Tips to Improve the Care of Your Elderly Parents
Taking care of your elderly parents can be a difficult job, especially when you have work and a family of your own. It’s a full-time job, and some people are surprised to learn how much cleaning factors into it. Whether you’re keeping an eye on them “just in case,” or have already helped them downsize, you might consider hiring a cleaning service to help stay on top of their health and wellbeing, or at least following the elderly parent house cleaning tips we’ve outlined below in your Walla Walla County, WA home.
In addition to the satisfaction one gets from having a clean home, messy homes can be a health and safety hazard. For example, when cleaning out the living space of an elderly parent, we have discovered nests of black widows, piles of dust and debris and more as the parents were moved to a unit in the basement. That’s not just unhealthy—it’s downright dangerous. When you’re setting up a living space for an elderly parent who may need assistance with managing their day-to-day tasks, attention to detail can be a life-saving matter.
How to get started cleaning your parents’ home
Here are our best elderly parent house cleaning tips in Walla Walla County, WA:
- Locate important documents: By the time someone has reached old age, they likely have a lot of important legal and financial documents—but if they’re less than organized, you’re likely to find them all over the home, in unexpected places. When you’re sorting through the clutter, make sure to collect and preserve all financial or legal documents, such as bank account and insurance information, wills, deeds and more.
- Create a system: Once everyone knows to keep an eye out for important documents, you can create a sorting system for other belongings. We suggest dividing items into “keep,” “toss,” “recycle/donate” and “storage.”
- Rent a dumpster: In many cases, your elderly parents have probably collected quite a bit of detritus that needs to be dumped. This can include personal effects, but it might also include past-its-prime furniture and materials from any construction you need to do to prepare their new space. Renting a dumpster is a smart, easy way to get rid of the excess.
- Divide up the labor: Recruit your friends and family members to help your parents downsize, and try to distribute the labor as much as possible. It’ll make the work go faster and won’t be as emotionally taxing. Hiring a cleaning service can also help.
- Make a schedule: Next, create a schedule for the cleaning effort. Try not to get too ambitious—spread the work out over several days or weeks.
- Sort, then deep clean: First, sort all their possessions, then move on to deep cleaning. If you have hired a cleaning service, make sure they can access the entire home without having to move piles or furniture.
- Replace flooring and repaint: Finally, after the home is deep cleaned, consider replacing the flooring (if damaged) and repainting the walls.
Hiring a cleaning company like Supreme Cleaning Services can take a lot of the stress out of cleaning your elderly parents’ house in Walla Walla County, WA. Call us today to set up an appointment or get more house cleaning tips!
Categorised in: Professional home cleaning
