Five Top Tips for Cleaning During and After a House Party

Posted on 06/07/2015

Great Tips for Making the Post-party Cleaning Less Painful

Whether you’re a student or a parent in fulltime work, every now and again it’s lovely to play host to a few of your friends, or maybe more than a few. It’s all fun and games until you wake up with an aching head the next morning and are faced with a mess that will only be fixed with a herculean cleaning effort.
Here are some tips for making the post-party cleaning the least painful for your hangover that it can be.

1.    Stay vigilant during the party.
You want to have fun, and you want to enjoy yourself, but the version of you that wakes up tomorrow is really going to appreciate the help. Collect cups and glasses if you see them discarded; try and avoid spillages before they happen, but if you can’t, make sure they are immediately attended to. Empty all half-finished drinks down the sink; you’ll appreciate it in the morning.

2.    Take precautions before the party.
Invest in a large number of large bin bags, place them in every room and make sure you inform your guests they are there. Hopefully, your helpful friends will assist you by throwing their rubbish away, but if not, keep an eye on rubbish, fill the bin bags with the rubbish that’s lying around, take them straight outside (to avoid unwanted leaks and smells) and replace them with more. This will make a massive difference to your house cleaning in the morning.

3.    Post party cleaning
It’s going to be the last thing on your mind, but the more cleaning you can get done beforehand the better. Once your party guests have left, look for anything deeply unpleasant. We all know how it can get at a party, so scan for signs of serious mishaps.
Remove sofa cushions, look behind furniture and curtains, and leave no stone unturned in your quest to be reassured that there will not be an inexplicable smell taking over your house in the weeks to come. Remove all bin bags from the house; if you can face the washing up, do it, if not, leave all that you can in to soak overnight.

4.    Remove odours before you go to sleep
This one you are really going to appreciate tomorrow. After you let that one friend smoke out of the window early in the night and you ended up with the entire neighbourhood chain smoking in your kitchen, you are going to have to handle the smell quickly because nobody needs the smell of stale smoke on a hangover.
Take an hour or so to open your windows, burn some incense, put on an oil burner, spray a good quality air freshener, whatever your personal preference is.
Find everything that has been used as an ashtray, smokers are a sneaky bunch. Check beer cans, plates, cups, toilets, the sink, the bin, and anything else that could have legitimately been within a smoker’s reach during the party, it has probably been used as an ashtray. Clean or dispose of all these items immediately.

5.    Don’t be scared to call in your friends to help
If people have enjoyed your party, and appreciated your hospitality (especially if those people are intending to stay at your house) then they should be happy to help you with the cleaning. A few sets of hands will get the job done much quicker and everyone will get to sleep earlier. Call them in again in the morning; bribe them with coffee if necessary.

Obviously some cleaning will have to be done the next day, but if you keep on top of the mess throughout the night, you’ll find you lose very little time that night, and save a huge amount of time the next morning.