get a really good disinfected clean in that area. Because the bathroom, you know the bathrooms. [00:17:24] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:17:25] Speaker A: I'm not eating off the floor in. [00:17:26] Speaker B: There, but, no, I'm still there. You don't want to have to touch stuff in there. Especially other people are going to come and be in your bathroom. It wants to be clean. It wants to smell clean, look clean, feel clean, be clean, and stuff collects behind the toilet, on the floor, and around the garbage can. And in all of those places, there's. [00:17:47] Speaker A: One more on the bathroom list that I don't see here, and it's clean. Your bath fan? [00:17:53] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:54] Speaker A: You know, like toilet paper dust. You know, toilet paper makes dust. [00:17:59] Speaker B: Dust bunnies. [00:18:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:00] Speaker A: It's like you. You open a new pack of toilet paper, and the dust just flies out of there. Yeah, well, it's like, where's it go? Well, it's collecting on all the surfaces, for one, but it's also getting sucked up into your bath fan. And you'll look up there and that thing will have a giant dust bunny. [00:18:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:15] Speaker B: So it's like a blanket on there. [00:18:17] Speaker A: Get your vacuum or get your shop vac and suck that dust. [00:18:21] Speaker B: You want that fan to be able to operate at top performance, and it's difficult for it to do that if it's got a dust bunny blanket on it. [00:18:29] Speaker A: Especially in your bathroom. [00:18:30] Speaker B: Especially in my bathroom. Absolutely. [00:18:32] Speaker A: Top performance bathroom. [00:18:34] Speaker C: I got it. I did it. I did. [00:18:35] Speaker B: Bathroom. You're up. It's your turn. [00:18:37] Speaker A: Let's move on to the bedroom. [00:18:39] Speaker B: Bedroom's an easy one. [00:18:40] Speaker A: I know it's easy. A lot of people. I mean, everybody's replacing your sheets, but how often do you wash the bedding? Your comforter. You know, some comforters, you can't just throw in the washing machine and dry them. Sometimes you got to take them over to a place, have them do it. That specialize in doing in bedding like that. If you've got expensive bedding, it's a good time to do it. Get it cleaned professionally. [00:19:07] Speaker B: 400 thread count. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Yeah, but, like, we have a duvet cover. I can take that duvet cover off and run that through my washing machine. It's no problem. But, like, you know, you have those fancy pillows. I don't know, you probably, like us. You have fancy pillows that you don't use. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:23] Speaker A: But they still collect dust and they still collect. You're still, you know, handing, you know, finger grease and all that stuff that you're. You're touching them for. Peel those off and wash those. [00:19:34] Speaker C: It just. [00:19:35] Speaker A: It's so easy. Next one is to rotate your mattress. You know, back in the day, you used to be able to buy flippable mattresses. That is like, that was the best thing ever, and they got rid of it. Almost all bedding manufacturers now, you can't flip them, but you can rotate them. So that's what we do we rotate ours? If you have a flippable mattress, good for you. Flip it. [00:20:00] Speaker B: Flip it. [00:20:02] Speaker A: So they wear, you know, the coils. They wear evenly. If you've noticed that your back starts hurting on the bed that you're using, it's probably because you haven't rotated or flipped your mattress in a long time. It's funny. I talked to a guy at a mattress store that manufactures them locally, and I said, what's the deal with that? Why can't you buy flippable mattresses anymore? He said it had to do with the fire code. The material that they're using in the mattresses is really expensive because of the fire code. And then they would have to double it. You're basically putting that big, thick pillow top, top and bottom. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Right? [00:20:42] Speaker A: That was his excuse. I don't know if that's real. [00:20:45] Speaker B: It's expense. [00:20:45] Speaker A: Maybe if there's any mattress people out there, they could fill us in on why. But I loved having a flippable mattress. [00:20:55] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Oh, this is a good one. Clean under your bed. If you. [00:21:00] Speaker C: If. [00:21:00] Speaker A: If you haven't climbed under your bed in a while. Actually, my dog, who got a little 14 pounds, Bichon. And he likes to grab things and. