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Letter to the editor

New year a good excuse to make a clean sweep

You don't have to labor hours on end to clean and organize your house in 2008. Just start whittling away at these tasks, some of which take minutes.

By Judy Stark, Times home and garden editor
Published December 29, 2007

In 30 minutes, you can get a battery checker and test the batteries in all your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, flashlights and other battery-powered devices. If they’re still good, good. If not, replace them.
	[Cherie Diez | Times]

As the calendar turns to a new year, it's time for our annual list of things to do around the house.

Everyone's time is valuable, so this year we offer some things you can do in 15 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour, or even less. Some tasks take less time than you think. We also list the bare-minimum chores for those who are living on their own for the first time or those who are truly time-pressed.

Add your own items to this checklist, and work at them as the months go by. You can end 2008 with a home that's cleaner, brighter, better organized and greener than when the year began. That will be worth celebrating!

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IN 15 MINUTES YOU CAN . . .

Flip the mattress.

Dust the fan blades.

Wipe fingerprints off doors and door frames use a damp cloth and a spray cleaner; if you've got serious grime, try a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

Go through the linen closet and pick out the worn but still usable towels and washcloths. If they're still in pretty decent shape, a shelter may welcome them. If they're on the ragged side, animal shelters, pet boutiques and vets may be glad to have them for bathing animals.

Clean out one drawer.

Clean the top of the refrigerator.

Dust that hard-to-reach shelf.

Clean out ceiling light fixtures. Dump the dead insect bodies, wash and dry the fixtures.

IN 30 MINUTES YOU CAN . . .

Roll out the refrigerator, vacuum the coils and clean the floor under it.

Roll out the stove and clean beside, behind and under it. (You'll be amazed.)

Get a battery checker and test the batteries in all your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, flashlights and other battery-powered devices. If they're still good, good. If not, replace them. (No point in replacing perfectly good batteries. They cost money, and you're just throwing toxic material into the landfill.)

Make a dent in that ugly chore you keep avoiding: cleaning the mold and mildew in the shower stall, cleaning and lubricating the rollers on sliders, scrubbing and resealing grout in tile floors.

IN AN HOUR YOU CAN . . .

Sweep the garage.

Wash the car, or take it to the car wash (go ahead, have it waxed, get the underbody spray).

Clean out and reorganize your overloaded computer files (wear out that "delete" button). At the end of an hour, stop. You can come back another time and do more.

Walk through the house and gather up all the magazines and catalogs. Decide which to throw, which to pass on (friends, nursing homes, doctor's office, hair salon), which you're going to read. Pick up some magazine organizers at the big-box office-supply stores to keep them sorted. Cancel subscriptions to magazines you no longer read.

INVENTORY TIME

Review the cleaning supplies you have (which are probably under the kitchen sink, in the garage, in the laundry room and in the bathroom). Set aside those you don't use. Replace what you're about to run out of. If you've got three partial bottles of glass cleaner and four bottles of countertop spray, commit to using them up before you buy more. If you're constantly running out of something (dishwasher detergent, for example), stockpile a year's supply.

Do the same thing for other household staples: coffee filters, napkins, toothpaste, first-aid supplies, stationery items, stamps.

WORK ON A PHOTO FINISH

Get out those shoe boxes full of photos. Spend an hour identifying them, throwing out duplicates and bad shots.

Put those images on CDs so you can share them, e-mail them, make cards, calendars, etc. One such source: www.scanmyphotos.com. You pay $100 for a prepaid box into which you stuff as many photos as you can. They scan them onto a CD for you and return the photos.

Are there photos you've been promising to share? Take an afternoon to visit a photo store or the photo department at your local drugstore, discount store or grocery, and have the prints made. (This takes a couple of minutes and costs as little as 15 cents a print.) Or, if you've got the photos online, spend an hour e-mailing them to the recipients.

IN THE CAR

Clean it out. Get rid of the trash, juice boxes, fast-food wrappers. Clean out the glove box.

If your maps are more than two years old, replace them.

Put together an emergency kit in a box or canvas bag: flashlight, flares, flat-fixer, change and a few small bills, pen, pad, a couple of envelopes, first-aid items, hand sanitizer or wipes, roll of paper towels.

Replace worn wiper blades.

Look at stores that sell organizing supplies, auto parts and office supplies for organizers that can keep papers, files, samples, sports gear and whatever else you're hauling around in place and out of your way.

When was the last time you checked the oil and topped up the window-washer fluid?

Get new floor mats, a license plate frame and a good cup holder.

SORT, SHARPEN, SPRUCE UP

Sort through the videos/DVDs (or have those who watch them do this). Get rid of the ones no one watches any longer.

