 Hey, hey, hey, we are live hi there guys. I'm super excited that you've joined me I'm Angela Brown and I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina today Or we have a nice sunny day outside and many of our friends across the country are in the bitter cold and they're claiming that there's No, I hate that for you guys, but I'm so glad those those of you that are joining us did I've got Aaron Brown with me today Hey Aaron, how are you today? I am fantastic. Thank you for asking. Thanks for having me today You bet and you're in where are you today? San Antonio, Texas So yeah, not a San Antonio and I got to tell you it is a little cold here today But the weather has been pretty much in the 70s. So really yeah, wow, okay, so you guys are having an awesome winter as well I love that No complaints on this side of the world There you go. So tell us what we're covering today Yeah So really when it comes to people selling their homes Some of those things you need to look out for when it comes to cleaning and specifically deep cleaning I will tell you we have just moved into a buyer's market And that means a lot more inventory on the market and still more so than ever You're gonna need to really look at these things if you're trying to sell your home So it's it's gonna be really fun today lots of really really fun stuff to cover that will help you get your home sold in this market. I Am so glad that you allowed us to have this conversation today and that you invited me to join you because we've been working on the cleaning side of move-in move-out cleans for the last three decades and There are a lot of people that think they don't have to clean the house until actually the house is gutted And they're in the process of moving like right before The the sale goes through that's when they think oh, I should hire a house cleaner and get my house clean It happens long before that you guys and you guys are ready to put your homes on the market There are certain things you have to do if you want to sell your home And there's a difference between the money that you're gonna get for your home If it's just as is and then if you tidy it up a little bit So we're gonna talk on another episode of this about the home repairs that you're gonna do So we're not talking home repairs today today. We're only talking deep cleaning and this is deep cleaning that you can do on A budget okay, so it's a handful of small Household tools you can do these deep cleaning things and I I'm really excited that we're having this conversation because this is so important Okay, so the first thing that we're gonna jump into is The deep clean where you're gonna clean your ceiling now You're probably asking me what I gotta clean my ceiling like what's up with that Well, the reason that I bring this up is because there are a lot of people that don't realize That just because the ceiling is up there that there's stuff on it and it's true There's stuff up there. Okay, and so we have to dust the ceilings We got to wipe it down and how are we gonna do that one of my favorite tools is with a Swiffer sweeper And this is a Swiffer sweeper miss if I can get this in my screen here the Swiffer sweeper is It has a reusable cloth on it and I love these reusable cloths if you guys don't have these and you don't know about these I need to introduce you to these. These are great big cloths. They're kind of like um, I don't know They're thicker than a paper towel and they're not as thick They're not as thick as a microfiber cloth and you can just wet them and squeeze them out And you can use them again and again and again But while you're deep cleaning you're gonna need some of these now These are excellent mops that go on a Swiffer sweeper and this is what we use to sweep the ceilings with So if you haven't already I want you to consider using this to get all of the cobwebs up from the top of the room You can use this wet or dry Okay, and I'm leaving links to everything below so that you guys can access that and learn more about it If this is not something already in your toolkit But one of the reasons that I like this is because with the Swiffer sweeper it does have A 360 swivel head and so this allows you then you can use the same Swiffer sweeper different cloth To go like underneath look how flat that is that can go underneath a sofa So you can use this on the ceiling you can use it underneath the sofa You can use it all around the corners of the room you can turn it sideways and use it on the baseboards It's a really great tool that I think you're going to need for this particular project But when you when we talk about cleaning the ceilings what i'm looking for is I don't want any bugs I don't want any cobwebs. I don't want anything that is Dust that has collected because of air vents that are up at the top of the ceiling So one of the very first things Go through every room of your house and look at your house with new eyes Pretend like you're the buyer and you're as you're walking through the home Look at the ceilings because guess what that's what people look at when they walk in They're looking at the whole space like hey would my lifestyle fit in this space And so as they walk in we want to make sure that what they're seeing if they're looking at the ceilings that they're not looking at stuff that's dirty or cobwebs or bugs that have laid eggs up there or any of those things Aaron do you have any comments on that? On the ceiling before we move on with that Yeah, I have a really really big one when it comes to selling your house And that is taking the vent plate off And washing it I can tell you how important this is if you're not replacing your Filters on a regular basis like at least every three four weeks You're gonna have dust build up and here's what happens People see that dust and they think that your vents The the actual venting through the house is dirty And they will request After an inspection report that those get cleaned depending on the age of the house It can damage the actual venting if they run If if they run cleaner through it and the way that works is they run They actually run an air hose up through the vents and that air can actually break the inside of the The venting apart and so depending on the age and sometimes we get it requested and then it creates a huge problem If you would just take those vents off clean them or if there's a way to clean them Without taking them off then it looks clean your filters are clean and it doesn't become an issue down the road But for sure it's a big issue if there's dirt coming out of that vent There's dirt around that on the ceiling that's going to come up as a request And minimum you're looking at a five six hundred dollars just to get that part of the service done So it becomes a big deal quickly And that's something you guys can do yourselves So don't don't wait to do it do it before the realtor and the the home the perspective home buyer come over Candy says so true. I looked up at my bedroom ceiling and there was blood splashes from my dog who cut her ear This sounds like suddenly we're in a horror movie. I never thought to check my ceiling Candy, that's really sad story. I'm sorry that that happened But I'm glad that you've joined us today and we've got Barbara here and we have charlotte you guys This is so much fun. I've got linda here from san antonio, texas. Hey from san antonio I've got uh, the arborist's wife from sonoma county california. I've got melanie parker She says i'm afraid the popcorn ceiling is going to start to crumble and fall down any suggestions. Yes Yes, yes, yes when it comes to the popcorn ceilings if the home is older than 1970 It's possible that there is as is asbestos in the ceiling and if it's falling apart That's kind of a sign that it's not sealed And so there are tests that you can take and I don't have it in the notes right now But I will leave it after the show if you want to come visit the replay There