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Tips to clean your car

Your Car – Your Castle! – Well almost

You climb in your car to head out to the grocery store. You take the car to the doctors, the play, the movies, and to the school where your children await you. You climb in your car once again to get to work and you get back in your car to get home. It seems to me like you spend a lot of time in your car! So, what are you going to do to pamper yourself and your car at the same time? Clean it up of course! Here I am going to get you a listing of the best car cleaning and organizing ideas that make your second home more enjoyable and long lasting at the same time. 

What is going to be important in making your car last longer and be more pleasant to be ‘in’ is keeping it clean, protecting it from road salt, dirt and tar, and other contaminates. You are going to have to give you car a good ‘overhaul’ the first time, but then you can spend less time keeping it clean just maintaining it after that point. 

Start your car and think about what you do first. Sit in your seat, and clean everything within your reach. Get rid of everything that doesn’t belong in the car and that is not a necessity. Go around the car, sitting in every seat and do this very same thing. Be sure you are washing the windows, wiping down the doors, taking out all the little garbage, pins, books, papers, soda cans and wrappers. 

Now you can move to the flooring and the seats their selves. Get the heavy vacuum out and sweep out the car from the top of the seats, to the middle of the seat cracks and to the floor. Sweep around the seat belt holders, under the seats and anywhere else you can move or remove the seats.

If your car upholstery and flooring is really deep down dirty, you should have it steam cleaned. You can do this yourself or hire someone to do it for you. This will lengthen the life of the seats and the flooring, so you can keep your car much longer. 

Now – how are you going to keep your car clean now that it is clean? Keep up on taking out the trash weekly or even daily. This cuts way back on the ‘big’ cleaning that you could be facing when you let it all go too long. 

Keep all of your snacks and drinks to a minimum in order to keep your vehicle cleaner. If you are going to be eating lunch in the car, use the wrapper to keep the crumbs in one place. Don’t let the kids have ketchup through the car. Wipe up and treat stains, as they happen – not three months later as most of us do. 

Learn to use snacks that are not as messy – such as cut carrots instead of banana. Drink out of a container with a lid instead of a tea container or a can of soda. Bottles with lids prevent more spills more often. Instead of eating a muffin, opt for a bagel or a cookie that has less probably of crumbs. Pretzels could be better for some children instead of ice cream. Learn to feed your children other types of snacks that won’t mean additional work for you later on in the day, week or month because they are easier to clean up right now. 

Wipe down the inside of the vehicle when you are waiting on picking up one of the children from practice. You can purchase many different types of disposable packages, so you can wipe the windows, wipe down the doors or the seats all with a wet nap and then throw it away. Armor all, sealants and protectors are almost all sold this ‘way’ now for convenience and storage. 

Keep a little vacuum handy and charged in the garage. If you do find you have crumbs, rocks, sand or other little messy things in the car, you can sweep it out in five minutes flat by grabbing the little vacuum. This prevents it from getting deep in the carpet making the carpet less appealing. 

You car will smell fresher when you use any type of air freshener in it. You can use fabreze, Lysol, your favorite cleaners, or just air cleaners that you set in the car – what ever type you use, you will love to be in your car more because it smells more like what you want it to. Don’t let the dog smells, smoke smells, dirty baby smells or traffic get to you when you climb in the car, use an air freshener and give yourself a delight! Cars that smell fresher are worth more when you trade them in compared to the car that smells like a cigar or a wet dog.