The Laundry Room: Cleaning

Cleaning the laundry room is just one of those things you are going to have to deep clean about once a month. You want your washer and dryer to continually be in good working order, and you don’t want your wash tub, faucets or even the flooring growing with mold or bacteria, so we will have to deep clean this room.

While you are wiping down the walls you can wipe down any walls hangings, doors, windows, trim work, light fixtures, and switches in this room. Keep everything dusted off and clean is going to prevent odors from sticking in your laundry room and from lingering odors from your kitchen or bathroom staying in the laundry room.

If you have a window in the laundry, you should clean the blinds, curtains, and the drapes at least every month. If they really are not that dirty, shaking the dust off them outside and hanging them on the line to freshen up will be just fine. You don’t have to take them to the dry cleaners every month, just a good dusting off is sometime all that is really needed. Shaking off the drapes is a defense in the fight against odors in the laundry room.

Hampers and laundry baskets need cleaned out and washed out every month, sometimes a little more often if you have a large family, pets, or if you take your baskets outdoors often to hang up clothes. Cleaning out the laundry basket is one defense in the fight against odors.

When you have the time, about once a month, you should move the washer and the dryer out from the wall. Picking up clothes and hangers that fell back there is going to prevent fires. Cleaning out the pet hair that gathers back there is going to put a stop to odors and it is going to be another line of defense against fires. The space behind the dryer is a static area; dust balls and all types of little fuzzy things can collect back here. Clean this area well. Be sure your washer hose is correctly put back in place before you are finished and push the appliances back to wall. 

Now that you have cleaned the walls, ceiling, door, behind the appliances, and the light fixtures you can move on to cleaning your washer and dryer. Cleaning the exterior of the washer or dryer is to get up all the dust and grime from clothes. If have clean clothes that rub over the areas where dirt is, you are back to step one in having to wash them up again. So, cleaning the exterior of your washer and dryer with a wet rag and a dry rag is needed about once a week when possible.

Inside the dryer, you will clean out the lint every time you use it. Behind the dryer filter, you will find lint gathers as well, sneaking behind the lint trap. Using your vacuum, you can sweep out this lint fast. This saves energy so your dryer is not all clogged with lint. This is also a preventative measure against fires.

If the bottom of your washer or dryer is starting to rust on the legs, you can put a piece of cardboard under each leg. While this may not be the prettiest thing, it will stop rust from forming and marking your vinyl tile, linoleum, or any other type of flooring that you have in the laundry room.

Cleaning the floor in the laundry room seems to be a big task. The more your clean, the more pet hair and dirt seems to find its way into the laundry room.. Clean your floor with a good disinfectant so that you kill any germs that were left behind by all the clothes.

Where the broom is stored is often a place where pet hair will gather just because of the static on the broom. Using an old brush or a wet towel, you can grab lots of hair and dirt out of your broom so that you do not leave it in other areas of the house.

Keep many types of deodorizers in the laundry room. Some you will use in other areas of the house, some you are going to use in the laundry room itself! Sprays, solids, and sprinkles for the floor are the most popular in every house killing odors.

All of the children’s toys that seem to make their way into the laundry room really need to be ‘put’ in the playroom, in their own rooms or outside in storage where they belong. You need to put your ‘foot down’ to keep your laundry room a laundry room and not just a catch all place for stuff in the house that no one puts away anywhere else.