isn't asbestos kit that you can get on line And it will just test it takes like two days to get the test back and it will say yes Your home is good. You can go ahead and clean them yourselves But with a swiffer a swiffer extender and this is a swiffer extender Uh what this is is a great big six foot extender and this reaches out so that you can reach your ceilings And it has the swiffer which is just one on each side And this is the the one that Has two heads on it and it's just like a little uh rabbit ears And there are two little sleeves and you just scooch it in like that and then you can Pivot either way and then it locks in place with this little tiny button right there So it becomes like this and you can just sweep your ceilings just like you would With just a regular a regular cleaner the thing that's cool about this is because it is the trapping lock technology If it sweeps any of those little beads from the popcorn ceiling It will trap them right here inside the swiffer duster So this is what I recommend for the popcorn ceilings because the popcorn ceilings were designed to actually be soundproof So it soundproofs your room especially for like apartment complexes Or if you're in a like a mobile home unit a lot of times those will have the popcorn ceilings So it mutes out the sound. So that's what it's designed to do But when you start to clean the ceilings and it's it's interesting because Dust catches on those little beads and yet it looks really bad If you have dust it's like from fireplace soot and it hasn't it's not coming off with the swiffer duster You can spray a bleach water combination up there and it will it will change the color of that It will kind of bleach it out If you're going to do that my recommendation is that you put maybe a drop cloth down over your furniture So that none of that leaks down you don't want anything that has bleach in it to then hit your furniture So that would be my suggestion for that Hi candy Candy says my crazy life from chicago illinois. I love it you guys We've got uh emily isaac aeriline isaac Hi angela, you're right the ceiling and the wall Yes, and high to melanie ceilings are also a great way to check for roof leaks and pipes that are in the ceiling Yes, that's true as well And so you guys are are right on the money right on the money But we have to look at the ceilings because Our home buyers are going to be looking at that as well All right, the next one is we have to clean inside our oven I don't know why but people will walk in and they'll open the oven like how big is this oven? And it's going to be a standard size oven right But people will open the microwave and they'll open the oven and this happens a lot on walkthroughs I don't know why you just don't want last night's pizza or if you made a yam pie and it oozed out over the sides You don't want that in there So most of us have clean ovens But you want to just wipe it up and tidy it up so that it looks nice in case somebody opens it up Now there's a secret that I want to share with you if I haven't already There are liners that go right inside the bottom of the oven And though they are a fiberglass liner and they're very inexpensive. You can buy them two or three in a box They're like nine or ten bucks. I will leave a note in that. I don't think I left going for you But I will leave a note to that as well But one of the things that's really cool about that is if you have company coming over You simply slide it out Dump it in the trash shake it off a little bit and put it back in the oven They're reusable and they work really really well It's a really quick easy way to get your oven looking on top of the world Especially if you have like a showing in five minutes And you want to hurry and make sure that there's not no gunk or nothing in your oven So that's a cool one Erin do you have any comments on that? um speaking about Appliances Yeah, I can tell you how many times I have been in homes with clients Where they go open that oven or they'll open the microwave. It's dirty And they turn around and say can we talk the sellers into buying a new appliance for us? Are you serious? Yeah We don't we definitely don't want this old used one Do you think that you could negotiate a new stove for us? Do you think you could negotiate a new microwave? Or do you think you could have the sellers pay for professional cleaners to come in And make sure this is all clean before we move in So oh my goodness. It's a big deal to have yams in your stove if you're showing your house Oh my goodness Oh, Emanuel says he's one of our big fans from Nigeria. Yes. Yay. We've got folks from all over the world here You guys this is so awesome. Thank you You've got Joanna and we've got care You guys i'm so happy that you joined us. This is so much fun. Thank you Charlotte says do I need a liquid cleaner for my ceiling and walls for maintenance or deep cleans? Okay, so your regular maintenance clean You're going to dust your walls on a regular maintenance clean and when you do a deep cleaning Depending on if there are spots you may want to spot treat your ceiling But I recommend that you don't just wash your ceilings if you haven't washed them And you're not a professional service because I don't want you smearing stuff And I don't want you spraying stuff up there that then has a chemical reaction If you're not trained for chemicals on your ceiling Because then it's going to look weird and spotty and the light's going to hit it from weird angles And that's going to be as weird as if you just had dirt up there Okay, so dust it dust means just remove the dust that's there keep it dry If you want to use a damp cloth you can also use water water will dry. Okay Don't be spraying chemicals up there if you don't need them and I say if you don't need them I know during the pandemic people are like, oh, we got it. We got to disinfect everything Well, no, you don't for the most part like for a ceiling We don't eat our dinner or anything on the ceiling just cleaning the dust off is going to be sufficient So for the walls and ceiling walls are vertical. They're going to get some dust on them But unless there's like a a wallpaper Dusting it should be sufficient if there are fingerprints and marks Those can be removed but like on a spot treated basis I don't want your walls to look so totally different than Another wall or another part of the wall because then people are like, what what happened? Did the wall get replaced halfway through like what what's going on here? We don't want to raise any questions that no one's asking. Okay, so That's that's my my saying on that All right, so the next one is dust I don't know if you guys can see this picture or not But there is a lot of dust that is visible in plain sight Now I know this seems like a an obvious thing But if you walk in and there's obvious dust, we got to get rid of that We got to get rid of that so that when a Person that walks through sees our home. They're not like looking at the dust because their first question is And I promise you this they're not like Oh, it's dusty. No problemo. They're like, oh wow, this house has really been neglected I wonder what else they've neglected Right. I wonder what else is that the water heater? Is it the air conditioning unit? Is it the HVAC system? Are the pipes bad? Are there leaks somewhere? I mean like if I can see the neglect What is the neglect? I can't see Right, so we don't want to raise any questions. They're not asking if it's as simple as dusting something Then by all means get a cloth and this is just a microfiber cloth We're not using any chemicals here all we're doing is a wet damp microfiber cloth We're wiping down the items in the room because here's the catch if that Whatever that is an air filter or a fan or whatever that is is sitting on a desk. That's that dusty I promise you that the item itself is that dusty. Okay, it's caught the same amount of dust So what we want to do