We know that the holidays can do a number on your house, and cleaning might have been the last thing on your mind for all of December. Fortunately, with festivities over and with life returning to its usual pace, your house can also return to normal.

Happy New Year from all of us at Maid to Clean! We’re excited for 2020 to start, and for you to have your cleanest home ever.

The new year is exciting, but your home might be looking a little worse for wear after hosting Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s parties. Maybe you’ve also had friends and family staying over, or your kids have been home from school for winter break.

Whatever the case, we know that the holidays can do a number on your house, and cleaning might have been the last thing on your mind for all of December. Fortunately, with festivities over and with life returning to its usual pace, your house can also return to normal.

But cleaning can be intimidating- there’s so much to get done. Fortunately, there are some quick, easy things you can do to get your house back into working order.

Clean out your fridge.

Whether it’s food from parties you’ve thrown, or food taken from other people’s parties, your fridge is probably full of half-eaten holiday leftovers. While it can be tasty (who doesn’t like a lunch of leftovers?), holiday food isn’t the healthiest.

And over half of all Americans set their new year’s resolution as eating healthier.  If you’re among them, why not give yourself a jump start into your new year home cleaning by ridding your fridge of leftovers? It only takes five minutes to go through the whole fridge and toss out anything that’s been sitting in there too long.

Also, take this opportunity to go through items that you’ve used over the year. Many families have half-used jars of jam, condiments, and sauces lurking in the back of their fridge. But are they all still edible? Throw away anything that’s expired, or that’s been open for a long time.

Make your fridge smell better.

Even though your fridge has been cleaned out, it may still smell a bit funky. The easiest solution to this is to put a box of baking soda in the back.

We personally love using baking soda in our work, because it’s one of the best all-purpose cleaners you’ll ever find. Plus, it’s a natural and effective solution- you won’t be putting toxic chemicals near your food. Having a box tucked in the back of your fridge does wonders to get rid of unpleasant smells, plus it takes very little work on your part.

Put away your decorations efficiently so that next year will be easier.

The holiday decorations look great in December, but come January, you just want them put away. If you don’t have ornament boxes yet, invest in some. They’re great for keeping your holiday decorations protected and organized. Plus, you can store other small, fragile decorations in them, not just ornaments.

Another easy thing you can do is label all of your boxes of holiday decorations: this box contains the advent calendar and stockings, that box contains the garland and lights.

This will take you just a few minutes now, but it will go on to save you a lot of time next holiday season. Instead of looking through each box to try and find what you need, you’ll be able to look at the label and know right where it is.

Another easy way to save time next year: wrap strings of lights around an object to prevent tangling. If you didn’t keep the original packaging, a medium-sized square of thick cardboard or a cardboard tube will also work. Next holiday season, you can look forward to not spending an hour untangling lights.

Donate a few old items.

The house might be looking a little cluttered after your family received their gifts. Why not reduce this clutter by giving some things away to charity? Add this to your new year home cleaning goals and get everyone involved!

If you have children, they probably have things lying around that they’ve grown out of or don’t use anymore. And if you don’t have children, you probably also have some things that you don’t need.

Even getting rid of just a few things that don’t bring you joy anymore can help give you more floor space and shelf space to store your new belongings and things that do make you happy. Broken objects and old, useless items are just taking up space in your home.

To make this a simpler task, you can come up with a system for your family: “For every new thing I’ve received, I need to donate or throw away another item.” You can change this to two or three items, depending on how cluttered your home is. This system can make it easier to stop making excuses for hanging onto old items that you’re not using.

Hire a cleaning service to help you tidy up your home.

It’s a pain to clean up the house from decorations and then be left with all the debris that comes with it. Are you left with glitter and bits of fake snow all over your tables? Have a mess of pine needles after throwing out your Christmas tree? We can help you out.

Hiring a cleaning service takes a little bit of the work off of your plate. We can help you return your house to a cleaner, tidier state. While we can’t put away your decorations for you, we can do the final cleanup of your carpets and surfaces, restoring your home to its pre-holiday state, and letting you move into the new year with ease.

If you have special requests, we can handle them! Did you have guests staying in the spare bedroom, and you just don’t have time to change the linens? At your request, we can do this for you, saving you time and energy to work on your new year’s resolutions instead.

Best of luck on your new year’s resolutions, and on your new year home cleaning tasks! Even something as simple as putting a box of baking soda in your fridge or donating some old shirts will help your house look better in no time.