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Take it under the bed and run. [00:21:12] Speaker A: Under the bed because he knows we can't squeeze under there. So he's up under there chewing on whatever he's chewing on, you know? And the last time he did that, I climbed under there. I was like, I gotta get him. So I lifted the bed up and we climbed under there. And it was pretty gross. Really super dusty. [00:21:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:29] Speaker A: So, yeah, we're gonna pop do that this spring. We're gonna take the mattress off. And that's the thing, too. New mattresses are so heavy, so it's not easy to get them picked up and taking them off. So that's what we're gonna do. We take it up, and then ours has. We don't have box spring, we just have slats. So I can take the slats off and easily vacuum under there. So that's what we're gonna do. [00:21:51] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, that's cool. [00:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:52] Speaker B: I've recently remodeled my master room, so you probably know I got new carpet and stuff. I can't remember. I. I kind of blacked out the day that we did the demo in there. Can't remember most of the stuff that I found during. [00:22:06] Speaker A: I tell you what, you take your end table, you know, you're probably vacuuming, cleaning and dusting regularly. But if you move your end table away, I mean, you probably haven't moved that thing in a year. And dust just collects. [00:22:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:18] Speaker A: So wipe it down, vacuum under it, and really give that thing a deep, clean. Next one list is the organize your closet. Kind of touched on this earlier with decluttering. Your closet also gets cluttered. You might have clothes. You might have coats, jackets. You know, that stained up work jacket that you haven't worn in four years, but you're still hanging on to it because you might get cold working on the lawn someday. [00:22:43] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. [00:22:44] Speaker A: But you know what? I have about five of those, so I'm going to limit them. I'm going to get rid of the old sweatshirts with the holey and the pig paint, get rid of them, and then the clothes that I no longer fit in, either good or bad. I'm getting rid of them. [00:22:59] Speaker C: Nice. [00:23:00] Speaker A: So it's a good time to do that. [00:23:01] Speaker B: Good. All right, let's jump outside. Let's talk about some of the things outside. Obviously, one of the very first things that I think of that needs to be cleaned up outside is the gutters. The gutters need to be cleaned regularly. I have two levels to my roof. I have a lower roof and an upper roof, and so I feel like the job is double for me. But get in there and get those gutters cleaned out. And if you're. If you're questioning, I mean, if they were really bad when you cleaned them out, check those downspouts. Make sure that water is going in and coming out of the downspouts properly. I recently had a blocked downspout, which ultimately was a blocked rain drain, which was underground. And I had to have my, had to have my rain drains jetted in order for that to work, because otherwise the water's just backing up and dumping right over the side of the gutter. And you don't want that. It's bad. It's bad all the way around. So clean the gutters, check the downspouts. Power wash the exterior of your house. Be very careful. You don't have to have the setting at the highest setting. You know, you want to have it down low, and you're just trying to get, you know, the dust and the cobwebs and the things that have collected on the outside of the house. But power washing the exterior of the home doesn't have to be a big job, but it is an important job. So get that done. Clean and arrange your outdoor furniture. Corey loves doing that. He loves his outdoor furniture. I've helped him with it a few times. Clean and arrange your outdoor furniture. Make sure that your. That your cushions are all in good repair and they don't have holes in them, and the, you know, neighborhood cats haven't been peeing on them. And get that ready to go because we're going to be using it a lot in the next six months or so. And the last one here is very important. You've been using this now, during your cleaning day, you've been using your, your h vac system or your furnace. Now, you need to make sure that you get that inspected and cleaned and serviced and updated so that it's ready to go when you need it. Again. [00:25:15] Speaker A: When it's 100 degrees outside and your. [00:25:17] Speaker B: Ac, and you want to turn on the ac and make sure that it works, this is the time to get that done. Start getting the ac checked before you need it, because then it's harder to get an appointment and it's more expensive. [00:25:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:31] Speaker A: A couple miscellaneous ones here. Good time to replace the smoke detector batteries. It's a good time to check for leaks. Tony just found out he has a leak in a water pipe that's coming out the side of his house, and it caused a really big problem. So it's always a good idea to check it. Walk around your house, check