There are many different levels of dirty, messy rooms.
I’ve seen all kinds. I have many family members who are hoarders, and I’ve known many people who NEVER clean their house and throw trash in the floor of their home.
I’ve helped clean all levels of dirtiness in my day.
Unfortunately, the hoarding tendencies run strong in my genes, so I am CONSTANTLY working against my nature to keep my house clean & picked up!
It’s a real work in progress around here, ya’ll.
I will say that doing one particular thing helps me so much.
I love having a standard way of doing things.
And base rules of “how things should be” in my home.
If I didn’t have these self-imposed rules in place, things could get out of control REAL QUICK!
Example of Standard Cleanliness Rules
For example, I have a rule for my bedroom that it is not completely clean unless everything is picked up off the floor.
I made this rule because I have a tendency to do random loads of laundry then throw them in the corner…
Or pile stuff up to deal with later.
By having this rule that the place isn’t clean until everything is picked up off the floor, I KNOW when it’s clean because that indicator is completed.
And when I am consistently picking up after myself and never letting things pile up, the general level of cleanliness in my home goes up.
Does that make sense to anyone else besides me?
I hope I’m explaining this properly! 🙂
It makes sense to me, and it has worked for me for many years.
I have rules like this for spots all around the house.
All the different things that “tell me a room is clean.”
If I didn’t have these rules, then I definitely find myself saying “eh, that’s good enough” and before I know it, things are out of control again! 🙂
So let’s talk about this a little bit more and then dive into the actual cleaning checklist so you’re not living in a mess any longer!
Where Should You Start When Cleaning a Really Messy Room?
The first place to start when you need to clean up a disgustingly dirty room is to adjust your expectations.
I feel like we often let things get out of control because we have lost sight of what “clean” is.
You see, there is a difference between a “picked up” room, a room that has been given a minor cleaning, and a room that has been deep cleaned.
Before you can deep clean anything, you have to get everything back to a manageable level…
- You need to be able to see all surfaces (nothing piled up)
- You need to be able to touch all surfaces without picking up dirt or feeling stickiness
- You need to make sure nothing major is ruined or you need to replace it
7 Steps to Clean a Disgusting Room
I’ve found that keeping a cleaner home involves following a set of steps to get back to “base cleanliness.”
Here are the steps for cleaning any disgusting room:
- Pick up everything that should reside in other areas of your house.
- Throw away all trash.
- Collect everything that you want give away. Be liberal with this….my general rule is if I don’t know where it’s supposed to go, I never use it and probably won’t use it in the next couple months, I probably don’t need it.
- Wipe down all hard surfaces.
- Vacuum carpets & shake out any rugs. Also run any washable rugs in the washing machine.
- Decide if anything is completely ruined and replace it. Let’s face it – if your room is super dirty, there may be stains that you cannot remove in furniture or flooring. If you have a carpet with some stains but it’s not totally destroyed, you can try using this Little Green portable carpet & upholstery cleaner. We have this and it works really great on pet stains (from pee accidents and muddy feet).
- Buy organizing bins and get a system in place so there are more places for things to reside. The main problem I’ve found with people who let their house cleanliness get out control is that they A) don’t know where everything is supposed to go and B) they don’t have a way to contain the visual clutter. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to achieve this goal – you can even get all the organizing bins you need at Dollar Tree!
When you follow this checklist, you will be able to get even a nasty disaster of a room back to functional levels again.
I know in my house, these steps make a world of difference.
How to Not Let Your House Continue to Get Messy Again
I know, I know, if you’re really messy person (like I used to be), you can’t just magically go from super disorganized and messy to a neat freak.
It just doesn’t work like that.
But I PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE you that you can get better at this over time!
If you don’t find that this comes natural to you, try to get in a habit of doing all the steps above on a regular basis.
Even if you don’t LIKE to clean, just force yourself to get into the habit of tackling mess and clutter every day.
After all, the easiest way to ensure you maintain your home is to properly clean each day in the first place.
One day you will realize that you finally no longer have any disgusting rooms to clean.
With practice, your personal definition of dirty will adjust itself over time!
Simple Daily Cleaning Routine + New Habits
If you would like to see what I do….I follow this simple daily cleaning routine and basically it’s just a more formalized DAILY version of the steps in this post.
Just remember that keeping a clean house isn’t something you DO once a week….it’s a routine of cleanliness that you adhere to all the time.
It takes a while to create new habits, so just stick with it and you’ll be amazed at your results!
If you want something to keep you on track, I created the Home Management Success Kit to help you with that!
It will help you with not only cleaning routines but also meal planning and finances (which all go together in running a home).
You can see everything that’s included here >> Home Management Success Kit
I hope this post helps you finally start cleaning your room and entire home in a proper manner.
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