Getting it off my chest: Is your house clean enough for Joan Crawford?

You may laugh at her mania, but it's good practice when you sell your house.

 

I stood in the front yard of my cousin's house in a neighboring 'burb' and looked across the street at a charming colonial. The neighbor's house and we both looked at Muriel's house. The one with the for sale sign that has been there longer than we've lived in the neighborhood. 

"It showed well, but..." said Cookie.

"At that price, it should have sold..." said Ann.

"But..." said Ann's daughter, Beth, as she wrangled her two-year-old.

None of us was going to say it out loud.  But Muriel's house suffers from the one unforgivable sin that keeps it from selling: it's not dainty fresh.  Actually, I'll say it.  

The house isn't clean. 

Oh, it has gorgeous rooms and a well-laid-out kitchen.  But it is not clean.  And that is hard to get over. It smells of cat urine.  The grout in the bathrooms is speckled with mold. And the stainless steel sink in the bar and kitchen is dull and smells bad. There is mold in the refrigerator gaskets.  And the dishwasher, according to a cousin in real estate, said "When you open it smells strong."

"Until it gets a deep clean, or comes down in price significantly, it's going to molder on the market," said my cousin. "We've been friends for years, but Muriel thinks it's fine.  That it just hasn't found the right buyers. But it's not even getting any showings that I can tell."

As we know, in the past 12 years, Cookie has bought a number of homes, as we moved here and there, and tried to find the best fit for us. 

So, being pushed through the buying and selling cycle 4 times in the last 14 years, I have this observation:

People, if you are selling a home, declutter, and then clean the damn house. 

And I just don't mean tidy it up. 

I mean, you have to go full-on Joan Crawford Clean.

Hire a professional house cleaning company and spend the money to make your soon-to-be former home as clean as either Joan Crawford or, at least, Faye Dunaway (playing Joan Crawford) would want. 

Oh, how we like to cringe at the idea, but trust Cookie: No One Wants to Live With Your Dirt.

When you list a home, it stops being your home, and it becomes a commodity.  It becomes the house of someone new and different than you.  And they aren't paying for your dirt.   Seriously, you could have two identical houses, one priced at 450k and the other at 500k, and if the clean one is 500k, its going to sell before the 450k house will. 

So, what should you have cleaned? Glad you asked:

1) The whole house should be vacuumed, not just dusted.  Floors, baseboards, door tops, built-in drawers, and cabinets.  Under the sofa, chairs, and sofas. 

2) All the woodwork should be washed with Murphy's Oil Soap.  Why? Because it smells clean. So door frames, window frames, and any nooks and crannies on the other. Baseboards, too. 

3) Widows washed, inside is a must, outside if you can.

4) Rake the flower beds, sweep the outdoor walks, and place new welcome mats at doorways.  The garage should be swept out or power-washed if possible. 

5) Blinds and drapes.  Vacuum and then dry wipe the blinds - they shouldn't be "fuzzy" up close. 

5) Clean the things you would never think to clean: Door knobs and light switches. Think about this: No one in your house washes and dries their hands before touching these surfaces.  Oils and grime build up.  So do bacteria and viruses.  Buyers shouldn't be able to read On/Off on a light switch because caked-on dirt is making the letters easier to read.  Grime on surfaces like this is not charm and patina.  It's caked-on dirt. 

6) Radiators.  Especially if they are open vanes.  

And once your house is this clean, it's easier to keep up with it through the showings and the house inspection. 

You, of course, get bonus points for painting in dingy rooms. 

You get MEGA points if you have a forced air HVAC system and get the ducts cleaned out. 

Special caution: If you have cats, that is a big negative to a large number of people because they are allergic, so have the HVAC system cleaned after you vacate the premises.  Trust me, that promise will make you golden in the eyes of the buyers.  Why? Cat urine and dander are allergens, and they're sticky.  Even if you don't think it's anything, it's good practice to clean up after your pet. 

You don't have to live like this all the time. But you should take precautions when selling to make sure that the sold sign goes up and the transaction finalizes. Leaving a clean house behond builds confidence in new owners.  Call it Good Joan Crawford Karma, or whatever, but a happy buyer is everything for peace of mind.  

An unclean house only attracts gossip.  You want a buyer. Trust Cookie.