is we want to wipe down the items and we want to wipe down the hard surfaces that they're on Whether it's a dresser whether it's a bed stand an end stand a special This is just a little folding table, but we want to wipe everything down So there are no surprises so that as people walk in our house They're looking at the room and they're looking at the space and they're not looking at what has been neglected Right, so this is not deep cleaning deep cleaning, but like with a damp cloth Literally, this is this is something easy to do. This is easy to maintain Aaron, what are your thoughts on that? Part of my job as a buyer's agent when I'm representing a buyer is to find anything in the home that I can negotiate price on And if I can find dust in the house if I can find that it's dirty neglected I'm going to make it sound so much worse than it is And so writing up that offer I will feel totally justified coming on an offer 20 30 000 under asking price because the home is neglected and so Believe me when I say we will write up a laundry list of all of these items Air vins and dust here and baseboards not being cleaned, etc To show that the home is really neglected and that it's not worth the asking price When clearly, you know, somebody could use a cloth and wipe off the table But people don't And you better believe we'll come in and negotiate far under what you've listed your house for And in a buyer's market, there's a lot of options And if it comes down to a really clean house versus a house with a laundry list of items that need to be addressed and fixed You better believe we're coming in way under ask I hate to hear that but i'm really glad that you shared that with us because for Extra sweat equity meaning I got to get my hands dirty and I got to go clean the house We can actually probably save several thousand dollars on our house just by cleaning it before somebody shows up So I mean, I hate I hate that that's the case But i'm really glad that you told us that because that's that's stuff we have control over we can we can fix that So sally says I have baked on stuck pieces of aluminum foil on the bottom of my oven tips on how to remove that Oh, I love this question So this happens a lot right people use instead of using a fiberglass liner They use tin foil or aluminum foil And then what happens is it does get caked on it gets stuck on and then what happens is it's hard to remove So in the process of that happening what I recommend is that you get something like this Now all of us professional house cleaners carry these in our aprons and on one side We have a plastic razor and on the other side we have a metal razor And so for the inside of an oven we have enamel so we don't want to use the metal razor because that's going to Scratch the oven and we don't want to scratch the element off So what we're going to use is the plastic razor type. Okay, so the cool part about this is At the bottom of your oven and your oven is Well, let me ask you this Have you ever had stuck on gunk on a pot or a pan? And what do we do? We put a little bit of dish soap on it and we soak it for a couple of hours until it all loosens up and then We scrub it off right so the bottom of the oven has a little dip in it It's probably about this big you can probably put like a cup or a cup and a half Of hot soapy dish water at the bottom of your oven and you may want to take a rolled up towel And line it underneath like the seam of the door just in case if it starts to leak forward to the door It will run into the bath towel and it will absorb that But soak the bottom wherever that aluminum foil is and just let it soak for about an hour Okay, just like you were soaking a pot or a pan and it's going to loosen up a little bit Then you come in with a plastic razor and you just scratch it off It comes right off, but it has to soak first. Okay. It's been cooked on it. What three four five hundred degrees So it's cooked on and at first glance it's not coming off. It's like stuck there forever So soak it like you would a pot or a pan And then just scratch it off and scratch it off with the plastic razor not the metal one Okay, we do not want to scratch the enamel then then Once you have the bottom cleaned off. That's when you want to put the fiberglass liners in there And that way the next time you come back to To do this you don't have baked on aluminum foil because if like if you're making a blueberry pie and the blueberry oozes out And it gets on there It's going to cook right through that aluminum foil and it is going to get stuck It's going to be very hard to clean so and you don't want that especially if you're trying to sell your home So anyway, could you could you please provide a link for those cleaners? I would love to get those for my clients That would be yeah I will I will as soon as this is over I know some of my team members have already left for the day And so I don't have those links with me But I will add those to the show notes as soon as we're done here I've already added a few of the stuff that we're talking about already But i'm going to add the razors as well because I don't have the razors there And a quick a quick question for somebody who doesn't clean ovens often Is it okay to pour liquid in an oven with it being plugged in? Yes, you can leave it with a plugged in but you don't want it turned on you don't want the heat on Now a lot of a lot of oven cleaners will say oh do this at 200 degrees and that doesn't make sense to me at all Okay, because an aerosol can we'll say right on the can even an oven cleaner can says do not use around heat Okay, so there's I will leave links to my favorite oven cleaner below And it is it is one that you spray cold Okay, don't don't be spraying it when the oven is hot because you're asking for a fire or a combustion of some sort And I don't want there to be any combustions unnecessarily. This is that's not how we do okay All right, so nancy. Oh my goodness nancy's from new zealand from from zealand michigan And we have you guys this is awesome. Somebody says I got to clean my microwave as soon as possible Barbara says mine slides under the heating element on the bottom of the oven. Okay, cool awesome And uh, is this renais? This is good afternoon from paris ontario. You guys this is so cool. We got people from all over I'm super excited that you guys joined me. Hi, angela. I just found you I worked as a property manager for a thousand units Is that a thousand units? Oh my goodness. You got your work cut out for you retired now and feel like The show yeah, I'm telling you a thousand units. My goodness. I can only imagine what you must have gone through Susan says I vacuum and dust one day than the next morning. They're dust kittens. Yes. Yes. Yes I'll tell you what as soon as you dust dust is coming back And so what erin was saying about before cleaning your air filters What is also important is to clean the air that replace the air filters themselves that are inside those vents Because if we don't Stuff's blowing in and out and I know the vents are meant to catch stuff But if you have vents that haven't been replaced in a while Um, it's going to blow more out than it's actually catching So make sure that you replace those especially if your house is on the market and you're showing it Replace those every 30 days Now typically we say if you have a really high mirv rating And that's a thicker one that catches more stuff If you have a higher mirv rating Air filter you might only have to replace it every two months or every three months But if you have pets and it's catching a lot of pet hair or if you have a lot of dust in your house Especially if you live in a dust Favorite area like maybe utah or vegas where there's lots of sand and there's lots of dust And you don't have like the trees to block that when you open your front door You've got dust blowing in for no good reason, right? It's just it's just there And then also during the