After a winter spent largely indoors, it’s time for spring cleaning, BC. Here are some tips and tricks to spring clean your whole home, including fresh takes on eco-friendly cleaning plus a room-by-room checklist.

Step 1: Gather natural cleaning supplies

To make your cleaning routine less wasteful and environmentally harmful, avoid traditional cleaning products which contain chemicals that can impact our air, water and wellbeing, like ammonia, chlorine, phthalates, perchloroethylene, triclosan, 2-Butoxyethanol and sodium hydroxide.

Try getting your cleaning products from some more environmentally-friendly brands like: Elva’s All Naturals, Bio Vert, Attitude Living and Aspen Clean Here’s what you need to get started:

• All-purpose or all-in-1 cleaner
• Bathroom cleaner
• Floor cleaner
• Scouring or scrubbing brush, and cloths
• Trash bags

Or if you prefer the do-it-yourself approach, you can concoct your own all-purpose cleaner. Infuse one part vinegar, one-part water, lemon rind and rosemary sprigs for one week and you have a natural cleaning liquid. Just make sure you don’t use it on granite, quartz or marble counters, as the acidic vinegar and lemon could damage the stone.

Step 2: Prepare to clean

Before you clean your surfaces, clean up stuff. Grab everything loose (clothes, shoes, electronics, toys, dishes, dog beds and dishes) and stash it away in cabinets, drawers, closets, on shelves, the dishwasher and in your garage or mudroom.

Step 3: Clean top-to-bottom, dry-to-wet in 10-minute chunks

Just like when you’re painting, it’s best to clean your home from top to bottom. By starting high, you’ll dislodge all the dust, cobwebs and dirt and it will fall down to the floor. Vacuum the cobwebs from your ceiling and walls, then sweep and vacuum your floors. Next, you’re ready to wet wipe your walls and mop your floors.

If spring cleaning is beginning to feel like a marathon, break it up into productive, 10-minute bursts. Start with the following general maintenance tasks you should do every three months, then begin tackling your place, room by room.

• Clean your doors and switch plates: With a damp microfibre cloth, wipe away smudges and fingerprints from your doorknobs and switch plates.
• Fire Extinguisher: We recommend regularly performing an inspection on all household fire extinguishers to ensure the unit has not expired, the pressure gauge is still within the correct operating range and there is no physical damage to the unit. Additionally, make sure to clean any dust, oil or grease off the extinguisher which could prevent it from functioning correctly.
• Alarms: Test and replace your smoke alarm batteries and CO² detectors
• Air flow: Check and replace, as needed, your air filters, air vents and registers
• Lights: Clean or replace your light fixtures, light bulbs and light switches
• Handles: Sanitize all your door handles

Here’s our room-by-room cleaning checklist to get you started:

Congratulations! The inside of your home is now clean and ready for spring. There’s just one last thing to make sure you’re ready for sunshine and good times.

Insure your beautiful home

Now that you’ve shown some love to your whole home, protect it with BCAA Home Insurance. Our exceptional home insurance covers homeowners, renters, landlords, vacation properties, and mobile homes. Visit bcaa.com/home to get a quote today. You’ll save 5% when you buy BCAA Home Insurance online and an additional 10% as a BCAA Member.*

Happy cleaning!