The Tools of a Clean Room

One of the biggest problems with moving into a dorm room (aside from getting along with a psycho roommate) is keeping it clean. Most people are used to having a mom pick up after them. The thing is that unless you are a really strange person with a very strange family, your Mother is not going to follow you to college. Part of cutting the cord is learning to pick up after yourself. You do not want to be that person on the floor who has the really smelly or dirty room. There are several areas that one must remember to clean. They are dusting, vacuuming, laundry, and taking out the trash.

First on the list is vacuuming. This is very important because if one does not vaccum their room then it will probably start to smell bad (by probably I mean that is will for sure smell bad, and you don't want to be that person). I personally think that one should vacuum at least once a month, and if you have a roommate then your room can be vacuumed twice a month since I assume that they will be cleaning it as well. I personally feel that a persons room should be vacuumed at least once a week, especially for people who have allergies. There are many options when it comes to vacuums. Many dorms have vacuums that the floor shares and can be found in a closet somewhere in the building. However, if this is not something that sounds like a good idea to you, then you could always get a small vacuum for your room. There are shark vacs out there which are not as expensive as some of the heavy duty vacuums out there. Shark vac makes cordless stick vacuums which are nice because they are not very bulky, and so they are easily put into a closet for storage. Shark also has hand helds vacuums which are more compact, although they are better for small messes than for vacuuming large areas. Pictured on the above right is a cordless sweeper shark vac that costs $59.99. Other cordless sweepers are pictured on the site and go as low as $29.99. Beneath that is a picture of a cordless hand held shark vac. This shark vac costs $39.99. This is the only cordless handheld currently featured on the sharkvac website.

Another important thing to make sure you are doing for upkeep of your dorm room is to dust. I suggest dusting at least once a week. I prefer the disposable dusters such as swiffer. I like these because they seem to trap most of the dust and, of course, you can throw them out. For the most part these are not expensive. There are also dust cloths which work just as well. I suggest getting a starter pack and then deciding what brand is best for you. If someone has allergies then it is very important for them to have a clean place to breath, so you might have to dust the room more than normal.

As for the laundry, I suggest doing it once to twice a week. Also, keep your laundry in your closet, because it does smell. The last big category for cleaning, in my opinion, is the trash. Take this out as needed. If it smells get it out of the room fast. I suggest alternating with your roommate.

However, no matter how well you clean, it will not mean much if your roommate does not pick up after themselves. One thing that I have found to be very effective is to put up a calender and write down what days you did what. This way even if your roommate does not clean, then at least you have proof and can tell them that they need to start pulling their weight.

One of the other lesser known categories of clean is being organized. You cannot have a really cluttered dorm room, because it is just not a good atmosphere to live in. A dorm room is your bedroom, dining room, living room, and kitchen. On top of all that its also a little bit bigger than the room you live in back home (wherever that is). It is very important for you to minimize the amount of filth and clutter. I suggest taking an hour out every week to make sure that it stays clean. If you are a slob then you should definitely keep your room clean just because of the fact that you dont want your roommate to hate you because you can not manage to keep your space clean.

Of course if cleaning is not something that you intend on doing then I suggest getting some serious air fresheners.