Whether you’re the type of person to clean out your house every other week or someone who cowers from home organization, spring cleaning can be a major undertaking. “Spring cleaning” is a broad category that encompasses everything from finally junking a broken TV to cleaning out your car. But there are some items that deserve a place of prominence on every spring cleaning checklist. Here are the top 3 ways to succeed at spring cleaning.

Spring Cleaning Checklist

• Haul. Spring cleaning presents a great opportunity to not only clean, but completely clean out the house. Before starting your yearly deep clean, get rid of furniture that’s just collecting dust. For an even more effective clean out, sort through closets, cabinets, and other storage areas to haul off items you no longer use.
• Dust. Dust has a way of collecting in the smallest corners. Your eyes may not notice dust bunnies under the couch, but your allergies are certainly affected. Before getting down to the nitty gritty of scrubbing your house, pull furniture out from the wall and vacuum up dust bunnies. You should also dust the tops of cabinets, picture frames, and window treatments.
• Wash. When most homeowners think of spring cleaning, they imagine sanitizing counters, floors, and appliances. The germiest items are often overlooked. While it’s important to deep clean bathrooms, kitchens, and other living spaces, make sure to add laundry to your spring cleaning checklist. Wash comforters, pillow shams, throw rugs, towels, and linens–even the ones in storage.

Ready to unveil a whole new home? Call Mr Junk to haul big items you decide to toss during this year’s spring cleaning project.

photo from flickr

Are you feeling buried under months of winter junk? Getting ahead of spring cleaning sounds great, but sometimes it’s hard to plan a home clean out with kids underfoot. Get the kids involved in your next home organization with these tips from Mr. Junk.

How to Make Kids Love Cleaning

Do your kids tune out the second you mention “chores?” You’re not alone. Getting kids to help with the housework is one of the eternal struggles of parenthood. Luckily we’ve scrounged up a few tricks to get kids involved in spring cleaning.

• Blast the music. For some kids, all it takes to put down the video game controller and dive into organization is the right song. Turn spring cleaning into a dance party with a soundtrack made just for the occasion. See how many toys each kid can pick up before each song ends, then tally their scores at the end of the playlist.
• Sort it. Label boxes to keep, store, donate, and throw away. Sit across the room with your kids and have them play hoops to “net” each item in the appropriate box.
• Get moving. Have a lot of junk strewn around the house? Dub one family member “it” and explain the rules of the game: each child must collect items that belong in another room without getting tagged. Use the honor system for keeping track or have a helper in the other room to put items away after they’re retrieved.
• Use the rewards method. Have surly teens who refuse to help out? Offer them one item off their wish list — but only if they complete their entire spring cleaning checklist.

Little hands make good helpers. Get your kids involved in your spring cleaning projects this year. After you’re done call Mr Junk to haul away old junk, broken toys, unused electronics, and bigger items like furniture.

photo from flickr

Do you know a packrat? Someone who just can’t seem to get rid of junk, no matter how long it’s been since they’ve used it? Maybe it’s a parent, maybe it’s a spouse. Maybe you read the word “packrat” and thought, “that’s me.”

Living with a packrat can be frustrating. There’s never enough space for storage, closets become nuclear war zones, and every time you open a cabinet you wonder what could fall on your head. But sometimes packrat tendencies lead to a more serious problem: hoarding.

Signs of a Hoarding Problem

Hoarding is a compulsive disorder that affects roughly 5% of the world’s population. Hoarding can be obvious or concealed depending on the type and severity of the individual case. If you or a loved one suffers from these symptoms, it may be time to seek help.

Hoarders often:

• Have trouble throwing away items that are broken, useless, or haven’t been used in a long time
• Feel emotional connections to items with no real significance
• Say “it might come in handy one day” about insignificant things like rubber bands and old newspapers
• Have trouble organizing clutter into livable space
• Feel ashamed, depressed, or anxious about their possessions
• Have debt
• Collect objects others deem worthless or trash (e.g. plastic plates, old magazines, empty Coke cans, etc)
• Have too many pets, creating unhealthy conditions for both people and animals
• Become socially isolated

Are you ready to reclaim your life? Call Mr Junk to haul away broken appliances, old furniture, bags of trash, and unwanted collections.

photo from FreeDigitalPhotos

In the recent wave of DIY trends, it’s easy to put the cart ahead of the horse with junky old furniture. Pinterest, home magazines, and friends bombard homeowners with “simple DIY projects” that often wind up as more trouble than they’re worth. Before scouring garage sales for junk for your next upcycling project, use these questions to determine if old furniture is salvageable.

Questions to Ask Before Upcycling Furniture

• Where’s the beauty? Talented DIYers can breathe new life into even the rattiest old furniture, but you have to start somewhere. If you don’t have vision for that dingy old desk, pass it by. Chances are it will just junk up your craft room.
• Is it structurally sound? You have a plan, now what? Test furniture for weak spots. No matter how well you transform the exterior, it’s a failed upcycling project if the furniture falls apart in 3 months.
• Do I have a market? It doesn’t matter if you’re planning to sell the piece at a local consignment store or give it away to your best friend’s daughter, there’s no point in refinishing furniture if it’s just going to collect dust in your attic. Before starting a project make Plans A-C for getting it out of the house.
• What’s my loss? No matter how well you plan it, no project is foolproof. Before you stock up on supplies and break out the safety gear, estimate the time, cost, and emotional investment you’ll spend on the project. You don’t want to sink in more effort than the project is worth.

