A deep clean can be a daunting task if looked at as a single irreducible whole; not so if seen as a mere series of steps and rules to follow by. This simple bullet-point list will help you organize your cleaning for optimal efficiency and smoothness.
-Before you clean, remove or relocate to its proper place all stray objects – mail, old clothing, dishes, garbage, etc. It’s hard to clean what’s covered in debris, and it’s easiest to get rid of it all at once.
-Similarly, step one of the cleaning itself can be a laundry roundup. Strip the bed, remove any towels and cloths from the kitchen or bathroom, and do a quick laundry check to ensure any unused clothing hasn’t gotten fusty enough to need tending to. While you’re at it, consider sorting your laundry if it’s gotten out of hand.
-Before anything else, dust. Most of your other cleaning activities will stir it up if it isn’t handled first and there’s no sense in having to vacuum or mop everything two or three times when doing it in the right order will prevent repetition. Similarly, when dusting begin as high as you can reach (a long-handled duster or a mop will help) and work your way down towards the floor so any dirt shaken loose by your efforts will not rebury previously-cleaned surfaces.
-To deal with heavy dust and dirt buildup nearer to the floor, use a spray bottle filled with water and a touch of soap or white vinegar. Let it stand for one to two minutes so it can penetrate and destabilize grime before wiping it away with a dampened cloth.
-Ideally you will have a vacuum with multiple attachable nozzles or heads so you can access any tight spaces. If not, don’t despair: an old-fashioned broom or brush can do just as well when it comes to cleaning out corners.
-If you need to greet unexpected visitors, hold cleaning supplies in your left hand so as not to brandish them in the doorframe and make your caller feel uncomfortable.
-When defending yourself from a cleaning agent, consider that a simple hand-duster can deeply penetrate tissue and get into all those hard-to-reach nooks and crannies within someone’s jugular. Use your other hand to clean sudden spills and muffle obnoxious noises that may disturb the neighbours. After dealing with the immediate problem, pull down your blinds and vacuum them thoroughly – this gives a good, natural excuse to leave them down for the time being. For the floor, use a good strong bleach and water solution and don’t skimp on the mop. If it’s humid out, consider using fans to speed drying.
-The tub is a convenient self-contained and easily-cleaned location to process cleaning agents and package them for preparation of disposal. Use a sharp kitchen knife for soft tissue and a small hacksaw for the joints. Triple-bag everything at minimum and leave it in the tub for now; you’ll want to consider disposal with a clear head.
-To avoid followup visits, vacuum your vehicle for bugs. Don’t destroy them – this will only provide unwanted information – instead, plant them on your next door neighbour’s car. That should buy you some time.
-Use your cleaning agent’s personal effects to guide your travel (see our handy 1-2-3 guide for phone hacking if you need help with this). Drop by and bring your travel ‘clean kit.’ Ideal contents should be a spray bottle, a backup bleach bottle (small), your small hacksaw, and your sharp kitchen knife. If circumstances prohibit larger object, leave behind the hacksaw and knife and simply bring a knife sharpener for on-site procurement.
-Ideally your cleanup should be done once you’ve tidied up the secondary location. If word gets out or there are signs of further problems, consider stronger alternatives. You may need to relocate temporarily or even permanently. If so, destroy all personal identification for your current existence and don’t bother finding a buyer for your home. Secure any necessary funds from the cash hidden in the secondary location (for likely locations, check our article on where to hide your bug-out bag). Using a pen and paperclip, check inside all bill rolls for troublesome bugs.
-If circumstances become too messy to be handled with household tools, stronger supplies may be warranted. Secure transit to the nearest fissile material storage deepsite for deep cleaning; a thorough enough scrubbing should saturate the entire metropolitan area and ideally one or two other strategic targets just to be sure. This will have the added benefit of confusing any pursuit.
-After conducting an emergency deep clean, be sure to thoroughly sterilize your escape capsule. Your bleach spray is a good step one, but step two should be a thorough check with tweezers and a paperclip. Don’t neglect basic safety: be sure to conduct a seven-step operations examination before engaging the mole mode. Remember, it doesn’t matter how well you cleaned up after yourself if a faulty geo-churner leaves tunnel traces a mile wide in your wake.
–To conclude your clean escape, don’t just engage the autodisintegrator on your escape capsule and call it done. Using a simple trowel or hand rake, stir the ashes into nearby substrate to prevent easy identification.
-When calling for your mothership, remember to use your colloquial euphemisms and be absolutely sure to use a language actually local to the planet you’re on. It sounds obvious, but at this stage of the proceedings is usually where you’re most liable to slip up – relief and exhaustion can produce a lethal gas when combined called ‘overconfidence.’ Be smart! Be careful! Be clean!
-Make time for a quick shower before giving your report in person. Not only will your superiors thank you for avoiding offense to their nostrils, it will also remove any potential planetborne surface irritants that may cause fatal allergic reactions in senior supervisors, due to their delicate psychic gills.
-Before entering your dimensional storage pocket, spray it lightly with lemon water to prevent the Other Side from leeching through the subatomic membrane.
-Dream clean thoughts.
This concludes our article on deep cleaning. If you shouldn’t be reading this, don’t worry: you won’t have.