spring and summer like if you're in the caroline is where I live We are just Caught up by by pollen in the spring. So come march april may june We've got a lot of pollen you open your door and all of a sudden there's this Coat of green all over your furniture and your Remote controls and it's it gets stuck in your vents and it doesn't let that dust through So you got to replace the air filters even more often. So I love that question. That was fantastic Do you have any questions or comments on that erin? on the air filters Just that most people believe that they only have one air filter in their house And most homes have at least three or four So make sure you know where those air filters are make sure you keep them replaced It is a really simple thing to do. They're very inexpensive But neglect to do it and now we need the ac service and clean two different services Here in texas minimum five hundred fifty bucks to have a service and cleaning done It will happen during the cell of your home If there is any speculation that there is dirt in the system And it was the seller get to pay for that 99 percent of the time So if you're the seller do it do it right up front and avoid the extra costs, right? 100 percent It's so easy to go put new filters in just replace the filters wash wash the ducts And you're gonna have such a different experience right off the bat There you go. Hi debbie and mildred. We've got eileen. You guys. It's so awesome to see you here Thanks so much for joining us. We've got susie You guys this is uh, this is really great Susie says how to clean and display the display bricks of the fireplace That's really an excellent question and I don't have the brush with me But the brush is going to be a soft bristled brush Think of the the brush that goes inside the dust pan that you brush stuff up with That's the brush that you use It's a really soft bristled brush and you're going to brush all of the dust off of all of the bricks Because you can't use a swiffer duster, which is something like this And we use this a lot in dusting but because of the fibers if you use this on brick This is going to get caught in the brick, right? And so instead of this dusting your brick you're just going to have a bigger mess to clean up So we want to avoid things like this and use like a soft bristled brush Which it's just going to brush the dust off and if you want you can hold the dust pan right there And brush the dust right into the dust pan you can brush it off onto the floor There's no trap and lock technology with the brush So the dust is going somewhere and you want to make sure that you have a vacuum nearby so that you can vacuum that up when you're done But I love the question about the fireplace because they do get dusty and they do get sooty So that was a really great question. All right our next item the toilets I know that this is a topic for regular basic cleaning, but it's also a topic for deep cleaning So if the realtor calls and says someone's coming over right now They're going to be in your bathroom And here's the reason why the bathroom is one of the most used rooms of the house in every house And so people spend a good hour a day inside the bathrooms And this is to get up in the morning to get dressed. They put on their makeup. They shave They do their hair. They do whatever they do take a shower Hang out get ready for bed get dressed in the morning Whatever it is but people spend a total of about an hour a day in the bathroom So believe it or not when they come into your bathroom to look around They're looking at is this going to be my new safe space for an hour a day And if they walk in and there's gunk we'll just call it gunk if there's gunk on your toilet Please don't please don't like lift up the seat of the toilet clean under the seat clean around the rim clean Underneath the rim Make sure that your toilet is clean so that as they walk in the first thing that they're seeing is like the room itself Right. It's the ambiance of the room the first thing that you want them to see is not an icky toilet Because they're gonna go. Oh, this is so gross and they're gonna like bolt, right? We don't again. We don't want to raise any flags and ask any questions that no one's asking We don't want to make them go. Well, wait a second if there's gunk all over the toilet Is there also gunk on the wall behind the toilet? Is there gunk also on the floor? Is there gunk like? How far does this go right? We don't we don't want that We want to just eliminate that by having a really nice clean toilet and i'll share a secret with you Even though it's your house if you got a call and the realtor says hey, we're 10 minutes out Fold the toilet paper into a triangle We we see this a lot when we go into hotels And the first thing that we see is like oh look they were prepared for us like they got it already for us Right, so it's nothing more than wipe the toilet really fast and for this I would encourage you that you keep like a roll of paper towels and some spray underneath the bathroom sink So in a quick fix you can go ahead and wipe the toilet seat down and I don't recommend that you always use paper towels for the vanity But in a pinch like you got just a minute You're not going to have time to run to the other room and go grab your microfiber claws and all this stuff If you've got just a couple minutes and they're on their way over right now Use a paper towel but spray it wipe down the faucet handles get the splashes off the mirror Get the toothpaste off the mirror wipe down the vanity and make sure that it's presentable Because you don't want somebody that doesn't know your bathroom We call it clutter blindness where we've got like stuff in our house, but it's our stuff So it's cool. It's not cool to a perfect stranger. They're gonna walk it and go That's so gross We don't want that right we want them to come in and go Oh my gosh, I could totally see myself getting dressed here in the morning I like this bathroom. This has a nice feel to it. This is a great ambiance And so for that I like to keep inside my bathroom a little night light And so even if I'm turning out the lights and I know realtors a lot of times We'll turn on all the lights and make it really bright But if you are showing the house and all the lights are not on yet At least have a little night light in there So their first approach is like, oh, this is so cozy and this looks so nice Then when they turn the lights on of course, it's nice and clean and I totally could see myself in here Right and they're looking around and it's just beautiful what they see Any comments on that so far? Yeah a couple for sure People have this notion that no one is going to use their restroom While they're there on a showing I'll most a hundred percent of the time someone is going to use your guest restroom They're going to use it a hundred percent of the time almost a hundred percent of the time even if we're looking at multiple homes That they're good so either we're out with families they have kids We're out with an elderly couple that need to use the bathroom every 10 minutes Whatever it is you almost every time you go into a home Somebody's going to be using that guest bathroom Please have some toilet paper Please have the water on because that The bathroom is going to get used. I can't tell you how many homes I've walked in And somebody's come out of the bathroom and said hey, I'm really sorry My daughter just used the bathroom and there's no water Yeah, and so you as the realtor are like trying to figure out how to take care of a payload in somebody else's restroom Before your next showing and you like it puts us in that situation on a daily basis Especially people that have just moved out of their home into their new one Their home is still on the market and they've decided that it's okay to turn the water off or the power Or to take the toilet paper out of the bathroom and so please from a realtor