for leaks, check for gas leaks. Walk by your gas meter. Usually you can smell it. And if you can smell gas, it means there's a leak. Uh, also, if you have a chimney, good time to get up there and inspect it. Make sure you're looking for missing grout. [00:26:07] Speaker C: Yes. Soot. [00:26:07] Speaker A: And then you also. Yeah, missing grout. If you have a stone chimney or brick chimney, you want to look for crumbling, you know, grout and all that stuff. Cause next thing you know, that thing could be falling. Right? [00:26:21] Speaker B: Yeah, you don't want that. [00:26:22] Speaker A: All right. Now we've got a little list here, Tony. I put together, like, a list of more specific, very specific things. [00:26:30] Speaker B: Down and dirty, huh? [00:26:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:32] Speaker A: You know, like, you got the normal spring cleaning system. [00:26:35] Speaker B: That was the 30,000 foot view. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Yeah. But now here's a list of some things that you might not have thought of when you're cleaning. For instance, light fixtures. You know, you've got those glass bulb light fixtures up on the ceiling. You can get up there. And if you could take the glass bulb out, sometimes those things are full of gnats or flies or mosquitoes. [00:26:58] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:27:00] Speaker A: Wash it out. Vacuum it out. I like to take them to the sink and just literally wash them and let them dry. Like a. Like a bowl. [00:27:07] Speaker C: Like a dish. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Yeah, like a dish. And then you just put them back up. They look great. Check the bulb at that time. A lot of times you'll get some dust collecting in there. The light's looking a little dim. You can replace the bulb at that time. It's a good time to do that. If you've got can lights up on the ceiling and they're high up, you know, get out the ladder and you can wipe those things out because believe it or not, dust collects in there. Collects on. [00:27:32] Speaker B: I'll tell you what. You know, this is something we don't think about, but we talk about this all the time, corey and I, when you're running a fan in the house and it's pulling air into the house, right. The air is coming from places that, where there aren't open windows and doors, right. A lot of times that's coming through holes in the ceiling. Holes in the ceiling are your canned lights and other lights and also light switches in the wall. And so as air gets pulled through those to replace the air that your fan is kicking out of the house, that air is coming from your attic and it's not clean. And it goes through that hole and it deposits dust as it comes through. [00:28:13] Speaker A: Unless you've air sealed. [00:28:14] Speaker B: Unless you've air sealed properly, which is. [00:28:17] Speaker A: Also a fantastic thing to do. [00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it is indeed. [00:28:20] Speaker A: Next one on this list, Tony, is to wipe down electronics. If you've got, you know, a router or a computer or an Xbox. Yeah, an Xbox, a PlayStation. [00:28:31] Speaker B: These things have n 64. [00:28:33] Speaker A: Wow, digging deep. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Is that going back? Atari. If you have an Atari or a Wii. Yeah, I got you. [00:28:45] Speaker A: All the newer electronics have, like, fans in them. So they're drawing air through them to cool off the cpu or the memory that's in them, the video cards. And if you've never taken the lid off your pc, if you've got like a gaming pc, if, say, if your kids have a gaming pc, you can usually take the lids off them and look down inside. And if you've never done it and that thing is sitting there for five or six years, it will be absolutely caked with dust, which is robbing its performance and shortening its lifespan. So I like to use an air compressor. I've got a little attachment that I can just get in there and blow all that dust out, take it out to the garage or take it outside, and you would be shocked at the amount of junk that comes flying out of your electronics. [00:29:32] Speaker B: How about my VCR? How about my beta VCR? [00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah, clean it, clean it. It's been around a while, you know, keyboards, mice, you know, wipe them down if you've never disinfected them. You know, if your kids are using them, they probably got Cheeto fingers all over them. [00:29:48] Speaker B: Cheeto. [00:29:49] Speaker A: So anyway, so that's a deep clean. [00:29:52] Speaker B: You talked about cleaning the air vents in the bathroom. Also cleaning the air vent in your furnace. We did talk about getting your furnace updated. And if they are not updated but serviced, and if they do come to service it, they'll replace the air filter. But if you're not having someone professionally come and service it, you need to clean the air vent, replace the air filter in your furnace, clean the air vents everywhere in the house. The cold air returns in the hallways and the registers on the floors of all the bedrooms. And of course, the. The fan in the bathroom and in the kitchen. [00:30:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:29] Speaker B: Range hood in the kitchen is another vent that needs to be cleaned. [00:30:33] Speaker C: Yes. [00:30:33] Speaker B: And that one is a big one. