Illinois Valley Clean Team, Author at Illinois Valley House Cleaning Services

When Cleaning Out Your Home, Start With What You Can See

January 16, 2018 by Illinois Valley Clean Team

La Salle Peru Home Cleaning I think we all have that one cartoon closet in our home. It’s the one so filled with stuff that when you open it everything falls out into a pile like in cartoons. It’s understandable why you might want to start with that closet or some other area, but when cleaning out and decluttering, start with what you can see.

What is the Visibility Rule?

We have a tendency to make the areas of our life that we can’t see a little more chaotic than what’s visible. It’s the junk drawers, the closets and the thing that under the bed that we often think about decluttering first. The Visibility Rule throws that out the window and tells you to work on what you can see and save the invisible for last. You leave the closets and the drawers aloneand focus on your desk, counters, garage, etc.

Why You Start With What You See

When you spend all day working on a closet or other invisible clutter, you shut the door and nothing has changed. You know that the area is clean and organized, but since it’s behind a door neither you nor your family will see any difference. You’ll walk by that door every day and know that it’s clean behind it, but where’s that sense of accomplishment? It’s important to that you see what you accomplished as that will spur you on to continue. If you take the time to clean and declutter a book shelf, then you might want to keep going and declutter a desk. They say seeing is believing, so start with what you can see.

Yes, It Really Matters

You may be cautious about our advice and believe that you’ll feel just as great taking care of that cartoon closet as you would something visible. It’s great if that’s true for you, but it won’t be for the vast majority of people. People need to see a change in their environment or else they won’t feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with doing a good job. It can be disconcerting to spend hours working on a closet, close the door and look behind you to see nothing different.

IV Clean Team Inc. is the Illinois Valley’s leading home cleaner and can help you with your cleaning needs. Contact us today and set up an appointment.

Why It’s Important To Clean Your Oven

December 18, 2017 by Illinois Valley Clean Team

importance of oven cleaning When was the last time you cleaned your oven? If you can’t remember, then it’s been too long. No one likes cleaning the oven, but it needs to be done. It’s hard work and time consuming, but if you don’t then it can make cooking miserable.

Oven Damage

We’ve all done it. There’s a roast or something swimming in a mix of grease and water in the oven. You go to grab it, something shifts and you spill a big puddle on the floor of the oven. It sizzles and smokes a little, but you just let it go. It’ll just dry up, right? Wrong!

The moisture may be gone, but a residue remains. No matter what you spill, whether it’s cheese from a frozen pizza or vegetables, they don’t just go away. When you have food and grease, there is the opportunity for fire, which can severely damage not only the oven, but your home as well. In addition, smoke from the residue can block the filters and reduce performance and eventually cause malfunction.

Bad Food

When those food particles start heating up and burning, the smoke is hitting your food. Having an unclean oven can cause food to taste bad. Imagine having a delicious roast that has been slowing cooking in the oven for hours. You open the door and pull it out. As you stare at its moist brown perfection, you cut into the meat and take your first bite. BLECH! The smoke and residue caked into your oven permeated the meat and made it taste like something out of a science fiction movie. Don’t be stuck with the Meatloaf from the Black Lagoon and take some time to clean out that oven.

Health Impact

A lot of people like putting pizzas directly on the oven rack. It does make a big difference, making the pizza crispier than if it was on a baking sheet, but if you don’t clean your oven, then you’re leaving yourself open to all kinds of health issues. Food particles in an oven are a haven for bacteria. You may think the heat of the oven is killing them, but can you be 100 percent sure? Also, food left in the oven can draw insects and even rodents that can spread disease to your food. Do you want to put the pizza directly on a rack that has been used as a highway for ants, cockroaches and mice? “It’s not delivery! It’s the Black Plague!”

If you don’t have the time to clean your oven, then why not contact IV Clean Team. We can help you out with that and provide you with other cleaning services.

Don’t Save The Cleaning For the Weekend

November 20, 2017 by Illinois Valley Clean Team

DOne Save Cleaning For The Weekend We all do it sometimes. During the week, life always gets in the way of cleaning and we end up using the weekend to clean the house from top to bottom. Why spend your whole week working just to work on the weekend too. Don’t save that cleaning for the weekend, and find the time during the week.

Everyone Needs a Break

The weekend is supposed to be time off from work. It’s the time you can do what you want instead of what you have to do. If you’re weekend is spent cleaning up everything from the week, then you’re not taking advantage of that precious time off. Instead, just do a few things throughout the week. Keep up the laundry going or do the dishes after dinner. By doing an hour of cleaning a day, you’re saving five hours of cleaning on the weekend.

It’s Depressing Throughout the Week

When you’re not cleaning throughout the week, you end up letting things pile up. Clothes on the floor, dishes in the sink and general untidiness can be depressing. Cleaning isn’t a fun chore that people do. It’s why they call it a chore and not a happy fun time event. It makes it that much harder to motivate yourself if you’re going into it already depressed. It suddenly feels overwhelming and more than one person has decided to just forget about it. Plus, you’ll be depressed throughout the week, looking at it. Take some time to do a little cleaning during the week and you’ll feel better.

