5 Tips for Fall Cleaning

Everyone is familiar with spring-cleaning, but in actuality, more people do a fall cleaning! Here are five tasks to add to your fall checklist.

Perform a pantry audit. Remove everything from the shelves, then vacuum up any dust and crumbs with your attachment brush. If you don't want to remove the canned goods, just dust around them. Inspect each item before placing it back into the pantry. Don't know what to keep and toss, check out Good Housekeeping's food shelf life chart.

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Besides replacing your smoke alarm and carbon monoxide batteries on Daylight Saving Time Day, test and clean your detectors. Dust can accumulate around them, causing them to not perform as well. Using your vacuum cleaner's soft brush attachment, clean in and around the alarm openings. If any units are more than 10 years old, replace them entirely.

When you turn back your clocks, turn your mattress over also. Flip it over and then rotate it 180 degress to prevent body impressions from setting-in. Sprinkle the mattress with baking soda to neutralize odors, and then vacuum it up.

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Get a jump on the holidays and give your carpeting a shampooing. You can have your plush flooring professionally cleaned, rent a carpet shampooer, or even invest in a carpet cleaner.

You think your couch cushions are clean untill you plop on them and a haze of dust springs up. Vacuum all the surfaces of your upholstery, including both sides of the cushions, the back, sides, arms, and even the platform underneath the cushions.

What's on your fall cleaning checklist? Let me know in the comments!

-By Christina Peterson

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