Have a diamond in the rough that’s just taking up space? Mr Junk will take it off your hands. Call us to haul off old furniture that’s more trouble than it’s worth.

photo from flickr

When we talk about junk removal, we spend a lot of time discussing how to organize closets, what to clear out of the storage shed, outdoor disaster restoration, and whole home clean outs. The big items are the hardest to get rid of, and it’s our goal to make the process of junk removal as painless as possible for Woodstock residents. Some small items, however, slip under the radar. Whether your last clean out was a year ago or a week, here are 5 home items you probably forgot to toss.

5 Home Items to Throw Away (Right Away)

1. Toilet brush. It’s one of those items we don’t think about unless we’re using it, but toilet brushes are full of germs, exposing your bathroom to bacteria. Replace your toilet brush every six months. We recommend burning your old one. (Actually we recommend wrapping it in a biodegradable bag and adding it to the recycle pile).
2. Running shoes. How old are your sneakers? If you’re not a marathoner, chances are you haven’t bought new ones in the last few years. Experts recommend replacing your running shoes every 300-500 miles to prevent injuries. Mr Junk recommends replacing shoes every 300-500 miles to avoid foul odors and germs.
3. Pillows. Alright, pillows are more expensive than they have any right to be. But old pillows aren’t just dirty: they disrupt your sleep, cause neck and back pain, and overflow with allergy-inducing dust mites. Replace regularly used pillows every 2 years.
4. Kitchen equipment. Cutting boards, scratched pans, and tupperware have a lifetime warranty in most people’s kitchens, but they’re all dangerous if they’re old or scratched. Avoid unwanted germs and chemicals in your food by replacing cut chopping boards, nicked pans, and tupperware from before 2010 (the year healthcare reforms began pushing companies to create BPA-free plasticware).
5. Sponges. Whether they’re bathroom cleaning sponges, kitchen spill sponges, or anything in between, sponges are positively teeming with bacteria. Health experts recommend replacing sponges every week or so. If you’re not willing to add cleaning supplies to your weekly grocery list, microwave your sponges for 30 seconds to kill most of the bacteria.

Have a haul, big or small? Unlike many junk removal companies, Mr Junk charges based on how much truck space you use and has no minimum pickup fee. While we don’t expect you to call us to haul off old sneakers, we’re happy to remove bags of clothes for donation, old chairs from the attic, and all that stuff you don’t know what to do with after cleaning out the junk shed. Make your next home clean out a breeze: call Mr Junk to remove furniture, appliances, electronics, organic debris, and assorted junk.

photo from flickr

We all have those DIY projects we like to pretend never happened. Those ones that started out strong, got a little shaky two steps in, and never fully recovered. DIY disasters range from disappointing to dangerous depending on the size of the project and the materials involved. Learn from your do-it-yourself mistakes by remembering these 4 rules of DIY projects.

Lessons from DIY Disasters

1. Plan ahead. Have you ever miscalculated a cut and been forced to scrap two days of work? Don’t just measure materials once before diving in. Buy all your supplies, watch instructional videos, and check your measurements at least twice before starting your home project.
2. Play it safe. Most of us have an “it’ll be fine” mentality when it comes to using power tools, but it only takes a second to go from near miss to missing fingers. Always follow proper safety precautions when using power tools and heavy machinery. When digging or planting, research power lines, gas lines, and plumbing in your yard.
3. Push ahead. More than one DIY project has wound up forgotten in the toolshed because life got busy. If you don’t have time to finish your project in one shot, make sure you have several days during the next week to chip away at it. The longer a home maintenance task goes unattended, the lower the chances it will ever be completed.
4. Know when to call the professionals. We all have those projects we dove into, 100% sure we could do it as well as a pro, only to shell out twice as much cash when we broke something important. When it comes to electrical issues, load-bearing walls, and other projects you’re not trained to complete, call the professionals.

Do you have leftover materials from a home improvement project? Don’t waste the day hauling loads of waste to the local dump. Call Mr Junk to remove and recycle extra materials from your DIY projects.

If you have kids you’re no stranger to the constant struggle to stay organized. While keeping the junk shed tidy seems like a challenge, keeping a kid’s room clean is a herculean task. The minute you find a home for all the odds, ends, and tiny toys in your daughter or son’s bedroom, the kid in question sweeps in to make a mess of things. But whether you have one child or five, there is hope! Keep kids’ rooms clean with these organization tips from Mr Junk.