perspective You know then I'm going down like to the gas station or to the neighbors and trying to find a bucket and a hose And figuring out how to flush the toilet and I'm 15 more minutes at the house Trying to figure out how to flush the toilet Or even worse you come into the home The last showing didn't flush the toilet and the whole house smells And you're going what is going on and your clients can't wait to leave Because the water wasn't left on or the sanitary products weren't there to accommodate someone And it happens every day in real estate. So please Have your bathroom prepared your guest bathroom prepared for people to come in and use I'm really glad that you brought that up and from the house cleaners perspective I want to jump in here as well because you just hit a really big hot button with me So many People that do move and this this is a different conversation really about the move out clean But they do think oh, I don't need my power and my electricity because I'll just transfer those accounts to my new house If you've moved into the new house already you have two accounts You have the old account and the new account until You've sold your old home. Here's the reason why every time a cleaner comes to your house They can't vacuum if there's no electricity And they can't clean up like if they put soapy water on something There's no way to clean it up if there's no water And so if there's a scenario like the one erin just mentioned where someone has Maybe used the toilet and the toilet was left in an unsanitary situation And heaven forbid they should leave gunk all over the seat and or the floor or whatever There's no way to clean it up if you don't have some water And there are so many house cleaners that contact me on a daily daily basis and they're like, what do I do? There's no water and there's no electricity And I'm like that should be in your contract if there's no water and there's no electricity How on earth are you supposed to clean a house? And you know how we like to leave vacuum lines? So it looks like hey, this is really awesome Nobody's been here go ahead and walk in on this awesome carpet. You can't do any of that Let alone pick up dead bugs or anything that's happened since the owners have moved So please electricity and power. I'm really glad you brought that up, erin also on on the inspection The inspector cannot test your appliances They can't test the outlets and they certainly can't test the water So during an inspection when you're going to sell your home, they're going to request And then you get to pay for an inspector to come back out Which is usually another hundred and fifty dollars to reschedule to come back out and that Is put back on the sellers because the buyer doesn't want to pay for the inspector to come out twice When the power and utilities should have been left on So please it's very inexpensive. No one will be in the house It's very inexpensive to leave them on for the month that you're out of it Wow, I have to say hi to rachel rose. She's from england and she often jumps in on our youtube channel And she's very supportive and I just I just love having you guys here because you guys have you make my day every time I see you in my feed. I'm like, yes, I have friends. This is awesome And we have uh in quiz. I'm not sure how I say this from the cali coast So this is really awesome. And I just really appreciate you guys being here. This is so much fun I've got kr here. This is sure. I wish my landlord would have watched some of your videos This place was filthy when I moved in I'm so sorry about that. I hate it when that happens. That's not fair for you guys and I hate that Helen says is a steam cleaning good for cleaning or use non-chemical products I love this question And I'm not sure if we're talking about still the oven or if we're talking about other areas of the home But if you're deep cleaning your home and you have an option to use steam, please use steam Here's the thing a lot of times people will use cleaning chemicals And then they use them and use them and use them like oh, I got five showings this week So let me hurry and spray like five times Please don't because that's chemical on top of chemical on top of chemical And we've literally had people that will come in and they're like And it's it's overpowering So there are people with really strong chemical sensitivities and a cleaning company a professional cleaning company often they will use Like non-scented chemicals For that very reason it bugs out your eyes and it hurts your respiratory system and your nose and your eyes will clog up And you don't want someone coming into a beautifully clean home that for all intents and purposes You've cleaned all the cat hair. You've cleaned all the vents. You've dusted everything your house looks amazing And then just the smell drives them bonkers. Please don't do that. Again. It's it's really a sensitivity with most I say most with a lot of people It's it's a big issue Um, so yeah, I want to pay attention to that um The next thing The front some of your kitchen cabinets. This is a really really really big important thing and for the reason that um, for example, people have uh, these pull out garbage cans that are hidden inside the cupboards But when they're pulling them out oftentimes they're pulling them out because Um, they have I don't know they've cracked an egg or something and they're going to throw it in the garbage can So they open the garbage can with one hand and then as they crack the egg the egg dribbles all the way down The cupboard and it's on the front of the cupboard and they throw the the egg away And this happens a lot with just cooking it would be stuff on their fingers And then they open the cabinet doors or the cupboard doors And there's like gunk stuck on the cupboards and around the cupboards and while it might not look dirty If you hit it from a different angle in a different light You can see all this gunk on the fronts of the cupboards and stuff that's dribbled down the side And you really need to stop and just clean it down Now what we're seeing in this picture is an electric drill I didn't leave this in the notes, but I will put it after this is over Um, because i'm a really big fan of it if you're not like in this kitchen this kitchen that i'm showing you right now There are 79 cabinet fronts Okay, and so every one of these has to be cleaned before somebody comes over And once you've done it you're going to try to keep it clean You know during the showing process, but clean it up and the electric drill. These are little like scrub brushes It's a little drill bit that goes right inside an electric brush And so this way you can use an electric drill and no lie You can have the whole 79 cabinets done in about an hour. It takes about an hour to do 79 But that's all the drawers the silverware drawer It's all the kitchen cabinets that are by the stove that are Everywhere and that way when people walk in they just gleam and it's like wow welcome to my kitchen, right? Again, we don't want people asking questions that don't Don't need to be asked So we just want them to come in and go oh wow, this is a really cool kitchen I totally see myself making big meals in here. We don't want them to walk in and go There's like gunk on every one of these cupboards and stuff dribbled down the sides Not cool, right? So just just a small cloth And you can use a non-scratch scrub sponge in some warm dish water Or you can use like murphy's oil and a scrub brush this particular scrub brush was designed for kitchen cabinets But it's so easy to do. Please don't neglect this one. This is a really big one And I know a lot of cleaning services don't offer that as a service Except for an upsell package and so lots of cleaning services you pay extra and they're not going to clean your whole house But they'll come in and they'll do just your cabinets. So if you don't want to do it yourself hire somebody to do