Sharpen the pencils. Throw out the stubs and the pens that no longer write. If your pencil jar is jammed full, pull some out and set them aside or give them away (shelters, senior centers, scouts or your church might be glad to have them).

If it's been five years since you papered or painted a room, you're due (some would say overdue) for a freshening-up.

Refresh the look of a room by removing all the art. After a while you just stop seeing the same images. Replace it with something new.

Where would it be useful to have a hook, a screw or a nail to hang something up? In the garage, the back hall, the front closet, a child's room? Get out a hammer or a drill-driver and solve this problem now.

Where do you need a duplicate: another pair of scissors, a ruler, a screwdriver, a set of measuring spoons? Get them and end those constant trips to the other end of the house.

Do you know where your fire extinguisher is? Do you have a fire extinguisher? Do you know how to use it? Do what you need to do so you can answer "yes" to all these questions.

AROUND THE HOUSE

Hose down the front of the house to get rid of spiderwebs, mud daubers, dead insects and general dust and grime. Clean out the light fixture and make sure the light works. Replace the welcome mat. If the flowers are dead, leggy or otherwise spent, replace them. Polish the door knocker and the brass numerals; replace the numbers if necessary. Install numbers at the back of your house. If the doorbell doesn't work, repair it.

Walk through the house from top to bottom and tighten the loose screws, silence the squeaks, fix the leaky faucets and stop the running toilets. If the problems are beyond your capabilities, call in a professional. A faucet that leaks 30 drips a minute wastes more than 4 gallons a day. (Calculate your own water wastage at www.awwa.org.)

Is your bathroom sink draining slowly? Remove the pop-up stopper and clean away the hair and gunk that has accumulated on it. If this doesn't solve your problem, you may need a plunger, a snake, a chemical drain cleaner or the baking soda-vinegar-boiling water trick.

Wash the windows. Okay, wash one window, or the windows in one room. Work your way through the house over the next few weeks.

Do you know how your house works? Learn how to shut off the power, gas and water for the entire house and how to shut off the water at each sink. Label the breakers in your electrical box.

Learn how to unplug your garage door from its electrical source and how to lock it, and know how to open the door manually when the power is out.

What if you locked yourself out of your house? Give a key to a neighbor; keep another at work (unlabeled, please).

Replace stained or cracked wastebaskets. If there's a spot in the house where trash tends to build up, put a wastebasket there.

ABOUT THE KIDS

Weed out the clothes they've outgrown or won't wear and pass them on to another child.

Ditto with the toys, games and books they've outgrown or lost interest in.

Provide open clothes hampers and open baskets or boxes for toy storage. Kids won't lift lids.

AT THE BARE MINIMUM

For the time-strangled among you, here's the bare minimum to ward off a health department citation and keep your mother happy:

Make your bed every day.

Vacuum and dust once a week.

Do your laundry once a week.

Change the sheets weekly.

Mop the kitchen floor once a week.

Take out the garbage as often as it needs it (if you can smell it, you're overdue). Ditto on emptying the wastebaskets and removing the pile of newspapers.

Clean the bathroom once a week: Swish out the toilet, wipe down the sink and vanity top, clean the mirror. Mop the floor. If you're a tub bather, clean the tub. The shower? Wipe it down with a squeegee every day (yes, you, please).

Wash the dishes every day. Wipe the countertops and the rangetop.

Hang up your clothes.

10 WAYS TO GO GREEN

Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents.

Install a programmable thermostat.

Change the filters in your ventilation system.

Install low-flow devices in showers and faucets.

Upgrade insulation and weatherstripping.

Have your utility company perform an energy audit.

If new appliances are in your future, select those with Energy Star certification.

Carry reusable canvas bags when you shop.

Recycle plastic water bottles, or use a refillable bottle.

Visit www.greenhomeguide.org and calculate your carbon footprint. (See the story on 7F to learn what carbon offsets are.) Then click on "What You Can Do" for more than 25 action steps to reduce greenhouse gases, save water and more. Find more green tips and challenges at c3.newdream.org.

GET READY FOR HURRICANE SEASON '08

If you want to get rid of your '07 food supplies, food pantries and shelters will be glad to take them off your hands.

Add an LED-bulb flashlight to your hurricane kit. The bulb life is measured in years, not months, and battery life is extended to days, not hours. Another good addition: the kind you power by turning a hand crank.

Don't let the last two quiet storm seasons lull you into hurricane amnesia. They'll be back. If you've made no arrangements to protect your windows, the off season is a good time to order shutters, or cut plywood to fit and label it, or to make the investment in impact windows. None of this is cheap, but the lesson of 2004 and '05 is that we live in a dangerous area, no place is safe (even inland), and you may have little time to prepare.

