In honor of Earth Day, today’s article focuses on earth-friendly, natural cleaning products for your home. When you’re looking answers to the question of how to sell a house fast, you’ll find plenty of advice about keeping the home spotlessly clean. Clean homes sell much faster and for more money than dirty ones. The good news is, you can scrub top to bottom without poisoning yourself with toxic chemicals.
There isn’t a shortage of recipes to make your own, all-natural cleansers.
In the kitchen
Oven cleaners are probably one of the most noxious compounds around. But you can get a sparkly clean oven easily, cheaply and naturally using a baking soda and water paste! Simply make a paste on the bottom of the oven, leave it there for a few hours and wipe off. See the details in this article.
To effortlessly clean your dishwasher, fill a dishwasher safe bowl or jar, like a Pyrex container, with 2 cups of vinegar and set it on the top rack of the dishwasher. Run an otherwise empty dishwasher on the hot cycle to clean and remove all musty odors.
If your garbage disposal is stinky, you have a couple of options. One, you can cut a lemon in half, shove it in the garbage disposal and turn it on (of course, keep water running!) for about 10 seconds. Two, you can freeze citrus peels in ice cube trays with vinegar or water and throw these into the disposal and grind for 10 seconds. Lastly, you can pour 1/2 cup of baking soda followed by a cup of distilled white vinegar in there and let the mixture sit for 10 minutes before running water and turning on the disposal.
Prevent cooking odors by simmering 1 tbsp of vinegar in a cup of water on the stove while you’re cooking. If you have home buyers coming through to see your house, simmer water and cinnamon on stove before they arrive. (Remember to turn it off before you leave!) Another odor elimination solution is to keep fresh coffee grounds on the counter.
In the bathroom
This recipe from Living Well Spending Less makes a great tub and tile cleaner that’s not only effective, but smells nice too.
- 3/4 c. baking soda
- juice from 1/2 a lemon (about 1/4 c)
- 3 tablespoons salt
- 3 tablespoons liquid dishwashing soap
- 1/2 cup vinegar
- 10 drops essential oil (optional)
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl to make a paste. Apply to your tub, shower walls, and sinks using a rag, scrub brush or sponge. Scrub and then rinse with water and a wet rag.
As you may have noticed, baking soda is one of the hardest working products out there and it’s in a lot of these recipes. You can use it again for making a toilet bowl cleaner. Simply combine baking soda, vinegar and some essential oils and scrub away dirt, mold and bacteria with the toilet brush. See the toilet bowl cleaner recipe specifics here.
Cleaning grout is always a challenge and no matter what you use, it does take a bit of time and patience. However once you’re finished, the entire room is transformed. In this post, you’ll find a recipe for success that starts with baking soda (again!), a scrub brush or an old tooth brush, microfiber cloths and a spray bottle filled with clean water. If your grout is remarkably stained, adding lemon juice to the paste creates a natural brightener. Alternately, you can add tea tree oil as a natural mold-inhibitor which will help combat mold growth.
For cleaning mirrors and glass, Clean Mama gives you the details on this DIY combination of water, white vinegar, rubbing alcohol and peppermint essential oil that leaves surfaces sparkly clean and your room smelling fresh. If you don’t care for the scent of peppermint, or you don’t have any peppermint essential oil on hand, you can leave it out or use a citrus essential oil instead.
The Rest of the House
A dusty house turns off home buyers. Keep dust at bay with Rodale’s Organic Life Lemon Oil Duster. Apply a mixture of 10 drops pure lemon oil, 2 Tablespoons lemon juice and a few drops olive oil to a clean flannel or microfiber cloth and wipe down dusty surfaces.
Eartheasy provides a solution for removing carpet stains by mixing equal parts white vinegar and water in a spray bottle. Spray the mixture directly on to the stains and let sit for several minutes. Then rub in warm soapy water with a clean brush or sponge. For fresh grease spots, you can sprinkle corn starch onto the spot and wait 15 – 30 minutes before vacuuming. When you need a heavy duty carpet cleaner, mix 1/4 cup each of salt, borax and vinegar. Rub this paste into your carpet and leave it there for a few hours. Come back and vacuum.
Need to clean hardwood floors? Another simple cleaning mixture of white vinegar, warm water, and the ubiquitous lemon essential oil comes from Real Simple.
When you’re wondering how to sell a house fast, keep in mind that clean homes sell faster and for more money than their dirtier counterparts. Using these natural cleaning recipes to prepare your home for sale, you’ll not only end up with a sparkling house, but a healthy one as well – a combination sure to attract home buyers.
When it’ll take more than earth-friendly, natural cleaning products – or even heavy-duty toxic mixtures – to get your house ready for sale, call Express Homebuyers at (877) 804-5252 for a fair, no-obligation offer on your home in DC, Maryland or Virginia
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