it But please don't skip that step all right Our next one the bathroom vanities. This is a really really big one I know that like we've already talked about the bathrooms a couple of times This is a really big issue for the fact that everything that's sitting on top of your bathroom vanity Has toothpaste on it. It has soap. It has whatever it was lotions Dyes, whatever it was you were touching while you got dressed. It might have makeup on it There's just a bunch of stuff that we transfer from our hands to the stuff that's sitting on our bathroom counter And again when people walk in we want them to go. Oh, yeah, I see myself in here We don't want them to go and go. Well, look there's toothpaste everywhere and there's gunk and I see makeup You know stuck on stuff Don't do that. Okay. So it's going to be your mirror It's going to be all of the stuff that's on the vanity and it's going to be all the stuff under the vanity I can't tell you how many homes that have been shown where people walk in and just at a glance as you're walking in You see it from a distance and you're seeing just a layer of dust But all the stuff on top is the stuff that we use every day You got to move that stuff You got to wipe underneath it wipe the bottles down and put them back I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but you can do it very inexpensively And if you're using a cloth like the one that I mentioned just get it wet hot water It doesn't need any chemicals on it whatsoever. Just hot water wipe everything down wipe down every Toothpaste toothpaste holder toothbrush Wipe down the the stuff that holds your razors if it's a little container If it's a container of soap if it's mouthwash if it's shaving gel It doesn't matter what it is hairspray if it's hydrogen peroxide. I don't care What's on your counter but wipe it down with a damp cloth move it and wipe underneath it so that it's Whatever's there is like neatly stacked like arrange it so it's neatly stacked But wipe underneath it so when people walk in they're not like, ah, that's so gross Erin you're laughing. Why are you laughing at me? Just because I've run into this daily Even something as hair around the faucets It grosses people out and it will turn a buyer off so quickly If you have in your mind that Airbnb It's kind of thought when it comes to your bathroom and that your home is a product while it's being sold It's just an easier approach You're going to put those things on the counter that look really nice that you're not going to use on a day to day basis And keep that stuff under the sink in a box You'll pull it out use it put it back in the box put it back under the sink It looks like an Airbnb people walk in they see themselves at home right away Um, as soon as they see hair in the sink or around the the faucets, they're like, oh gross This is so gross and they want to leave And it's so simple So I don't know why the hair gets people I've been cleaning houses for a long time. I've seen a lot of hair And I have a lot of hair of my own like when I comb my hair a lot of hair comes out or whatever But if I even see my husband and he's like shaved and there's hair in the sink He's my husband, right? I mean, I love him no matter what but I see in the sink and I'm like, oh, that's so gross And I don't mean to be like that. But I mean, I'm the cleaner, right? I'm the one who gets to clean that kind of stuff and I see that and even though he's my husband. I still see it I'm like It's awful, especially if there's like toothpaste stuck in it and stuff like that this from the sink that This is gross. Okay enough of the grossness. Uh, Julie from Tallahassee, florida. Hey, how you doing? I'm super excited. She's been cleaning professionally since 2002 Julie, I'm gonna give you a happy bell. This is my happy bell happy bell for the cleaning I promise you've seen most if not everything we're talking about today That's a long time to be cleaning that speaks volumes about your business way to go girl Um, and Susie says thumbs up for the reminder Rachel rose says I often light a little tea light in the bathroom Especially after my husband has used the bathroom and it takes the smell away. That's a great tip. Thanks for that Um, lots of comments here from you guys. Thanks so much for joining us. This is just really awesome My husband uses his to mix our cake batter our official blender broke, but we still have one spinning I don't know what that's about, but I hope we're not talking about the bathroom on that one That was about the kitchen hit the kitchen cabinets. Oh, I'm so glad. I was thinking oh, oh dear Charlotte's husband is in the bathroom making cakes. Not cool. That is not cool. Charlotte. Don't do that All righty, um our next one Um behind the toilet again in the bathroom this I cannot say enough about this Behind the toilet There will always be stuff. Okay. There's a little hose that goes behind the toilet And it connects the water to the toilet itself And there's a lot of dust and we call it toilet paper dust So if your toilet paper is near the toilet when you rip the toilet paper off the the toilet paper roll There's toilet paper dust that goes floating away. Okay Now if anybody left any gunk on the toilet around the toilet around the wall The toilet paper dust sticks and it becomes like a magnet So now you have icky gunk plus toilet paper dust on the little faucet the little turn knob That hose that goes up to the toilet and then anything behind your toilet Whether it's like a toilet bowl cleaner Whether it is a toilet brush Whether it's a plunger if you have a little garbage can or heaven forbid There is a little basket of books or whatever it is you do next to the toilet Some people have all kinds of stuff. I'm like why is this here? But it has gunk plus toilet paper dust on it So there is a time and you are going to be down on your hands and knees I've never figured out a way to actually get it clean unless you actually get down there You got to get down on your hands and knees. I don't care if you take a cloth and you put it on the floor so you can kneel on it I don't care how you do it But you have to get around the toilet bowl. You have to get the floor beside the toilet You have to get the walls and the baseboard around the toilet area And you have to you have to clean all of that up And you have to do that every single time before they show your house every single time So my suggestion is every day when you get up at the top of the day Take a look and say is there anything here that needs to just be wiped down? Do it so that in a pinch if the phone rings and they say we're on our way over You're not stopping scrambling trying to like wipe down the toilet and wipe down the area behind the toilet Okay, this is a deep cleaning thing. It's very inexpensive to do, but it must be done every single day Okay, it must be done if you're showing your house There's no forgiveness if you have toilet paper dust and gunk behind and around the floorboards of your toilet And like Aaron just said in a in a very bold move that a hundred percent of the time people are going to use your toilet If that's true, we want them we want them to have the most In the world of marketing. We call it the best user experience, right? We want to create that for our new homeowners that are going to buy our home and spend all the money Right, so we're you guys can also ask your agent for a checklist We have a couple of checklists. We have a make ready checklist for your home And then we have a get ready checklist the get ready checklist is he I've got a showing coming over What are the top five things I need to go do right now? And so you can always ask your realtor for that and then also ask your realtor to give you an hour of warning On your showings So at least you have a few minutes to grab that list and and make those arrangements unless You do that in the morning before work and then you leave the house and it's already