Compile a home inventory. Create the list of everything you own, with prices and receipts. Document it with photos or a video. You can go low-tech and do this in a notebook, or create it online and store it on a flash drive you take with you when you evacuate. (Save another copy somewhere else, like at your office, with a relative out of state or at an Internet storage site.) This inventory could come in handy if you were the victim of a burglary or in case of fire.

Off season is also a good time to put together a grab-and-go box of important documents you'll want to take if you evacuate. Or scan them in and store them digitally.

If you don't have a cell phone charger that plugs into the cigarette lighter of your car, get one. If power is out for any length of time, you can keep your cell phone alive by recharging it here.

CLEAN 'EM OUT!

Clean out the medicine cabinet. Safely dispose of outdated or unused medications, both prescription and over-the-counter. Dump unwanted or dried-up cosmetics and first-aid items. Then restock with plastic bandages, first-aid cream, antiseptic, pain relief, cold and indigestion remedies.

Perform the equivalent search-and-destroy in the garage. Set aside unwanted or dried-up paints, glues, fertilizers, pesticides and household chemicals. Check with your county waste disposal department on where and when to dispose of these hazardous materials safely.

LET IT GO

Sew on the button, repair the hem, take the item to the alterations shop or the cleaner.

Admit you never used it, never liked it, don't want it, will never get around to repairing it - and throw it or give it away.

Acknowledge it's too big or too small, out of style, too youthful, too frumpy, ugly, wrong model, wrong color, a "what was I thinking" - and throw it or give it away.

Face the fact that you're never going to do that chore yourself - painting or papering the room, repairing the bottom step, cleaning the carpets - and call a professional to do the task.

Pick a return day, and intentionally use it to return all the stuff you've borrowed in the past year: books, videos, tools, sporting equipment, clothes, dishes.

Buy yourself a new toothbrush.

Mattresses have a life span of five to seven years, bed pillows, two to three years. If yours are older, or limp or lumpy, replace them. (Advice on buying bedding and getting a better night's sleep is at www.bettersleep.org.)

IN THE KITCHEN

Weed through your collection of drinking glasses: everything you use for water, juice, milk, wine, beer, etc. Anything cracked or chipped: out. If your cabinets are jammed with far more glassware than you ever use, a charity resale shop will be glad to take the extras off your hands. If you need more of something, put it on your shopping list.

Go through your collection of coffee mugs and dump everything that's cracked, chipped or faded from the dishwasher.

Look over your collection of storage ware and get rid of topless bottoms and bottomless tops. Keep only what you need and use. (You don't need 30 empty yogurt containers.) Replenish your supply of the sizes you're short on.

Get rid of stained, burned pot holders and ragged towels.

Is there a cabinet above the stove in your kitchen? You might be astounded by the greasiness of the dishes and glasses stored there. Move them or be prepared to wash them before you use them.

Replenish your supply of trash bags, lunch bags, straws, wraps.

Now, as the holiday season ends, is a good time to move seldom-used cookware and serving ware to a remote location and free up space in the kitchen for what you use daily. The turkey roasting pan and the big serving platters you won't need until next November can go elsewhere.

Tackle the disorganized pile of recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines so you can find them when you want them. Put them in sheet protectors in a three-ring binder, organized by type of food; in file folders; or organize them online.

RUNNING THE HOME OFFICE

Get yourself off mailing lists for catalogs you don't want by registering at www.catalogchoice.com. Or the Direct Marketing Association at www.dmachoice.org.

End a lot of annoying calls by registering for the national Do Not Call registry: www.donotcall.gov or toll-free 1-888-382-1222.

Make photocopies of all the cards you carry in your wallet. If your wallet is stolen, you'll know what you've lost. Check your monthly credit card statement to learn how to report loss of a card.

Check your credit rating once annually at no charge by contacting the three major credit-reporting bureaus. The bureaus operate a central source to provide these free reports at www.annualcreditreport.com. By phone, call toll-free 1-877-322-8228.

Buy birthday and anniversary cards now so you don't have to run out to get them at the last minute.

Give yourself a head start on cards and gifts by marking your new calendar with the events you want to remember: birthdays, anniversaries, graduations.

Update your address book, whether on paper or online.

THE 50-ITEM CHALLENGE

Really determined to get control of the clutter in your house and life? Try this exercise, suggested by life coach Gail Blanke in Real Simple magazine: Throw out 50 things. Keys, dead pens, old birthday cards, expired gift cards, losing lottery tickets, socks with holes. (Magazines and catalogs count as only one item, no matter how many you throw out.) Keep a list.

When you start to throw out a lot of physical clutter, Blanke explains, you develop "the desire to clear out all the clutter in your mind." That mental clutter, she says, holds you back from "stepping into the next great segment of your life," the excitement of what is yet to be.

Judy Stark can be reached at stark@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8446.

[Last modified December 27, 2007, 16:52:39]