How to Clean the House Quickly – and Thoroughly

It doesn’t matter if it’s a swanky dinner party or pizza and movie night with your friends – you’ve had a look around and you’ve realised the house doesn’t look great. We’re sure your friends would understand any mess – they might have seen worse – but maybe the night would go smoother if there wasn’t a blanket of dog hair covering the spare bed or your roommate’s inky mascara stains on the hand towels. 

So you need the quickest way to clean your house; and we’ve got the house cleaning tips for you right here – let’s go! 

1. Go top to bottom

Want to know how to clean your house fast? Start on the top floor (or the top of each room) and work your way down because dust, crisp crumbs, and rolled snot will fall off surfaces– and you don’t have time to waste on cleaning the floors and then needing to clean them again when those bits have settled.  

It also means that you should clean the work surfaces first. Even if you’re worried about kicking up dust with a hoover or broom, larger particles like crumbs need only be a problem for you once. Start by wiping tables, drawers and work surfaces, then tackle the floor.

2. Make a house-cleaning checklist

This might seem like strange advice when you’re in a rush, but it really is worth taking five minutes to jot down a house-cleaning checklist. Why? Well, some of the things you do when you have longer to clean might be unnecessary when you’re working out how to clean the house quickly. In other words, polishing your silver spoon collection is a job for another time. 

3. Work smart

Once you’ve got your house cleaning checklist sorted, figure out the quickest way to clean your house. What order does it make sense to clean the rooms in? Where should you start in each room? What’s the last thing you should do in there, and what might you not have thought of? The moments you spend doing this will save you a lot of time when you really get into it.

Here’s an example: toilet cleaning products need some time to work (they’ve got a lot to deal with), so make that the first thing you do when you clean your bathroom. Then spray all the surfaces, wipe them down (starting with the first one you sprayed), and finish cleaning the toilet. Finally, clean the floor, starting at the back corner of the room and finishing at the doorway.

4. Remember the essentials

When you’re thinking about how to clean your house fast, it’s easy to get stuck into the bigger tasks and forget about the little things. Here are a few you might not have thought of:

• Make sure you have clean towels out
• Change bed linen if your guests are staying overnight
• Vacuum your sofa (your guests probably won’t want sofa-cushion biscuit-crumbs as an appetiser) 
• Air any stuffy rooms by opening the windows an hour or so before they arrive

5. Enlist some helpers

The quickest way to clean your house is definitely to have as many people helping as possible. As the saying goes, many hands make light work, so get your partner or your housemate involved. Use our house cleaning checklist to help divide up the jobs – and remember you love them before automatically choosing them to clean out the litter box!  

And remember: it’s not the end of the world if one of your guests spots a bit of juice that’s dribbled down your fridge door or a blob of toothpaste in the sink – they’ll just be happy to be with you and they’ll know the love you’ve put into making the rest of the home look tidy. Oh, and because they’ll probably clean their house in a hurry when it’s your turn to go there!