What To Clean When Selling Your House (Defined Checklist)

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An untidy and dirty house can reduce the chance of selling your house. So if you have thought about putting your house on the market, you need to think of cleaning it up at first. Now if you don’t want to hire any cleaning service to do that, that’s totally fine. You can do the cleanup on your own easily.

Today, we are going to share our complete checklist on what to clean when selling your house. We will focus on every little detail of your house. Because while cleaning the house for selling, you cannot ignore even the silliest places.

If you want to impress even the keenest eyes, giving every corner a good look is important. For a quick instance, we will share a checklist and elaborate on it later. You won’t waste a single minute hovering around. Let’s move on to the details!

A Quick Cleaning Checklist For Selling House

As promised, now we will shortly give you a checklist to look over at. If you make a list of work you have to do before starting the cleaning then your workload will be reduced to half. Hereby, our shortlisted tasks will help you to reduce your allotted time cleaning. Have a look:

General tasks:

  • Get rid of the smallest unnecessary kinds of stuff, like broken or unnecessary furniture, empty vases, broken home appliances, dirt, and clutters.
  • Make the molded areas mold-free. In this case, you will need to hire a professional.
  • Paint the areas of your house walls where the paints seem to be flaky or broken.
  • Make the tiles, floors, basins, and washrooms stain-free. The stairs need to be clean as well. Give attention to the roof walls and floor afterward.
  • Clean the basement, attic, and garage. Look for unwanted pieces of stuff there and get rid of those.
  • Wash the windows properly. If possible, clean out the curtains as well.
  • Clean and vacuum carpets and drapes. Dry those properly to avoid bad smelling.
  • Give a look at the storeroom. Clean out the materials inside and clear out the things that are not essential for you.

Now we will move on to room-specific cleaning. Hereby nothing will be left out from getting cleaned out.

Kitchen:

  • Look at the kitchen substances and clean those thoroughly. Especially the window cause the kitchen window attracts more specs of dirt than other rooms.
  • Clean the attached dish racks if you have any.
  • If your kitchen has any kitchen chimney or exhaust fan then clean that out properly.
  • Remove the specks of dirt from window grills.
  • Clean the pieces of furniture completely.
  • Clean the sink using cleaning stuff.
  • Wipe the countertops using cleaning substances.
  • Clean the refrigerator and oven well.

Bedroom(s):

  • Make the beds clean and good to look at.
  • Wipe and clean the flower vases. Clean the flowers if possible.
  • Wipe all the furniture.
  • Clean the curtains.
  • Clean out the closet.

Dining area:

  • Clean and wipe the table. Sort out the glasses and plates properly.
  • Wipe the decorations.
  • If you have any wall hangings, clean those using spray cleaner.

Washroom(s):

  • Clean the floors using bleach or other cleaning stuff.
  • Clean the toilets properly and get rid of stains if there are any.
  • Fitly clean the basins and mirrors.
  • If you own a bathtub, get rid of the stains and watermarks.

Storeroom:

  • Throw away all the inessential materials.
  • Clean the walls and specks of dust.
  • Wipe all the pieces of furniture properly.

Rooftop:

  • Check the wall damages, if there are any, fix that.
  • Clean the floor.

Garage:

  • Remove all the clutters.
  • There can be repairing kinds of stuff, remove those.
  • Make the car alignment lines visible by repainting or cleaning them out.

Garden:

  • Clean the flower tubs.
  • Fill the lanes with mud to look good.
  • Implant green grasses to give more a lively look.
  • Clean the swimming pool.
  • Properly arrange the garden furniture.

What To Clean When Selling Your House?

Now that you have the checklist on how to clean out a house for sale, we would like to focus on the detailed elaboration. Let’s look at the major concerns to get help with in the cleaning.

Concern-1: Getting Rid Of The Unnecessary Things!

Let’s get straight to the point, no one will agree to buy a house that is filled with useless stuff and doesn’t have enough space. Before showing your house to the buyer you must get rid of all the useless stuff which is making your house look small.

Moreover, the buyers have nothing to do with the stuff that even you can’t use. So before showing the house to a buyer, you must throw all the unnecessary things out and make more and more space.

