DIY Saturday #74 – Cleaning Up from your Halloween Holiday

Guest Blog #233, Entry #731, October 29, 2011

Happy DIY Saturday! This is Halloween weekend when the parties, and festivities for many Halloween fun will take place. Even though Halloween falls on Monday this year, the weekend is the perfect time for a haunted house, kids parties, and fun to be enjoyed by kids and adults alike. After the fun, what about the cleanup? Today’s DIY Saturday helps you cleanup from Halloween and get on with the upcoming November days!

Cleaning up from Halloween can be a chore

Image via: Like The Mermaid

Halloween is generally fun for everyone involved, which means that there will be messes to clean up the morning of November first. Working from the outside in, here are several helpful tips on cleaning up those inevitable Halloween messes.

Outside Your Home

There are three main ways that the outside of your home needs some scrubbing the morning after Halloween.

1. Someone threw eggs at your house. Don’t let those remains sit! Grab a hose and spray your house down to remove as much of the egg as possible. If egg goo has already dried on some of the surfaces, use a solution of half vinegar and half water to soak the spot, scrub, wipe down the area, and rinse.

2. There’s toilet paper decorating your yard. While fun, this unrequested decoration can become quite a pain to clean up if it gets wet from lawn sprinklers or the occasional rain shower. Grab your family members and bribe neighbors to help gather it up, using ladders if necessary.

3. Words have been formed using shaving cream. Like the egg remains, don’t wait to clean this mess up. Shaving cream can stain when left on a surface, so use a hose to get rid of the mess, then wipe with a cloth.

Tips for cleaning the front yard and porch

Image via: Rachelleb

Don’t Forget the Front Porch

Messes can accumulate on the front porch during Halloween festivities that need to be cleaned up quickly.

1. Pumpkin guts need to be scraped. Once a pumpkin has been carved, it tends to rot away pretty quickly. There’s no easy way around this one – scrape the leftover guts and scrub with hot soap and water to remove any excess.

2. Silly string adorns the porch. While it doesn’t stain, silly string looks messy. Hose down the porch if possible, or scrub the remains of the silly string with hot soap and water.

Candy and Gum and Glitter, Oh My!

All three of these items can leave a mess wherever they’ve been consumed or used. Sticky candy can be cleaned up by blotting the stain with a solution of a teaspoon of detergent to a cup of water or one that’s one part vinegar and 2 parts water. After using the solution, blot the spot with water.

Gum is also sticky, but takes different strategies for removing it from where it doesn’t belong. If it’s stuck in hair, the traditional peanut butter solution works well. With clothing, press ice against the stickiness until it’s hard, then scrape.

Glitter seems to get everywhere, and fortunately it can be vacuumed up. For the glitter that remains, grab some Play-Doh and roll it over the surface to pick up the excess glitter.

Whatever your Halloween messes include, clean them up November 1st to avoid any long-term damage.

Kelly Wilson is a busy mom with two young boys who make a lot of messes. For information on how to keep smiles clean and bright after Halloween candy, visit Dr. Lance Bailey at Downtown Dental Care, a dentist in Portland, Oregon.

For more Halloween ideas on Stagetecture, click here.