Organizing Your Home Before You Go On Vacation
When vacation time arrives, many of us start to look forward to a trip away to some exotic destination that can help us to switch off from the real world for a few weeks. However, it’s always good to get your home organized before you go on vacation so that you can leave everything perfect.
We’ve all been there: our minds are so preoccupied with our upcoming trip and we leave the house in such a rush that we’re not even aware of the state we’ve left our homes in. Disorder, dirt, clutter, lights left on… You name it!
We all know that coming back to reality after a long vacation can be tough. But returning home to a clean and tidy house can make it that little bit easier. That way, you won’t have to catch up on all the housework you didn’t manage to do before you left.
Organizing your home before you go on vacation – cleaning is everything
When you’re away from home for a prolonged period of time, dirt can quickly start to take over. Dust settles on every surface and, finding your home suddenly vacant, cockroaches and spiders decide to move in.
Similarly, if you leave your bathroom in a mess, or you forget to take the garbage out, it can soon start to cause issues. Bad odors will start to invade your home, and will eventually become overpowering.
To avoid all this, it’s important to make sure your home is in good condition before you go away. To ensure everything’s clean and tidy, we recommend giving each of your rooms a deep clean. Dust, vacuum, mop, and disinfect, paying particular attention to the bathroom and the kitchen.
Furthermore, it’s also important to ventilate your home in the hours before you leave. That way, you’ll have a chance to air out your rooms, and refresh the environment. When you walk back through your front door at the end of your vacation, you’ll realize that all your hard work was worth it.
Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.
The importance of tidying
Tidying your home before you go on vacation is essential. Making sure that everything’s in its place before you leave will help give you greater peace of mind, allowing you to enjoy your vacation to the full. Here are 4 key aspects to keep in mind:
1. Making the bed will instantly make your bedrooms look neater and tidier. If you have young children, teach them to take responsibility for their own bedroom, to help lighten the load.
2. Leaving your clothes in a pile on a chair or strewn across the floor will make your home feel neglected and disorganized, so be sure to hang everything up in your closet before you go on vacation.
3. When it comes to decorations and miscellaneous items, anything not in its place should be organized and tidied away. This also goes for items such as books and magazines.
4. Put the dishwasher on a few hours before you’re due to leave. When it’s done, remove all the plates and utensils, make sure they’re dry, and put them away in the cupboards.
In all the chaos of the pre-vacation rush, it’s often all too easy to overlook the basics. We recommend cleaning any leftover food out of your fridge so that it doesn’t spoil. If rotting food is left in the fridge for weeks, it’ll leave a bad odor that can be hard to get rid of.
Before you walk out the door, take a last look round all the rooms to make sure all the lights are off, and your electronic devices are unplugged. That way, you can prevent any electronics from short-circuiting, and you’ll save both energy and money.
It’s also essential to close any shutters and doors. If you have houseplants, try to put them all in one room and leave one set of blinds raised so that they can get enough light. You’ll also need to give them one last watering.
Security system
Before you go on vacation, don’t forget to set your security system and alarm. You’ll also need to make sure you remember your password while you’re away so that you can deactivate the alarm as soon as you get home.
Similarly, you should also make sure that your doors and locks are of good quality. That way, you’ll be able to prevent burglaries, and stop anyone from accessing or illegally squatting in your house while you’re gone. If you know your neighbors well, you might want to ask them to collect your mail from the mailbox for you.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- AA. VV.: Vivir seguro: consejos para convertir tu casa en un hogar seguro, Barcelona, CEAC, 2007.