June 2020 ~ Rhonda Gillihan Real Estate Agent

HOW TO DEEP CLEAN YOUR DISHWASHER!

Congratulations! You got your home all cleaned and ready for showing, or so you thought. You walk into your kitchen and what is that funky smell? It happens all the time. The number one item that gets missed on a deep cleaning is your dishwasher. Today I'm going to show you how you can deep clean your dishwasher using products you probably already have in your kitchen and no harsh chemicals.

CHECK YOUR DRAIN

First, make sure your dishwasher is empty of all dishes. Then remove your bottom rack and place it to the side. Then you're going to check your drain pipe. Sometimes you have to pull these off with a screwdriver. You might have to have a specialty screwdriver because this one takes the star head. I popped it off. I took a look. This drain is clear, but if your drain is not clear, you will need to call a service tech to come in and check your drain.

CHECK YOUR SEALS

Next, we're going to check our seals. As you can see, there's a little bit of some white fungus in there. Means we probably have some mold issues. Your seals are the most common place to have mold and mildew build up. We're going to use a mixture of just vinegar and water, and we're going to spray along our seal and wipe it down.

CHECK YOUR DOOR JAMS

Now that our seals are wiped down, we need to check them on the inside here, where the door meets with the bottom because a lot of times you can get mold in there. I see it a little bit, so we're going to spray this down with the vinegar and water and wipe it off with the cloth. Check the rims as well on your dishwasher. I see a little bit of debris there, so we're going to clean it with that vinegar and water too. Okay.

CHECK YOUR FILTER

Now, next thing that we have to do, you need to check our filter. Make sure there's nothing gunking it up. So, to do that, every dishwasher is different, but for this one, I just take this swing arm off. Okay, and I check this too. Let's see, it's got a little bit of funk in it, so I'm going to take the swing arm and I'm going to rinse it off with soap and water in the sink, and then make sure that it's good and clean before I put it back, but while we have this off, we have to look at our filter. This is our filter here. We also have a secondary filter, so I need to take these three screws out. Some of them, they'll have like six screws, but this one just has three.

CHECK YOUR SWING ARMS

Okay. So I popped that off. If I look underneath, there's some gunk in there too, so we need to clean that with just regular water, just regular water, just rinse it off with some hot water. Here's our actual filter. So we pull our filter off and we take a look. It's got a little bit of debris in there, so we're going to clean that filter. Look, I even have stickers on it from cups that I've put in there before. Oops. Then make sure down in the bottom part is cleaned out. If you have any debris down in here, you can use a cotton swab or wipe it out with a washcloth. We're going to rinse these and then we're going to put them back.

USE VINEGAR ON LIGHT CYCLE WASH

Now that we have our swing arm put back in place, we've checked our filters and everything, we can look up at our top arm or our top swing arm. I don't see any debris on this one, but if I did, I would take it off and rinse it with soap and water just like we did with the bottom one. Now we're going to open the top rack. I'm going to put a cup in here and that has one cup of vinegar in it. Replace our bottom rack, and we're going to run this on a light cycle on the hottest water possible.

USE BAKING SODA ON DEEP CYCLE WASH

Okay. Now that that is done, you can see our cup filled up with water. We're going to take our cup out and dump it into the sink. We're going to pull our bottom rack out. We are going to sprinkle baking soda on the bottom. Try to avoid your heating elements. Just sprinkle it around. Now this time, instead of a light cycle, we're going to put it on deep wash, the hottest water possible.

DISHWASHER DEEP CLEANING COMPLETE

That is how you deep clean your dishwasher to get your home ready for showings. I'm Rhonda Walker, real estate agent in Franklin, Kentucky. Like, share, subscribe, or follow in order to get more tips and tricks on how you can get your home ready to sell. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day!

You Won’t Believe How This ONE Small Thing Can Have a BIG Impact on Getting Your Home Sold!

Having showings and getting a low offer on your house can be frustrating! Worst though is not getting any offer from the buyers who just walked through your house. It can leave you wondering “What’s wrong with my house?” Well, the problem could be a small problem that can have a big impact on getting your house sold!