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Well, there's another one too that. That's not mentioned here that I forgot to write down. But the dryer vent. [00:30:42] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely. That is a big one. [00:30:47] Speaker A: Next one. This is to refresh your mattress. Talked about flipping it, talked about rotating it. But mattresses can also collect dirt and dust and all the stuff through the sheets. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Skin. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Skin. So a good thing to do is to take baking soda and sprinkle it on your mattress, leave it on there for a few hours, and then vacuum it up. [00:31:08] Speaker C: Interesting. Yeah. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Vacuum the mattress. That makes sense. [00:31:12] Speaker A: Refreshes your mattress. [00:31:13] Speaker B: It's a good idea. Good idea. I'll tell you what, I have always had leather furniture, leather couch, leather chair. [00:31:21] Speaker A: Leather loveseat, many leather bound books. [00:31:24] Speaker B: So much leather furniture in my time because I feel like it definitely absorbs less stuff than. Easier to clean, than sort of cloth furniture. So leather is always for me. But it does need to be cleaned and conditioned. And this is a great time to do that for your couch. For you. For your couch. Loveseat chair, other leather furniture. [00:31:50] Speaker A: When was the last time you cleaned your ceiling fan? You know, we like to turn the ceiling fan on and run the air, but dust collects on the tops of those fan blades, especially all winter long. You probably haven't been running it. And dust just sits up there. And as soon as you turn that thing on, boo, stuff comes flying off of there. [00:32:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:11] Speaker A: Messy. And there's stuff that doesn't. So you get some pretty thick dust sitting up there. They make these dusting tools that kind of look like a oblong u shape that you can slide over them. [00:32:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I've seen those? [00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah, those work pretty well. But it just drops all to the floor. You know, when you pull the dust off of there, you see it floating in the air. I like to have my vacuum handy. [00:32:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:34] Speaker B: Vacuum cleaner is a good idea. Air filter, also. Air filtration thing. [00:32:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:40] Speaker B: We talked about vacuuming and, and shampooing carpets. Shampooing carpets is a. Is a really good thing to do. We don't do that very often, but this is the time to do it. I can tell you that I have a new carpet. We just remodeled the master bedroom. But. But I'll be thinking about shampooing the carpet in the master bedroom. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:02] Speaker B: Because I'm going to do it regularly going forward. I want it to always be as clean as possible in that room. So I'm going to take very good care of it, unlike the way I did the last time. [00:33:15] Speaker A: If you're a bookworm and you've got many books on a bookshelf, peel all of them off of there. Take all the books out, dust them. Dust jackets, clean them off, wipe everything down, wipe the shelf off, because dust gets in little crevices and cracks and it's impossible unless you take everything out, clean each one, and then put it back. If you really want your books to last a long time, take them off the shelf and clean them all. [00:33:46] Speaker B: That's a good tip. Wood furniture is another good one. I have a beautiful ranch style table, kitchen, dining room table in my house that is made out of black walnut. We made it together, and it definitely needs to be refinished periodically. I mean, I've refinished it a couple of times since we built it, and I've even taken the sander to it a couple of times. [00:34:11] Speaker A: Really? [00:34:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:12] Speaker B: You know, after we made it, years after we made it, some of the pieces started to cup just a little bit more. And where we had a really fine connection between two boards, the cupping created a little bit of a lip or a little ridge. So I've gone through and smoothed that out and then refinished it. But this is a good time to refinish your wood furniture, whether they're chairs, tables, bureau, whatever it is. This is a good time to go in and make sure that it's looking as beautiful as possible. