After a long summer in the garden and even more time spent at home than usual, there will no doubt be some maintenance tasks that need to be done around the house. While some jobs might just need to be added to your spring to-do list, others would benefit from being completed now, to avoid the situation getting any worse over the winter months. Here are a few tasks you can tackle this autumn…
1 HOME MAINTENANCE
Much like a spring clean, I like to do an autumn clean too. If you’ve been outside enjoying your lovely garden or summery days out, you’ve probably spent much less time at home over recent months. It’s inevitable that messes can accumulate when you’re around less and there will be things to check on that haven’t been attended to for a while – such as cleaning plugholes, drains, gutters, bins and general waste management.
Plus, now that the bad weather confines us to our indoor spaces, you may feel like there’s just too much stuff in your home. A decluttering session can really help you feel better and make your home feel more welcoming. And moving out larger pieces of furniture (you can sell them on Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree) can make your home much more spacious.
If you’ve been DIYing over the summer you may well have piles of offcuts, leftover materials and bin-bags full of scraps taking up valuable space too. So arrange a rubbish removal – either a skip bag, bin collection, man-with-van etc – as this will give you a deadline to work to and have a thorough tidy up and clear out to gather together everything you want to get rid. Once all the mess is gone your home and garden will feel tidy, organised, and so much more spacious, ready for spending more time indoors over the winter months.
2 WILDLIFE PESTS
Over the winter you may discover more wildlife pests around in your garden and you certainly don’t want them to come into your home. I’m talking about everything from mosquitoes to rodents so now’s the time to ensure that the garden is less-than-welcoming to those critters. Stagnant standing water will attract mosquitoes so be sure to empty out any buckets and planters that have filled up with rain – and put them away so that it doesn’t happen again over the winter. If your garden is full of messy corners where rodents can make cosy nests, you’ll soon find that it becomes a bigger problem might incur rodent removal costs. Which takes us nicely on to clearing out the garden…
3 GARDEN CLEARING
If you’ve got a garden and have enjoyed a summer of growing flowers, vegetables or herbs, there will certainly be some cutting back and clearing to do in the autumn. The reason to remove all those ‘spent’ tomato plants and to pull up those browning annuals are two-fold. Firstly, they make the garden look untidy. Even though you might not be going out into the garden as often over the winter, at least if the garden is tidy you’ll feel more like you want to sit outside whenever the weather permits. Just looking out of the window will be more pleasurable if you’re not looking at lots of dead plants and tangled overgrowth.
Secondly, any fallen leaves or courgette plants rambling out of the veggie patch will rot and become super-slippery during the winter. This can cause your garden to be a dangerous place to be, especially if rotten foliage falls on to the paths. It’s much better to get out there on a sunny autumn day and thoroughly clear the garden of all your finished veggie plants, flowers that have died back and fallen leaves. You can get rid of them in the skip bag your hired or the garden waste bin, or you can add the foliage to your own compost heap.
Let me know what other home and garden maintenance tasks you’re going to be tackling this autumn in the comments below – I’d love to hear your household hacks!
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