How to Clean and Organize

Your Garage in the New Year

Keeping your garage from being cluttered, dirty, and unorganized can be quite the challenge. For many people, with the coming of the new year, they clean out and organize their garage as the seasons change. This provides not only a reminder once a year, but it is also a great time to declutter before the new year begins. Continue reading to learn how to clean and organize your garage before the new year. Remove Items It may sound like a pain, but removing all of the items in your garage is a very important step in the cleaning process. Removing all of the items allows you to see every inch of your garage, which is important for many reasons discussed further into the article. One of the best ways to remove all items is to take them out into your yard (if weather permits), or just drag them out into the center of your garage floor. Inspect Your Garage Inspecting your garage from top to bottom is very important for a couple of reasons. The first, most important reason is that it is vitally important to make sure that there are no pests or nuisance animals that inhabit your garage. Look for droppings, chewed or scratched areas, fur and hair, and deceased carcasses. In addition, look for any damage done to any of the lumber and other building materials of your garage, as this could signify insect pest damage. Hopefully you see no signs of pests. If you do see some troubling indications of nuisance animals or insects, be sure to follow the steps described below. Beyond checking for nuisance wildlife and insect pests, there are other important reasons to examine your garage. Over time, garages will begin to have issues that need to be repaired. Cracking cement, holes or gaps in the siding or around windows, and leaking areas are all common garage occurrences. Beyond the physical issues this can cause, these problems can also lead to less energy efficiency, requiring you to spend more money to keep your garage and home warm and cool. Many of these repairs are quite simple, though some may require a contractor’s experience. Once inspection of your garage is complete, you are ready to move on. Pest Control If you were unfortunate enough to find signs of nuisance wildlife in your garage, do not despair. You have a couple of options you can think about. If the infestation does not appear to be too bad, you can attempt pest removal on your own. The most important thing to do is to learn about the various pests you may be dealing with and how you can combat them. Do some research at deadanimal.org to learn what to do if you encounter a dead animal in your garage. If you believe you have rodents, trapping mice and rats can be a relatively straightforward process. Be sure to get every last rat and mouse though, as they can flourish and create a worse infestation. If you are concerned that DIY pest removal may not work the best for your  situation, be sure to look into calling a professional pest control service. These experts can pinpoint the problem, remove the pests, and then perform cleaning and prevention services to keep future pest infestations from occurring. Visit pestcontroloh.com to learn about the various services professional pest control companies can provide. Clean Your Garage This step can be as simple or as detailed as you want to make it. At the minimum, it is a good idea to dust all shelving and windows. In addition, be sure to sweep the floor and get all of the debris out of your garage while there is nothing in the way. You can even go so far as to scrub stains out of the floor, as this stage in the process is up to individual preference. Sort & Replace Items Once you have removed all pests from your garage and performed necessary repairs, you can get back to cleaning and organizing. This is a great time to look through all of your items and determine what you can get rid of, as there are generally many things that can go. After getting rid of items, organizing the rest is a straightforward process. Once done, you can finish up by placing all of the items you own where you want them to stay until you clean and organize in the future.