Make Plans, Don’t Break Plans

The weekend is precious. It’s 48-hours where you can do whatever you want. You can make plans with friends and family. Events and festivals happen during the weekends. Do you really want to be stuck at home cleaning when everything is going on around you? One of two things will happen. Either you’ll be angry that you’re stuck or you’ll just skip the cleaning and have fun. Dirty house or bad mood, which is worse. Sounds like they both aren’t great. Clean during the week and avoid them entirely.

Don’t worry if you can’t fit cleaning into your schedule. If you don’t want to clean during the week or on the weekend, there’s always Illinois Valley Clean Team. Contact us for a free quote and we’ll take the hassle away.

Schedule A Winter Cleaning Before It Gets Cold

November 2, 2017 by Illinois Valley Clean Team

winter home cleaning in Peru It’s getting colder and when the snow falls, everyone craves the warmth and comfort of their home. The days of frolicking outside are over and traded in for indoor craft time and catching up on all those TV shows you missed. It’s also the perfect time to schedule a home cleaning to get everything spruced up before hibernating for the winter.

Deep Cleaning Makes the Winter Easier

The winter doldrums make doing anything a chore. The weather is frigid and the sun retreats in fear it will be swallowed by the endless snowfall. Your home becomes your everything. You don’t want to spend the next four months spending all your time cleaning up messes and tidying up, but never feeling like you’re truly done.

Letting Illinois Valley Clean Team Inc. do a deep cleaning in your home gets the worst part out of the way. There’s no major cleaning left to do and you can focus on the little things through the winter month. Your house will look great and you can spend the winter comfortable and feeling accomplished. If it does get overwhelming, you can always call us for some more cleaning.

People Track in Everything

When people in your home go out, they never come back alone. They come back with wet shoes that track in mud and who knows what else. It can get on your floors, carpets, furniture and some places that you can’t even understand how it got there. We can help you head it off at the pass by doing a deep clean that makes your house immaculate and then following up periodically to make sure it stays sparkling clean no matter how many times Uncle Vinnie forgets to wipe his shoes.

Holiday, Holidays, Holidays

Along with snow and ice, winter brings the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many people host parties that have relatives from all over the country visit and experience the joys of the holidays season…and your home. Hosting a party is stressful enough, and the last thing you need to worry about is cleaning your house. We can take care of that for you, so you can focus on dinner, guest lists and making sure Cousin Susie doesn’t eat the shellfish.

IVCT Inc. is the Illinois Valley’s choice for home cleaning. We’re here for you rain or shine, so contact us today and schedule your winter home cleaning before Jack Frost comes knocking on your door.

Save Some Time and Stress With Meal Planning

October 26, 2017 by Illinois Valley Clean Team

meal planning How many people suffer from dinner stress? You’re at home or work and realize it’s only a few hours before dinner needs to be ready, and you have no idea what to do. Don’t let dinner add any more stress to your day. All you need to do is plan ahead, and dinner stress will be a thing of the past.

Develop a Meal Plan Calendar

Planning begins not with the meals, but the plan for the plan. You need to decide what days will be for sitting down and developing a meal plan for the week and a day for grocery shopping. This helps determine how the rest of the week will roll out. For example, let’s say Saturday is meal plan day. It’s the weekend, and you might have the time to get everything done. Sunday would naturally be the grocery shopping day because you can go to the store and create a list based on the items you’ll need for the week.

You’ll need some way to keep track of your plan. You can have a journal or calendar that you can write the meals on. Ideally, you’ll use something magnetic that you can post on or near the refrigerator in the kitchen for easy reference.

Your meal planning day is also a perfect time to clean out the fridge and freezer to make room for the next day’s groceries.

Make Meal Prep as Easy as Possible

No one has time to create a massive meal every day from scratch. Just because you don’t have a lot of time, doesn’t mean you need to eat out or grab quick unhealthy meals. Crockpot meals and freezer meals are a great way to get healthy fresh meals without all the prep and hassle.

Crock pot meals are set and forget, and cook throughout the day. You put the ingredients in the pot and it’s done just in time for dinner. Crock pot meals are great for roasts, soups and many other items. You can find recipes for crock pot versions of just about everything.

Freezer meals require prep work, but can be frozen and cooked at your leisure. If you want to do freezer meals, then choose a day, likely during the weekend when you have more flexibility, to create several different meals, store them and freeze. During the week, you just need to pop it in the oven or stovetop and dinner is ready on time.

Give Yourself a Day

With meal prep, planning and all the usual crazy things that happen during the week, give yourself a day or two to relax. When you create your plan, make one day a leftover day and the next a day to eat out. The day you plan for the following week is a great time to eat out. Consider it a reward being awesome.

If you need any help with getting your house cleaned during your busy week, then contact us and we’ll give you even more time for what’s important.