Even if you spend hours washing the floor, dusting furniture, and vacuuming the nooks and crannies around your home, your home isn’t really clean until you attend to the grime, dust, and pet hair that has accumulated on the baseboards. Cleaning the trim around the floors in your home should be done at least seasonally. Because vacuuming, mopping, and other household chores stir up dust, you’ll want to save the baseboards for last if you don’t want to clean your baseboards twice.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
For a lighter cleaning, there’s no need to move furniture, but be sure to check for visible grime wherever the baseboard heads behind a piece of furniture. If you can see the dirt, everyone else can too.
Begin the process by removing as much dust and dirt as you can from the area. If your vacuum has a brush attachment, use it to suction along the length of the baseboards. Pay special attention to the crevice where the trim meets the floor. In lieu of a vacuum, you can rely on a duster or dust rag to do a decent job of freeing up debris, which you can then corral and remove with a broom and dustpan.
We use QuickBooks daily in our rental property business!
It’s used to invoice tenants for their rent, track expenses by property and unit number, and our tax advisor can log on anytime to get information he needs for processing taxes or analyzing our data for goal setting meetings!
QuickBooks is the #1 accounting software for small businesses, and today you can take advantage of 30% off your first 6 months of QuickBooks Online using our exclusive Business Affiliate link.
Once you’ve removed all loose dirt and dust, you can begin to address stains and stuck-on grime. (Particularly in the kitchen, baseboards are the notorious hosts of unidentifiable splatters.)
Dip a sponge or rag into a mixture of warm water and dish soap (vinegar works well too), then go about scrubbing any marks that you can find. Alternatively, consider using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. If you’re in a hurry, you can just run a baby wipe over the trim. Note that if the baseboards are stained, not painted, it may be better to use a cleaning solution formulated specifically for that application.
We know a good trick to cleaning baseboards in those hard-to-reach-spots, like the crevice between the trim and flooring. Just grab a cotton swab from the bathroom and dip it in the cleaning solution, gently wiping away the dirt. The swab is small enough to fit into those tight spaces and corners, and absorbent enough for cleaning. A toothbrush can also come in handy for getting gunk out of crevices and corners, and it’s particularly good at loosening dirt stuck to the caulk.
Once the baseboards are clean, here’s how to keep them dust- and hair-free: Rub them with a dryer sheet. Not only will this leave a fresh scent that lasts a few days, but the sheet’s antistatic properties also repel dust.
Even if your baseboards are so grimy that you’re tempted to tear them out and replace them at any cost, there’s really no need for such drastic measures. While cleaning baseboards isn’t the most enjoyable task, with the tools mentioned above plus a little elbow grease, your trim will look as good as new.
Article provided by Bob Vila and Gretchen Heber
Did you enjoy this article?
This is an example of what is included on our FREE weekly newsletter, Landlord Weekly.
Subscribers get access to our free forms, email templates, and guides! As well as…
▪️Landlord Tips ▪️ Early Access to Our Blogs ▪️ Landlord Specific Articles by Other Industry Pro’s ▪️ Podcast Links
To check out a sample of our newsletter, click one of the links below👇
By Ryan Squires When setting the rental rate for a rental property or looking…
October 29, 2024Provided by Avail Knowing how to be a good landlord requires extensive knowledge of renting…
October 29, 2024