"Clean your room!" You heard it more often than you wanted to, and now you say it more often than you can believe. Children don't experience messes the same way adults do, and by the time children's rooms get really out hand, they have no idea where to start. Sometimes it's best to step in and clean a child's room so that he can simply maintain it. Cleaning children's rooms doesn't have to take all weekend. There are simple and efficient tricks for cleaning children's rooms in a flash.
Step 1
Put on rubber gloves, especially when dealing with teenagers' rooms. They do tend to forget how to tell the difference between "leftovers" and "science experiments."
Step 2
Throw away all obvious trash. Small children are less likely to leave food wrappers and other things that need to be discarded around, but this is a good time to discard any clothing that is not fit to be donated, or toys that have become a health hazard.
Step 3
Round up clothing and stray towels and strip the linens from the bed. Take them immediately to the laundry and get that task started. If you use a coin laundry or communal laundry room, put the clothing and linens in a laundry basket rather than a trash bag so that they don't get accidentally tossed out with the trash.
Step 4
Remove all clutter. Line up three or four plastic bins against a wall or even out in the hallway and toss in anything that is not where it belongs. Sort shoes, toys, books and papers roughly into the bins, keeping like with like. It is much more pleasant and efficient to organize and restock a clean room than to try to get everything put away in the middle of a mess.
Step 5
Clean the windows. A clean room feels different than a dirty one, and letting the sun in will make the room seem much more cheerful. Natural light is good for children, even filtered through a window. Shop cloths are sturdier than paper towels and don't leave behind any lint.
Step 6
Dust all flat surfaces with an all-purpose duster. Keep the trash bags and bins nearby because you are likely to find things you missed first time through. Lemon-scented furniture polish is a nice touch, and a little bit of nail polish remover on a cotton ball will remove the residue from chewing gum and other sticky foods.
Step 7
Blow the air and debris out of keyboards and clean them with a cotton swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol. This may seem excessive, but food trapped in keyboards can attract bugs and interfere with the keyboard's function. Germs and bacteria can live on keyboards, so they should be cleaned once a week.
Step 8
Vacuum the carpet or sweep and wash the floor. Use a broom to sweep stuff out from under the furniture if you don't want to move it. Run a shop cloth over the walls, and clear away any cobwebs with a broom wrapped in a shop cloth.
Step 9
Replace the objects in the bins, sorting through them as you do. Try to avoid leaving anything in a bin because once the lid goes on, chances are the bin will sit, as is, for years.
Tips and Warnings
- Teach toddlers to straighten their rooms just before bed, and it may become a life-long habit.
- Never use bleach or ammonia in a baby's room.
Things You'll Need
- Rubber gloves
- Plastic trash bags
- Plastic bins with lids
- Laundry basket
- Window cleaner
- Shop cloths
- Duster
- Furniture polish (optional)
- Nail polish remover (optional)
- Cotton balls (optional)
- Canned air
- Isopropyl alcohol
- Cotton swabs
- Broom or vacuum cleaner
- Mop
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