Many of us grew up having to clean up around the house as one of our chores. When moving out for the first time it can be easy to forget about keeping up with cleaning among all your new responsibilities. No matter where you live—whether that’s a dorm, apartment or house—cleaning is a necessity.
Dorm Cleaning
Don’t let the small space fool you, a dorm room can easily become a cluttered mess if not kept up with. Due to a dorm’s size, all it takes is a few blankets out or some trash overflowing for your area to become messy. Luckily, Ball State’s dorm rooms come equipped with numerous tools to help you stay organized.
Ball State provides trash rooms throughout the halls for you to dispose of your garbage. Make sure to communicate with your roommate about taking out trash.
In the lobbies of the dorms, there are vacuums and brooms for residents to use. A few useful cleaning supplies you may want to keep on you in your dorm would be air fresheners, disinfectant wipes, paper towels, a duster and trash bags.
Pick a day in the week where you can set aside some time to clean your clothes. This is an easy way to prevent dirty clothes from stacking up in your room.
Apartment Cleaning
At first glance, you might think an apartment is the same situation as a dorm but with more space. The truth is, living in an apartment does pose its own unique set of cleaning challenges. Opposed to a dorm, with an apartment you now have a kitchen and a bathroom as a part of your living space.
Make sure to stock up on towels and bathroom cleaning supplies, and use organizers in your cabinets to keep all your cleaning supplies together in one spot. When having your own kitchen, it can be tempting to throw dirty dishes in the sink and not think about them after. A helpful habit to get into is to clean your dishes right after use and to stick them in the dish washer. Similar to dorm rooms, getting in a routine of trash collection with your roommate is important. Don’t let your bin fill up. Unlike a dorm, in your apartment there’s a good chance you have carpet in some areas.
Having carpet means also having a vacuum, so make sure either you or your roommates get one to keep your floors clean. Some other cleaning products you may want to have at your apartment would be a mop, window cleaner, kitchen towels, dish cleaner, laundry cleaner, air fresheners and bathroom cleaner.
House Cleaning
Moving into a new house may seem overwhelming at first. The truth is, anyone can successfully keep a clean and good-looking house. The key to living in a clean house is communication. Even if you do not know your roommates very well, make sure to sit down with them and discuss how things will be cleaned in your house.
A possible plan could be once a week you will get together and spend an hour dusting, vacuuming and scrubbing. Living in a house means property maintenance, whether that’s raking leaves, shoveling snow or cutting the grass. There is a lot to keep up on, but if you make a plan with your roommates, those issues that may seem overwhelming become much easier.
