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There is nothing worse than coming from a great holiday to a dirty and messy place. Whether you will be out of town for a few days or a few weeks, if you prepare our home in advance you will enjoy a smooth return. KTMA Ltd. experts shared a detailed checklist of the tasks that have to be done if you want your coming home to be a pleasant stress free experience.

Preparation for All Areas

Give your home a quick general clean-up before you leave.

  • Tidy up. Coming back to a messy place after nice clean and tidy hotel room is a genuine nightmare.
  • Run a quick vacuum or sweep the floor, especially around coffee tables and other places you eat to remove any crumbs and food residues. If you skip this step you risk infesting your place with ants or other insects. You can also spray for bug as a prevention step.
  • Unplug all appliances. In case of lightning storm or any other electricity problems while you are away your appliances will be safe.
  • Set the boiler. Most new models of water heaters can be set to turn on a certain date, so you could save some energy while on vacation. If your boiler cannot be programmed you can invest in mechanical timer – this way it will work only in certain part of the day and you will be able to lower the power consumption.
  • Plants and Pets. If your plans require high maintenance give a spare key to a friend or neighbour to take care of them while you are gone. Otherwise just water them right before you leave the house. As for the pets you can leave the to special pet hotel, or give them to a friend. They will be better off with company.

Kitchen Checklist

Kitchen cleaning is probably the most important task to do when going on vacation. Dirt, mold and foul odours are the last things you want to find when coming home from your holiday.

  • Collect all dirty dishes from around the house. Load and run dishwasher.
  • Clean the surfaces to remove all food residues and crumbles. Wipe countertops and tables to be sure you won’t find your home infested with ants, cockroaches and other unpleasant housemates.
  • Check your fridge and throw everything that might go bad. However, if you are out of town for over a week – throw or give everything away. Turn down the fridge to save energy and leave it open to prevent mould appearance.
  • Empty trash to prevent foul odour from rotten food.
  • Clean the garbage disposal.
  • Be sure to close the taps very tight. If you leave water dripping for a few weeks this will increase your bill unnecessarily.
  • Store some dry or canned food for snack. It will be nice to have something to eat when you return. Cold cereal, shelf-stable milk, coffee for breakfast, and some pasta and sauce in a jar for light lunch or dinner.

Bedroom Checklist

Sleeping in your own bed after a vacation is one of the best experiences ever if you prepare well before leaving. Here is our bedroom cleaning checklist:

  • Let the mattress, blankets and pillows to aerate. This is not a must-do, but if you are going out of town for a long period of time this chore will help you avoid stale smell in your bedroom.
  • Change the bed linens. It is nice to come home from a long exhausting flight or drive and fall asleep into freshly made bed, right?
  • Leave the closet doors opened. Some wardrobe doors close too tightly and a musty smell could develop if you leave them closed for longer period of time.
  • Sort your clothes. Wash the dirty ones, or if you don’t have the time – at least drop them in the laundry basket. Put away clean clothes in your closet. This is a tedious task to do before holiday, but when you come back with tons of dirty clothes, and tons of new t-shirts it will be easy to unpack and put everything in order.

Bathroom and Toilet Checklist

It doesn’t take a lot of time to prepare your bathroom before your leave but it pays back thousand times over.

  • Clean the shower. A quick wipe of the shower fixture guarantees a pleasant bath when you return.
  • Rinse the tiles. When you are taking your last shower before you leave give a good rinse to your tiles and wipe them if necessary. This will prevent water and soap stains in your cabin.
  • Empty the trash and clean the bin. As in the kitchen, bathroom trash can develop an unpleasant smell while you are gone.
  • Change the towels. You will thank yourself when you come home and have clean fresh towel at hand.
  • Close bathroom taps tight.

If cleaning before your holiday sounds like a tedious and exhausting task, you can always hire a cleaning company in your area before your leave or even arrange a cleaning while you are away. This way you will come back to sparklingly cleaned home.