Cleaning After the Kids Move Out

Your adult married children have just moved out just into their new house and now is time to start cleaning after the kids move out. You have to clean up and straighten up after they’ve been in your house for two or three months. This is the situation we found ourselves in recently. We’ve been writing a number of posts about the experience of having our married children and one grandchild move in with us for a period of three months.

They were actually very good about keeping the house clean and certainly their area of the house. Both our son-in-law and our daughter are quite neat. However like everyone even though you take care you must clean house once in a while. When they moved out we were pretty busy with the move and helping them get established in their new home. They also had to clean the place they were moving into as well, move and arrange everything in their new home. They were excited about their new house and rightly so. We focused on helping them move, getting them settled in. Then we cleaned our own place.

Cleaning After the Kids Move Out – What to Focus on

We had to do the typical stuff, such as change all of the beds, vacuum all the rooms. We also tidied up after they left. There were a few things that they forgot which we took over to them. Then my wife decided it was time to redecorate. This had nothing to do with our children living at home. Rather she just got in the mood and lo and behold my work was cut out for me over the next three months.

The job of redecorating is actually a side issue. The real message here is that when your kids move in with you you need to establish some ground rules. This includes keeping their end of the bargain. Keeping the up with house cleaning and vacuuming on a regular basis and doing their own laundry. If you don’t have these ground rules It can get pretty messy or you will end up doing all the work yourself.

Establish those basic ground rules and your job of cleaning up the house after they move out will not be a very large one. For more posts about living with adult children, click here.