done for the day Right. Thank you for mentioning that. That's awesome. Um, and great great tips There's another one that I want to share with you Um, and this is you got to clean underneath all of the stuff now We typically don't do this on a maintenance clean This is more of a deep cleaning thing and if you hire a professional house cleaner They're also going to do this on a deep clean and what they're doing is they're taking something And they're going to go underneath your sofas and they're going to go underneath your end tables And they're going to go behind your couch and here's the reason why If i'm standing across the room I can actually see not completely under the sofas But I can see a good bit and if there's dust and gunk under there or if there are dog toys If there's dog hair I can see that okay So we want to make sure that we have some kind of a tool that we can get that Now I want to share with you one of my favorite tools That we use a lot in homes and this is Uh, a silicone rake. This is called a pet rake and I do have links to this below on the other side of it is a squeegee Okay, so if you have cat and dog hair and this is flat and it extends Okay, so I can make this I can extend this to be much longer and it will then go underneath Uh sofa it will go underneath bookshelves It will go underneath like a wine rack or a china hutch or any of those things, okay What we're going to do is we're going to rake All of the dog hair all of the cat hair and if we have a hardwood floor We're going to use the squeegee part of it We're going to squeegee all of that out to the front so that it's not hiding underneath because here's the catch if The air kicks on and we can't see it and it kicks on it's going to blow that all over the house So even though the house looked clean When the new perspective buyer and the realtor show up What they're seeing now is they're seeing like dog and cat hair all over and they're like man This house is a mess You want to scoop all of that to the front and then you want to sweep it up and put it inside the trash Okay, so the silicone rake works wonders if you have lots of dogs and cats or maybe a couple but lots of hair This is a great rake for the carpet. You can use this on oriental rugs You can use it on berbera carpet. It doesn't work so well on shag Just because the shag is a a higher pile of carpet You're going to need a vacuum for that But for any kind of a rug like the front door mat the entrance mat the back door mat If you have a mud room any room of your house that has hardwood floor You can just scoop it up It'll come up in a great big pile and you scoop it up with a dust pan or in your hands If you have like uh latex or nitrile gloves on you just scoop that right up and put it inside the trash can And that works wonders as a quick pickup So it's a favorite rake of mine for so many reasons But I love it because it goes underneath the sofas and it goes underneath the chairs and it goes underneath all of the heavy Furniture that is like two or three inches off the floor So I recommend that as well just because you never know When the air is going to kick on and it's going to blow stuff that you can't see around the room And I hate it again Aaron made the comment about hair Even if it's your own pet and these these the homeowners might have pets But if they come in and they see someone else's pet hair they could go in your groves. That's so awful All right, mary says do you mean handy wipes to clean the ceiling? Uh handy wipes can work. I know that uh centiva makes a handy wipe And I'll make myself big here so you can see this This is a handy wipe that uh chlorox came out with I believe during the pandemic That also fits on top of the swiffer sweeper So you can use these these go right over the top of this. They're the same size And this is just pinned in if you guys have seen the swiffer sweepers. It just has these little tiny Little things like this and you just poke them in there with your finger and it holds them in place So you can either use these reusable wipes or you can also use the disinfecting wipes that are made by chlorox Now swiffer does have their own version of those pads and they don't stay wet very long So if you're if you're going to use them for like a whole house, for example I do recommend using the and I point over here like they're over here Um, I do recommend using the ones that are are wettable And then you can wet them and they stay wet for a much longer period of time rinse them out You can use them again. These have lots of different You can fold it three or four or five times because they're big And so There you go So you can fold it in half and half again and then put this on flip it over use the other side that hasn't been Contaminated yet before you rinse it off and squeeze it out So you can get a lot of uses out of it and a lot further around the house without drying out So I do recommend that so the handy wipes reusable wipes Whatever you want to call them, but there there are lots of options The the secret is that you have something that you can use for the ceilings And we also use I point over here again like they're over there You can use them for the ceiling and also underneath the sofas because that also fits You guys are saying some very kind stuff over here. Thank you so much She's a rock star and i'm using her to help teach my teenage son how to clean properly Thank you you guys you guys just made my day. Yay. I'm super excited All right, let me uh move on here because we have we've got lots of of stuff that I want to cover here And we're running out of time. I hate that. We're running out of time. I've got so much going on We want to clean the ceilings and this is recessed lighting We talked a little bit about cleaning the ceilings It is super important that you have the right tools and one of the right tools in order to do this properly Is the swiffer duster now I use the swiffer duster for most everything Okay, this is this they say they're going to bury me with one of these in my back pocket Because I use it all the time But the recessed lighting this is true for all the lighting that's in our home We want to turn the lights off when we do this and you'll see this is kind of a dim picture It's because the lights are off if by any chance you go after a cobweb And you have this in your hand if the light is on the filaments on this are going to burn the swiffer duster It's going to start to smoke. It's going to smell bad and it's going to stick to your light Now if you're careful, that's all that happens if you're not careful It's going to bust a bulb and you don't want to bust a recessed light bulb before a realtor comes over Because then they're going to go. Hey, how come there are no lights in the house, right? So you want to make sure that they're able to turn on all the lights and it creates that bright airy Feeling but you want to make sure that there's no dust on those lights and that there are no cobwebs So before they come over make sure that you clean those lights now next to cleaning the lights And while i'm already up on a chair On the the ladder and i'm up on a step ladder I want to get the top of the refrigerator and still using this swiffer duster what you cannot see in this in this image Because it would be easy to assume that nobody can see on top of the fridge You do not know how tall the people are if they're six five They're going to be able to look right on top of your fridge with their own bare eyes But coming down the stairs there's a stairway right coming down looking right on the top of this refrigerator So you don't want somebody coming down the stairs going this is such a beautiful house Oh, but they've neglected the top of their fridge, right? So while you're on that step ladder get everything within within site you want to get the recess lighting You want to get the tops of the cupboards you want to get the top of the refrigerator Make sure