home cleaning Archives - Page 3 of 6 - Illinois Valley House 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.

What Is A Cleaning Routine And How Do I Keep It?

September 20, 2017 by Illinois Valley Clean Team

Creating A Daily Chore Routine There is a reason why many consider cleaning the house part of the daily chores. Chores are not things people often look forward to and many consider it with dread and apprehension. One way to battle these fears is through creating a cleaning routine. It helps to organize your cleaning and keeps you from getting overwhelmed.

What is a Cleaning Routine?

At its most simple, a cleaning routine is just a series of tasks that you choose to do during a particular time of day. You can have daily routines, weekly routines and others set up however you want. The key is to make sure and stick with it. If you don’t, then it doesn’t really make it much of a routine. Routines are good because if you do them long enough they just become part of your day. You end up cleaning and don’t even realize you’re doing it. It’s just part of life like waking up and eating breakfast.

Daily and Weekly Routines

One of the key aspects of a cleaning routine is setting things up in required intervals. Daily routines are those small things that you can almost do without thinking such as doing the nightly dishes or tidying up around the living room. They’re small tasks that need to be done every day. Weekly routines are those more difficult tasks that need to be done, but not necessarily every day. Vacuuming or dusting might be considered weekly tasks. Also, all weekly tasks don’t have to be done on the same day. You don’t need to call Saturday your weekly task day. Space the out throughout the week and add them to the tasks lists for that day.

Give Incentives To Stay On Track

Since cleaning routines aren’t fun and exciting, you may find is difficult to keep and maintain it. It’s like starting that exercise routine or diet. You may be all gung ho, but after a few weeks of kale and asparagus burgers, it’s not so easy to keep going. Your cleaning routine is important, so try and stay focused by giving yourself rewards or other incentives to keep you on track.

If your weekly or monthly cleaning tasks are just too much to handle, why not call us. IV Clean Team Inc. can check those tasks off for you. We’ll be happy to ease your burden and you can even get a free quote.

Top 5 Cleaning Distractions To Avoid

September 11, 2017 by Illinois Valley Clean Team

top 5 cleaning distractions Let’s face it, there are very few people who wake up and say “Yeah, I get to clean the house today. Whoohoo!” Those that do, usually end up in our line of work. Given cleaning can be more of a chore than a fun pastime, it’s easy to get distracted throughout the day. The best thing to do is avoid these pitfalls entirely, so here is an examination of the biggest distractions that can happen when you’re cleaning.

Social Media

If there is one societal distraction, it’s social media. It can be Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or any of the many others available these days. The reason they’re so distracting is because you think you’re going there for only a few minutes and next thing you know two hours have gone by and you’re knee deep in cat videos.

The easiest way to eliminate this distraction is to not go on them. Silence your phone and stay off the computer until you’re done. If you scheduled yourself reward time, visit them then, but stick to your time budget.

Television Shows

In today’s world, we’re not limited to just the television in the living room. We can watch our favorite shows streaming on television, computers, phone and tablets. You can be anywhere and watch the season of Arrow you didn’t have a chance to watch. The worst part isn’t the opportunity to watch, but the duration. Movies last an hour and a half minimum and most television shows are 45-minutes to an hour.

Nothing derails cleaning faster than binge watching. The best thing to do is stay away and put that phone on silent so Netflix can’t send you notifications.

Friends

We love our friends. They deserve to be more important than cleaning, but unless they’re going through a crisis or an emergency, you should get the work done first. We love it when out bestie texts us that it’s Starbucks time or they’re heading to Target and ask if you want to go, but cleaning doesn’t do itself…unless you call us.

When friends call or text, politely tell them what you’re doing and ask to reschedule. Do it in the afternoon or clean in the early morning.

Children

Children are a blessing in every way, but they can make things difficult. Toddlers and babies always take priority, that’s a given, but if you’ve got older children, then get them involved. Want to cut down on them asking a million questions or asking for everything while you’re trying to get things done? Tell them to go clean their room or give them specific tasks like picking up the clothes or doing dishes. The cleaning will get done faster and you eliminate a distraction.

Online Shopping

Online shopping these days is a lot like social media. With apps like Amazon and Wish, you can literally sit for hours and peruse cool, weird and unique products. You may think you’re going there to check out prices for a new toaster and end up 45 minutes later looking at steampunk Christmas lights.

It’s best to wait until after cleaning to look at these apps or at the very least set a timer and stick to it.

If you get distracted easily or need someone to come clean your home to you can go shopping, then contact the area’s leading home cleaning service, Illinois Valley Clean Team Inc. Call for a free quote today.

Laundry is Backed Up? Wash It Efficiently

August 18, 2017 by Illinois Valley Clean Team

Doing laundry efficiently It happens to the best of us. Life and work become overwhelming and you keep telling yourself you’ll get to that ever-growing laundry pile tomorrow. Pretty soon, you’re driving around town in Winnie the Pooh pants and a T-shirt you haven’t worn since there was a Bush in the White House. It can be intimidating to see that massive pile of laundry and try to figure out how you’re going to get it all clean. All you need is a plan and you’ll be back in your favorite clothes in no time.

Separate Into Different Baskets

A mound is daunting. No one looks at a mountain and says, “Yeah, that’s easy to climb.” Grab as many baskets as you can and separate all the clothes by person and use. Separating the baskets by person makes it easier to fold and manage everything once it’s clean. You should also separate out by use, for example, bedding in one basket and dish towels and wash towels in another. The act not only makes it easier to eventually fold, but also makes it look less daunting. You have a quantifiable amount instead of a massive laundry mound that may or may not be harboring evil demons (depends on how long the socks have been in there)

Wash By Basket, Not By Load

You might be able to fit both your child’s basket and your spouse’s into the washing machine, but that can make things confusing. Efficiency is about more than just time, it’s also about action. If you put in more than one person’s basket, then when you dry it and fold, you’re once again sorting not only by clothing, but by person. When you go to put them away, you might be going back and forth or rummaging through to find what clothes go with what person.

Make a Plan for the Future

The best way to avoid a massive laundry glut is to keep ahead of it. Make a plan to do one load of laundry per day and keep the laundry mountain from forming. If you miss a day, then do two loads that day. The goal is to keep up with the laundry so it doesn’t get overwhelming. It’s time to put those Winnie the Pooh pants back in the closet where it belongs.

If you’re looking for someone to spruce up your home, then contact IV Clean Team. We’ll get your home looking great.