I'm going to tell you the one thing I hear most often from buyers as a problem. And you may think there's just one simple solution, but that one problem can have two, two negative impacts on your home. And I'm going to give you my one ultimate solution to take the two negatives and turn it into three positives to help you get your home sold. So, stick with me.

We're going to talk today about the one thing that can have two negative impacts on your home and my ultimate solution to give you three positive impacts on the sale of your home. As a real estate agent, I have shown hundreds of homes. Hundreds!

WHAT LIGHT DOES FOR YOUR HOME

I have been in a lot of homes. Before I show a home, before any real estate agent shows a home, we will go through and we will open the blinds and we will open the curtains and we will turn on all the lights. Because we want to bring more light into the room. The more light you have into your house, the bigger the rooms feel, the more inviting your home is.

BUYER FIRST NEGATIVE IMPRESSION

I get frustrated as an agent because I can immediately tell you if there's going to be these two negative impacts. Already I got to solve this problem before my buyers show up when I go through a house. And when a buyer comes in and this problem exists, I hear the two negatives.

First off, is something as simple as burnt out light bulbs. Now, before you go anywhere, don't run away and say, "Oh, I just got to change my light bulbs," because I'm going to give you my ultimate solution for that. So, first impression that it gives the first negative is the rooms feel smaller, they feel dark and uninviting.

BUYER SECOND NEGATIVE IMPRESSION

I've had buyers just get maybe two rooms in and they just don't care. They don't want to be there. So they want to go. The second negative that it gives is, "Well, if they're not going to change a light bulb, what other maintenance have they not done? If they're not going to do something as simple as change a light bulb, what bigger maintenance issues is this house going to have?"

WHAT BUYERS THINK OF DARK ROOMS

So, immediately the buyer is thinking offer a low price, okay or make no offer at all. Because before home inspections, before termite inspections, before anything, before an appraiser shows up or anything, they're already thinking this house is worth less.

WHAT I RECOMMEND

So, yes. The simple solution is to change your bulbs, but there is an ultimate bulb that I recommend. The one recommendation I have can take those two negatives and turn them into three absolute positives to help you get your home sold.

GE makes this, and it doesn't have to be GE brand, but they make this one it's called GE LED basics. It is an LED replacer light bulb. It looks just like regular light bulbs, it has the same fitting. So you don't have to change out your fixtures. You just have to change the bulbs, but this one light bulb does three things to improve the saleability of your house.

BRING DAYLIGHT INTO YOUR ROOMS

The first thing that it does is it emits this blue light. And a blue light is a daylight. So it's bringing daylight into your house. Which is going to brighten it up, it's going to make it more appealing, and it's going to make the rooms feel bigger. This is especially important if you're selling a smaller home.

MINIMIZE MAINTENANCE REQUIREMENT

The second thing that makes these bulbs great is they have an average life of six years. Six! That means if you just change these bulbs out right before putting the house on the market, you're going to save buyers time because you're going to lower their maintenance requirement on the house because they will have to change the bulbs less often. And we live in a busy world, busy, busy, busy. You've got to go to soccer practice, basketball practice, football practice, cheerleading practice, meet the parents for dinner, trying to schedule vacation, going to work. It's crazy! Save them time!

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

The third thing that this bulb does is the buyer will save $42 on average per bulb for the life of the bulb, so it's energy efficient. So, before you even list your house for sale, before you call your agent, run through your house and change out your bulbs. Change them to an LED light bulb replacer that has a six year lifespan and an energy efficient.

ENHANCES YOUR LISTING DESCRIPTION

Then when your agent gets this listing ready, they can write in the description that it has energy efficient LED lighting. Buyers look for that!

END RESULTS

The result is potential buyers are going to say, "Well, the rooms look bigger," or, "The rooms are brighter." "The house is well-maintained." And you're going to get a better price on your house.

So, before anything, run through that house real quick, change out all your bulbs. You're going to see a big difference in the brightness of your house. It's going to feel more inviting to yourself and it's going to definitely be more inviting to your potential buyers to help you get your home sold.

How To Deep Clean Your Dishwasher When Preparing Your Home For Sale