that that's nice and clean doesn't cost you anything to do that But I have Aaron here telling me he's going to try to raise the price if i'm the seller and he's working for the buyer He's going to try to get more money out of me by saying Oh, you need a whole service to come in. Surely that's going to cost a lot of money Let's deduct that from the price of the house. Okay, we don't want that We love Aaron, but we don't love his antics if we're selling the house and he's the buyer Also your heisy personalities will usually walk along touch the tops of door frames The tops of cabinets and the top of the fridge if they can pick up dust they're grossed out. They want to leave I know that's only one personality type, but we get it a lot Wow Yeah, it's it's unfortunate and it happens a lot so ick All right. I do want to share this with you We call these ridges ridges are on the sides of the staircase Most people are great about keeping their staircases clean But those little ridges that are on the outside of the staircase pick up a lot of dust And when a home buyer walks in from any time of the day and we don't know what time of the day they're coming We might go to work every day at the same time and it looks clean to us But when the sun hits it from a different angle and they come in at 10 or 11 o'clock in the day and we're at work What happens is they're seeing all this dust on the outsides and it looks like we skipped our cleaning So we don't want to do that at all. We want to make sure that the outside ridges are clean all the way down the stairs It's a little tiny thing, but it makes a huge difference Also, if you have like a hidden handrail the handrail turns if your stair curves Make sure you get all the way around the handrails because We've gone into homes where the whole handrail is perfectly clean except where the ridges are and there'll be like cakes of dust Where somebody just skipped that and you can't see it Because there's not really great lighting in this stairwell But when it the the sun hits it from a different angle it looks nasty So you want to make sure that you get the whole area and the side rails of the ridges of the stairs Small thing makes a huge difference All right, then the next one plants plants are a really big thing We like to have plants in the room because it brightens up the room and it adds some color But if those plants are dusty, it's nasty and so we got to grab the swiffer duster The swiffer duster is easy to do if you're doing a plant like this And this is a huge plant in the side of the kitchen. There's lots of sun coming in from every angle It's going to hit all this dust. Okay, so you're going to see it from every angle What we're going to do is we're going to start at the we're going to hold with our hand We're going to hold the bottom of the the plant. We're going to hold it down We're going to grab the swiffer duster with the other hand and we're going to bring the dust Like dusting down with the grain of the plant that way We're going to dust it because we don't have time in most cases to take this great big plant outdoors and hose it down If you did, that's how you would do it. You would haul the plant outside And this is as tall as the room So it's going to take two or three people if you have the chance to do that great You'll put a garbage bag around the base of the plant and then you'll hose the plant down and get all that dust off If you don't have the luxury of doing that you can use a swiffer duster because of the trap and lock technology Make sure you go over every one of the strands. Here's a secret. You can also do this with real plants So if you have plants that have like little fuzz that falls off or that bleeds You can dust that off the leaves with just a regular duster because if you vacuum them off It's going to grab the leaves and suck them into your vacuum and then it's going to Break your plant so you got to be gentle with it But you can do it with just a swiffer duster So you don't have to do this every day But if your house is on the market just do a walkthrough and just look like once a week like hey How are my plants doing is there any dust? Are there any leaves or anything that are dead? Anything that needs to just be removed so that my plants look nice again and use are friendly for that experience We we don't want dead looking plants or droopy leaves or dust or any of those things All right a couple things this this goes without saying but the blinds are a big one The blinds will be open most likely because for every realtor that I've ever met and I'm sure erin is no different But for every realtor that I've ever met the secret is with light And so we want to open all the windows and turn on all the lights and make it look as bright and as happy as we can And if you open all the windows you're going to see all the dust on all the blinds if there is dust And so again, this is something you yourself can do. It doesn't cost a lot of money Swiffer duster once you have one you can use it for all the different surfaces in your home But go over all of the blinds and remove all of the dust now if you cook a lot of bacon or Fry things in your house. There's going to be gunk on those blinds And this is one of those times where I'm going to say this is worth the clean Okay, either hire a professional to do it or take the time and do it yourself But you're going to want to get a good degreaser and a wet cloth You're going to want to spray your cloth and you're going to want to wipe down every area on both sides of those blinds Because if the windows are open and there's like a green orange Caked gunk grease and then it's caught the dust that's come through the air It's going to look nasty and that that is one of the biggest turnoffs So that's that's not going to help you in any way And even though you could replace all the blinds in the house You're probably going to be asked to do that before you sell your home And if you have 55 windows in your house that gets really expensive really fast So even though it's going to take some time this one's not going to be easy if you've got grease on your blinds Stop and clean your blinds and then from now through the end of the showing Do not cook any grease in your house. Don't make any sausages. Don't cook any bacon Don't be frying up chickens and all that stuff Just just be eating whole foods and go on keto or something until you sell your house Erin's laughing at me I'm not kidding because the grease builds up really quickly and also gets on the cabinet fronts And it gets on the plants and it gets everywhere and it gets nasty So if you're showing your home go on go on go on a health diet And don't be cooking that stuff during that time that you cleaned to the time that you sell your home And I promise you that will save you a boatload of money All right, erin we are out of time. Do you have anything that you want to you want to share with us before we wrap up here? I appreciate all of you today amazing questions. This was a lot of fun and I can't wait to do this again I I have so many comments here that I did not get to answer you guys. I'm so sorry and we have 23 tips We only got through about 13 of them So I'm going to leave links after this is over with a list of all of the slides that we had So that you guys can go through and you guys can get the rest of the tips that we didn't cover I talked too much. I'm so sorry I'm super glad that you guys are here And I'm going to respond to all of your questions as soon as we're done here So that I I can honor the fact that you guys showed up here today I just I just had so much fun This is a 12 part series that we're doing on how to get your home ready to put on the market So we'll be back again next thursday same time same place. We would love for you guys to join us again But for today, this is it. I had so much fun with you guys. Thank you and erin. Thank you so much for joining us Likewise, thank you guys