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Clean it, use wood. And they even make wood conditioners. So just make sure you're using the right product for the right piece of furniture that you have. Yeah, this is a funny one. Check your expiration dates on your medicine cabinet. I mean, I'm notorious for this because I think expired medicine, I've always heard that it doesn't go bad. It just loses its potency. Right. So I don't know the truth to that, but, like, I won't throw it away on day one of its expired date. [00:35:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:24] Speaker A: You know, I keep it a little bit longer, but, I mean, I've pulled some stuff out of my medicine cabinet that expired eight years ago, you know, or ten years ago. [00:35:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:33] Speaker A: Get rid of it. It's time to toss it. [00:35:35] Speaker C: Yeah. If you. [00:35:36] Speaker A: If you have certain medicines you don't want to throw away, like, I mean, opiates. I mean, if you have, you know, you had some surgery back in the day and you got some oxycodone sitting in your. In your cabinet that you don't want. [00:35:50] Speaker B: To just toss in the garbage can. [00:35:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:52] Speaker A: You don't want to throw those in the garbage can. There are actual places you can even call, maybe even call your pharmacist or your doctor. They will take them back and they have special ways to dispose of them because anything that you're putting in the trash can end up in the water system. [00:36:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Fact. [00:36:10] Speaker B: That's a good tip. [00:36:10] Speaker A: So if you're putting some weird things in there, you know, eventually can end up in your water supply. [00:36:17] Speaker B: The next one on the list, Corey, is to deep clean the trash compactor. Do you have a trash compactor? [00:36:23] Speaker A: We do. [00:36:24] Speaker B: You do? [00:36:24] Speaker A: At the beach. [00:36:25] Speaker B: Oh, at the beach you do? [00:36:26] Speaker A: We don't use it very much. [00:36:27] Speaker B: We had one when I was growing up in the house that I grew up in. And that thing would get gross. That much is true. It definitely would need to be cleaned. It would get a funky smell in there. [00:36:38] Speaker A: Well, imagine taking a garbage bag full of trash and then squishing it. [00:36:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:42] Speaker A: What's. [00:36:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:43] Speaker B: Such a weird. [00:36:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:45] Speaker B: I don't have a trash compactor in my house now, but if you have a trash compactor, it definitely needs to be cleaned periodically. This is a good time to do that. [00:36:56] Speaker A: Clean under your appliances. I know we've said this one before, but taking your refrigerator out, rolling it out, cleaning under it, dust bunnies galore. Live under there. And it is slowly killing your refrigerator, especially if it's all caked in there and it's. It's ruining its efficiency and its lifespan. So clean it out. [00:37:20] Speaker C: Yes. [00:37:20] Speaker B: If you have a sliding patio door, for example, or other sliding doors that your doors. There's a track that the door rides in. [00:37:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Or. [00:37:29] Speaker B: And your windows. [00:37:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:31] Speaker B: This is a really good time to get in there and clean those tracks. You'll find that there's usually a piece that snaps in, in the bottom under the slide panel of the window. If you have a sliding window or patio door, you can take that slide panel out and remove that track of the piece that snaps into the track and really get in there and vacuum and clean that out. It'll. It'll make the door or window operate better. It'll look better, it'll smell better. Everything about it will be better. You'll feel better about it. [00:38:04] Speaker A: And here's another tip. Put a little silicone spray lubricant in there, and that thing will glide like nobody's business. [00:38:13] Speaker C: Nice. [00:38:13] Speaker B: That's a good tip. Good tip. [00:38:15] Speaker A: Here's another one. Outdoor trash bins. I know they're gross. Mine are gross. And I need to, I need to clean them because they just stink. You know, there's, I mean, they're on the side of my house. Some people keep them in their garage, you know, and you're putting trash in there. [00:38:33] Speaker B: You're putting garbage. [00:38:34] Speaker A: You're putting all kinds of baby diapers and dog poop over the, you know, over the years, those things just start stinking really bad. And you may not notice it, but people come over and they're like, man, what does that