Concern-2: Clean The Major Attentions

Before selling your house you have to clean the main highlights of the house. That will include the living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, and so on. Make sure the floors and walls of these rooms are stain-free and mold-free as well. Give a good clean to those. It’s the most important part of cleaning your house before selling it.

Concern-3: Say Goodbye To Molds

Molds are the biggest reason for getting sick because of the home environment.  Mostly we find molds in bathrooms and kitchens or at all those places which remain wet all the time. Use bleach to get a single scratch of mold out of your house! If the mold seems to be old and stubborn, hire a professional to help you.

Concern-4: Windows, Doors, And Much More

It should be remembered that you have to clean the windows and doors heavily. Use cleaners to clean out the windows and doors. Also, don’t forget the grills as well. On the other hand, get your attention to the entry point. Wash the main gate which starts the entrance to your house.

Alongside, get the carpets and drapes out to get all the dust out of them. You have to vacuum the carpets to get the dust out of them. If possible, clean the carpets using soap and water to give those a new look.

Concern-5: The Storeroom

Another concern of yours should be the storeroom. Give a proper clean to the storeroom and all the places where you store your old and unnecessary stuff. Make those places empty yet clean. If you have furniture in the storeroom, wipe and clean those out from dirt and dust.

Concern-6: Window Hangings

We often find window hangings filled with stains, dust, and specks of dirt. That’s why before selling your house consider cleaning the window hangings properly. If those are machine washable, get those off the place and wash them properly.

Concern-7: Curtains And Blinds

As curtains and blinds are adjacent to the windows, they tend to attract more dust. So you have to give proper attention to cleaning those. Take special measures of cleaning depending on the type of curtains and blinds that you use.

Read next:
Best way to clean blinds
How to remove mold from the shower curtain

Concern-8: The Garden

You can hardly find any person who won’t be wanting to get a beautiful garden with their new house. So if you want to leave a beautiful premise for the buyer of your house then give your garden a proper clean and decorate that.

You can plant new grass to make the look of the garden greener. Besides, if you own a pool, do not forget to clean the pool water properly. The swimming pool is a major thing that buyers notice.

Concern-9: Cleaning The Water Tank

Call some professionals and get your water tank washed. This is pretty important. You should also be concerned about the pipes and other water lines. If possible then check if any of the pipes have any problems or not and then clean them or change them. Fix if there is any leakage because leakages are major drawbacks.

Concern-10: Repainting The Walls

The outer look matters a lot. So if your house has any dirty-looking walls, repaint the walls. You can hire professionals to paint all the walls altogether. It might cost a bit but it’s totally worth the cost. It will make your house more attractive to look at.

Read next: How to make your house smell good

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Does Seller clean the house?

The seller should clean the house before attempting to sell. Cleaning the house increases the possibility to sell the house. A clean house attracts more attention than an unclean one. But if the seller doesn’t want to clean the house, it won’t be that big a deal.

Should I clean my house before selling that?

Obviously, you should. You should make a list first then start cleaning the whole house including the garden and yard before handing the house over to the buyer’s hands. If you have a pet house then consider cleaning that too.

Do I have to call professional cleaners to clean the house before selling?

That’s not a must thing to do if you can manage it yourself. Actually, that depends on the size of your house and the work you have to do. So consider making a list of works which have to be done before selling the house. Then you can decide if you need helpers or you can handle the work on your own.

What should start with while cleaning the house before selling?

You should start with getting rid of unnecessary stuff. That will make a lot more space at your house and reduce half of your cleaning work. Clean the storeroom as well. Our given ways of cleaning the house-to-sell checklist will save you detailed work.

Can you leave stuff behind when you sell your house?

When you sell the house, it’s better to leave the buyer with none of your stuff. Because your things are just a burden on them. Moreover, you should clean the house and leave no dirt and dust behind while leaving the house.

Bottom Line

The biggest responsibility of a seller is to make their house neat and clean before selling. If you are going to sell your house then clean your house in your own way. The after works will be done by the seller.

We have shared our suggestions on what to clean when selling your house that covers everything. By now, you should leave a sigh of relief because now you can complete everything perfectly.

Go through the given selling house cleaning checklist, and do the tasks one by one. Another task which should be done by you before starting the cleaning is arranging helpers according to the amount of work. So among the works, whichever seems tough for you, hire a professional helper to deal with that part. This will save you a lot of time.

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