Top tips to help secure your end of tenancy deposit
The number one reason for landlord and tenant deposit disputes is cleaning. Currys PC World asked Lynsey Crombie aka the ‘Queen of Clean’ for her top cleaning tips that could help you secure getting that end of tenancy deposit back that no one wants to lose out on.
1. Plan
A week or two before moving out, draw up a plan. Write a list at the beginning of the week for all the tasks you need to do and tick off as you go. Lynsey has created a 5 minute challenge that she says works extremely well. ‘Set a timer as you enter a room and when it gets to 5 minutes stop. You will be surprised at how much you can get done when you are motivated’.
Involve the rest of your family or housemates, cleaning is not just one person’s responsibility!
2. Adopt a two step cleaning process
Bathrooms and kitchens should adopt a two step cleaning process, remove dirt and bacteria first using a detergent based product and then go over with a disinfectant to kill germs. Always allow the product to work by leaving it on the surface to work for a few minutes before rinsing. Use different colour cloths to avoid cross contamination too ie. blue for loo and pink for sink.
3. Cleaning Floors
Only use a small amount of product when cleaning the floors, too much product creates streaks and can make them slippy. Opt for a floor cleaner and mix into warm water. Steam cleaning is a great eco-friendly method for cleaning floors and is safe for pets and young children.
Top cleaning hacks for stains:
- Shaving foam is a great carpet cleaner and works well at
removing make up stains - Ice cubes will remove dents from the carpet where
furniture has been
Currys PC World found that quirky cleaning hacks commonly feature in our hygiene routines. In fact, almost a quarter of Brits have tried to remove a red wine stain with white wine, with men most likely to have tried the hack.
- Using white wine to remove red wine stains will just
make it worse. To remove red wine you need a bowl of warm soapy water (not
hot) and then add in a good splash of white vinegar, scrub in and then
leave for 15 minutes. Come back and using a white cloth blot dry, you will
need a few white cloths.
4. Cleaning Tips for the Kitchen and Bathroom
Tick off room by room with a few of Lynsey’s top tips to bare in mind for the Kitchen and Bathroom..
Use Coca Cola to clean the toilet and kettle
- If your toilet has bad limescale marks coke will
remove them, but the best way to do this is to remove the water from the pan
and then pour down 500ml of coke and leave over night.
Use vinegar to remove hard water stains on faucets
- This works well and to tackle limescale that can be on
the ends, soak a paper towel in white vinegar and then wrap around the end
of the tap, leave for 15 minutes and then remove.
Use bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar to clean bathroom floor grout
- Make a thick paste, cover the grout and then leave 30
minutes before rinsing clean.
Use tomato ketchup to remove rust.
- Using a wet cloth dab on the ketchup, let it sit a
while and then run away
Use baby oil to shine stainless steel
- Use a tiny drop and a clean microfibre cloth for the
perfect shine.
6. Bedroom and Sitting/Dining Room Cleaning Tips
Next up are the bedrooms and living room top tips..
Use newspaper to clean windows
- This works well and goes back years, the ink from the
paper acts as an abrasive and will give you really clean windows.
Remove pet hair using a wet rubber glove
- The wet glove with lift the fur from the upholstery
causing it to stick to the glove. Rinse and repeat.
Use baking soda to soak up any sofa odours
- This will soak up any odours if sprinkled on and left
over night, it is good to add a few essential oils too.
8. Make your own effective and economical products!
Before gathering or purchasing the necessary cleaning equipment, use Lynsey’s makeshift cleaning solutions for fabric refresher and multi-purpose cleaner in order to save more money and space.
In 2019, the average Brit would spend £12.61 a month of cleaning products. But now this figure is even higher, with nearly 1 in 5 confessing to spending more on hygiene and cleanliness.
Homecare expert, Lynsey Crombie aka the ‘Queen of Clean’ is all for using more affordable products, however, saying “I actually find some of the more expensive ones to be awful. A basic disinfectant and washing up liquid will always work well and not cost you much at all.”
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.