smell? [00:38:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:38:45] Speaker A: Could be your outdoor trash cans. And it's a good time. Just be careful when you're cleaning them out. If you're spraying stuff in there, like, cleaner sometimes, and those things are always kind of roundy on the bottom. And if you just put your hose in there and hit the full blast. [00:39:03] Speaker B: You might be wearing it. [00:39:04] Speaker A: It'll come right back in your face. [00:39:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Not from personal experience. [00:39:10] Speaker B: That's a good tip. I like that. Yeah, it can. It can rebound on you. Here's a really good one, Corey. The tv remote or gaming controllers. The tv remote is shared by everyone. [00:39:23] Speaker A: Cheeto fingers in the house. [00:39:26] Speaker B: And, you know, just like you don't want to catch something that someone else has, keeping the. We'll call that the publicly used remote control clean is a very good idea. Just grab a wet one or a disinfecting wipe from under the bathroom sink or counter or kitchen sink and wipe that thing off with a bleach wipe. And be careful. You don't want to dunk it. You don't want to get it too wet. Right. It is, after all, electronic device, but keep it clean. [00:40:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:05] Speaker A: Now's a good time in the kitchen. If you've got kitchen cabinet hardware that's getting a little loose, get the screwdriver out and tighten up all of your handles and knobs and make sure they're all kind of pointing the same direction. If they're directional, you know, sometimes they have a little pattern on them and they'll just twist or turn. And next thing you know, you've got one elongated to the left and one up and down. So now's a good time. It's a good time to do it. [00:40:32] Speaker B: If you've been taking for granted your houseplants that are offering you with wonderful breathable air, make sure that they're healthy and that everything is working like it should be there. Check the leaves. You can wipe them down if they have dust on them. And make sure that there's not any signs of, you know, disease or, or malnutrition or something like that. And check and make sure that there's really good amount of dirt in the pot. I'll tell you what, the, the soil in a, in a potted plant has a tendency to just sort of, uh, disappear. And you have to add soil. You know, after time, you can get little, I don't know if it wasn't, uh, packed in there properly or whatever, but you can get little caves that settles down in there. But you'll sometimes have to add soil later to a potted plant. Just check the soil level, make sure it's good and soft, and, um, make sure it's getting water. And that your plants doing everything that it can for you. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Yes. Uh, last couple on the list here. Clean and lubricate your door hinges. If you have a squeaky door hinge, you can put a lot, a little that silicone spray in there. That'll really open it up. Clean it up. And then sometimes the old lubricant that's been in there over time, that metal rubs against each other. And sometimes you'll see little black lines right where the hinges on your door. So get that cleaned up, relubricate the hinge, and they will be back to good as new. And the very last one on the list, Tony, is to clean your pet beds. If you've got a dog bed, that thing probably reeks. Throw it in the washing machine. [00:42:14] Speaker B: Throw it in the washing machine, and then give it ample time to dry before you throw it back out for the dog to use it again. That's a really good tip. [00:42:22] Speaker A: Or burn it and buy a new one. [00:42:24] Speaker B: Or that they are not terribly expensive. If you're only doing it once a year, probably afford to get a new one. [00:42:31] Speaker A: Yep. [00:42:32] Speaker B: But besides, by that time, the dog's probably bigger and needs a bigger bed. [00:42:37] Speaker A: That's right. [00:42:39] Speaker B: If your dog lays down on the bed and you can no longer see the bed, it's probably too small. Now this is a good list. I'm glad we did this. I definitely am guilty. And there's some things, some spring cleaning things that I need to be doing. [00:42:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it comes up every spring. [00:42:58] Speaker B: I checked some boxes. I did pretty good. But there's definitely some things on there that I need to get in and get done. So I'm glad we covered that. [00:43:06] Speaker A: Right on. Well, awesome. That's all we've got for you. Thanks so much for listening. If you like any portion of this podcast, go ahead. Feel free to take that link and send it to a friend and make sure you're hitting the subscribe subscribe button on there and leave us a review. [00:43:21] Speaker B: Absolutely love it. Thank you so much for listening to the show and we will catch you again soon. [00:43:28] Speaker A: All right, talk to you later. Bye.