De-Cluttering Kids Rooms

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to a neat child’s bedroom is the sheer amount of stuff kids accumulate. From too-small clothes to new Christmas toys, kids are the ultimate junk collectors. We’re not suggesting that you implement a systematic de-cluttering schedule – although if it works for your family, go for it! – but periodic bagging and donating of kids’ clothes and toys is necessary for a stress-free life. Go ahead and box up old clothes, broken toys, and other items you know your child doesn’t need. If your child will notice the empty spaces in the toy cupboard, involve him in the decision. Does your son have 15 motor cars? Tell him to pick his 5 favorites and send the others to a child in need.

Smart Organization for Kids

Little ones tend to make a mess no matter what you do, but there are a few tricks to get ahead of the curve. Keep kids clothes tidy by:

• Putting nice clothes in drawers the kids can’t reach
• Using plastic dividers or small bins to sort socks, underwear, and other small clothing items
• Consider rolling clothes like shirts and leggings instead of folding them – they’ll be easier to see and easier to keep wrinkle-free

Use All Your Storage Space

Working with a small room? Don’t forget about high shelves in the closet, storage space under the bed, and hanging shoe organizers. Shoe organizers are also great for storing winter hats and gloves, art supplies, and plenty more!

Done packing away years of past messes? You’ve got enough on your plate! Call Mr Junk to haul, donate, and recycle boxes of used clothes, bags of broken toys, and old furniture.

photo from flickr

Christmas infuses home exteriors with a merry dash of wonder that’s often lacking once the new year is underway. With the grey skies, brown lawns, and changing temperatures of January and beyond, it’s easy to give up on winter home improvement. But updating your home exterior for the new year is easier than you think. Increase your winter curb appeal with these 5 tips from Mr Junk.

1. Clean it up. Your yard will never reach it’s full potential if it’s filled with downed tree branches, old Christmas decorations, and junk that didn’t fit in the gardening shed. Do a full front yard clean out to make your landscape winter-worthy.
2. Trim, trim, trim. Want your yard to look as fresh and inviting as it does every spring? Don’t use the cooler season as an excuse to shirk your garden maintenance responsibilities. It’s incredible how quickly a little pruning and trimming can transform a garden from ragged to resplendent.
3. Get festive. Just because Christmas is over doesn’t mean your yard has to be boring. Decorate your garden for winter with twinkle lights, shiny garden ornaments, and winter holiday decor.
4. Update your home exterior. Does your winter curb appeal need a boost? It could be as simple as a fresh coat of paint. Transform your yard by adding a pop of color to the front door, house trim, shutters, or porch furniture.

Have you finished your winter garden overhaul? Call Mr Junk to remove organic yard debris, unwanted junk from the tool shed, and Christmas decorations that are past their prime.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the cleaning, shopping, and organization that goes hand in hand with the holiday season. As professional junk haulers we know that no matter how much your child loves that new toy, sooner or later it will find its way to the donation bin. Heirloom Christmas presents come with a rich history and a feeling of love, but it’s the people associated with those antique pieces that turn them into treasures.

This Christmas, relish the feelings that can’t be captured in material possessions. Help your grandmother cook your family’s traditional Christmas Eve feast, clean up wrapping paper so your mom won’t have to, and share your favorite memories from Christmases past. After all, the people who share in Christmas games, merrily crackling fires, and tasty holiday treats are truly the reason for the season.

Mr Junk will be here after the holidays to help you recycle browning Christmas trees, trash broken decorations, and donate boxes of old toys. Until then, relish the blessings of the holiday season.

Merry Christmas, Canton!

It happens every year. After weeks of shopping, wrapping, and squirreling presents away, families get one day of peace and contentment. Then the cleanup begins. If you’re tired of holiday cleanup stealing your Christmas joy, have no fear. Here are Mr Junk’s 4 best tips to minimize Christmas cleanup stress.

Easy Christmas Cleanup Tips

1. Prepare. If you’re the type of person who tosses ornaments haphazardly in a storage box the day after Christmas then has a panic attack the following year, it’s probably time to work out a system. buy storage containers for Christmas ornaments, artificial evergreens, and holiday home decor. Make sure the kids put decorations in the right box when they help you pack up after Christmas.
2. Clean as you go. Sick of wading through a sea of crinkly wrapping paper and brightly colored bows? Line a hamper with a jumbo trash bag, hang a sign that says “Christmas trash,” and ask your holiday guests to discard wrapping paper in the bin for easier cleanup.
3. Donate. Do you have a box of holiday decor that went untouched this year? Did you buy your teen a new winter coat to replace the one she outgrew? Did you get a present that really isn’t you? Set aside a box for donations as you begin your post-Christmas cleanup.
4. Recycle. Promote the spirit of renewal this Christmas by recycling your holiday trash. Recycle discarded wrapping paper from gifts, empty soda and wine bottles, and live evergreens, including your Christmas tree.

Do you tend to put off your holiday cleanup? If you’ve missed curbside Christmas tree pickup, have too much Christmas trash for the junk collector, or use Christmas cleanup as an excuse for a home clean out, call Mr Junk. We’ll haul away your Christmas junk, recycle or donate anything we can, and even clean up for you afterwards.

photo from flickr