A RightBites Tip!

With a little more sun and warmth around, you might start thinking about doing some spring cleaning. It might not be your favourite activity, so we've listed the top 5 must-do spring cleaning activities that will keep your home safe, healthy and organised. 

1. The Medicine Cabinet.

Now is the time to ruthlessly review all tubes, ointments, bottles and packets of medicines etc and check if they are past the use by date. Before you throw them in the bin, you can give them to your chemist who can dispose of them properly. This reduces the risk of old medicines being picked up through the garbage dump chain by people and animals. 

Just make sure you check prescriptions too - they only last 1 year from date of issue generally.

2. The Kitchen and Laundry Sink

In a general kitchen and laundry sink cupboard tidy up, get rid of old mop heads, old sponges, old gloves and old chemicals (when they are a few years old, since they lose their potency over time). Check with your local council if they have recycling facilities for old chemicals.

Try putting some baking soda on a jar lid to keep the odours at bay (this also works well for the fridge).

To avoid metal cannisters causing rust stains on your shelf, put them inside plastic blaskets or put them on old plastic placemats.

3. The Bathroom Cabinet

Collect old soap pieces, sprays, moisturisers and lotions more than a few years old and either give them to the kids to make a potion, give away or bin it (especially if it's flammable).

Replace your toothbrushes and sponges if you haven't done so since the beginning of winter. Clean hairbrushes and wash bath toys in a bucket of diluted bleach.

4. The Pantry

Going through the pantry will usually reveal a surprise or two. Check the use by dates or give away stuff you haven't and never will use, or if it's that strange jar of mango relish that no one will ever want, just empty it and recycle the jar. It could also make a wonderful addition to a potion if you have school age kids who love to stir mud and dirt!

Get some tall storage containers for pasta and rice so that you minimise the number of packets and bags in the pantry.

Vegetable tidies (little plastic baskets that stack) are great for potatoes and onions and are space-savers too. 

Go through your plastic containers and put aside those that are missing lids or those containers that are never used. Consider if they can they be used as open containers to stack food packets or if kids can use them in play or bath activities.

When using your pantry, try putting the newer items at the back so you use the oldest due-date items first. 

5. The Living Areas

In a busy family, paper clutter is a regular problem. To declutter, get a 2-4 shelf paper tray. Allocate a shelf to bills and mail that needs to be actioned, another shelf for mail that needs to be filed and another shelf for the kids artwork. With the kids artwork, at the end of the fortnight, get the kids to decide which ones to keep and which ones to throw. You can't keep all their beautiful paintings but some might be too priceless to toss!

Obviously going paperless with bills etc helps and most large companies who bill you or you are a member of encourage a way of enrolling online so check their website.

With window coverings, wipe down wooden blinds and wash or dry clean your curtains. With aluminium blinds, take them off, lay down outside on an old sheet or towel on a slant if possible and spray with a gentle cleaning mixture like dishwashing liquid and water. Let it sit and then hose off and dry in the sun.

Lightshades always need a good dust off and this can be done with a lint roller.

Smoke alarms need their batteries changed regularly so spring cleaning time is a great time to do it every year!

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