A Spring Cleaning Checklist for a Brisbane Home

Spring cleaning is an imported ritual. It was designed for houses that spend 4 months sealed shut and heated by something that leaves a film on the walls, which is not the problem we have here. The Brisbane version needs a different calendar and a different list. What follows is one I would actually work through, in the order that matters, across 2 weekends.

Why the timing runs backwards here

Down south, and certainly in Europe and North America, the original logic holds. You unseal the house, wash off the winter, and start the warm months clean. Our windows have already been open. Nothing much has been sealed in.

What is coming is the harder season: heat, humidity, storms, and months where the air holds enough moisture to support growth on any surface that stays damp. Healthy indoor relative humidity sits at roughly 40 to 65 percent, and given the right conditions mould can begin growing in around 48 hours. The weeks before the wet are worth more than the weeks after winter. Fix the water paths now and the summer is quieter. For the year-round rhythm, the full house cleaning schedule sets out what belongs weekly, monthly and seasonally, and this list is the seasonal layer on top of it. The habits that hold the line through summer are covered separately in preventing mould in a humid climate.

Weekend 1: start outside, with water

Where the rain goes decides most of what happens indoors 3 months later. A blocked downpipe puts water against a wall in every storm, and no amount of wiping inside will fix a wall that is being watered from outside.

• Clear the gutters and check that every downpipe discharges into a drain or well away from the slab, rather than against a wall or into a garden bed sitting hard against the house.
• During the first proper storm, watch the roofline from a window. Overflow shows itself in seconds and tells you more than an inspection on a dry day.
• Check the fall of the ground. Soil, mulch and garden beds creep upward over the years until they sit against timber or above the damp course. Cut them back.
• Trim any vegetation touching a wall. A shrub against brick keeps that wall shaded and damp for days after rain.
• Clear leaf litter from around the air conditioner outdoor unit and from the base of the house.
• Check the air conditioner condensate line runs clear and drains away from the footings, not into a puddle beside them.

The subfloor, if you have one

An underfloor space is a ventilation system, and it only works when air can move through it. Lattice clogged with leaves, stacked timber, bikes, boxes and grown-out shrubs all stop that. Walk the perimeter and clear every vent you find. If the ground under the house is still damp long after rain has stopped elsewhere, that is worth knowing before summer rather than during it.

The air conditioner, before it runs for 6 months

No other appliance in the house is about to work as hard, and none of them moves as much air past as much dust.

• Wash or vacuum the filters and let them dry fully before they go back. Once summer starts, repeat monthly.
• Wipe the vanes and the visible face of the indoor unit, which collect a surprising amount.
• If the indoor coil and drain tray have not been serviced in a few years, book it. That part is not a DIY job on a split system.
• Run the unit on the first warm day and pay attention to the smell in the first 10 minutes. A musty smell on start-up usually means moisture sitting somewhere inside.
• Ducted systems: have the return filter and the vents done at the same time, and note where the returns actually are, because those grilles collect the most.

Weekend 2: bedding, curtains and the soft things

Soft furnishings hold dust the way nothing hard does, and they are also the things most people never think to wash. Doing them before the humid season means they dry properly, which matters more than it sounds.

• Wash curtains if the label allows it. Many are fine on a gentle cycle, some are not, and the hem is where the dust lives.
• Wash or air quilts, pillows and mattress protectors. Moving air and a few hours outside do a great deal on their own.
• Vacuum the mattress with a HEPA machine while the sheets are off. No sprays, no shampoo, no wet extraction. Adding moisture to a mattress in the run-up to a humid summer is the wrong direction, which is why we treat mattress care as part of a clean rather than as a standalone service.
• Vacuum upholstery properly, including under the cushions and along the seams, and wash removable covers.
• Take rugs outside, do both sides, and let them air.
• Consider replacing a pillow you have had for 5 years. Washing helps, but it does not bring back fill that has collapsed.

Working through the soft surfaces this way clears the dust they have been holding, and the practical detail on fabrics, temperatures and drying sits in the guide to bedding and soft furnishings.

Wardrobes, cupboards and the boxes on the floor

Still, dark and closed is the combination that causes trouble, and a wardrobe is all 3 at once.

• Empty the wardrobe floor, vacuum it, wipe the back wall, and leave the doors open for a few hours.
• Pay closest attention to built-ins on an external south or east wall. Those stay cool and the air never moves.
• Put winter clothing away clean and completely dry. Wool stored slightly damp is what people find in March and cannot explain.
• Swap cardboard for plastic tubs with lids for anything stored in a garage or under the house. Cardboard on a concrete floor draws moisture up into whatever is inside it.
• Check leather, shoes, luggage and camera bags at the back of cupboards now, then again mid-summer. They show a problem first.
• Open the spare room that has had its door shut since Easter and move some air through it.

The detail work that rotates out of a normal clean

Ceiling fans, light fittings, cornices, air-conditioning vents, blinds, interior windows. None of it needs doing weekly, all of it needs doing, and spring is when the whole rotation is worth running at once. A fan blade carries a felt of dust that lands on the bed below the first day it runs.

• Fan blades, top and leading edge, before they start running daily.
• Light fittings and shades, plus the tops of door frames and picture rails.
• Cornices and the corners where cobwebs collect out of eyeline.
• Air-conditioning vents and their filters.
• Blinds, slat by slat, which is tedious and has no shortcut worth having.
• Interior window glass, plus the tracks, which hold grit and then hold water.
• Fly screens, washed with a brush. A clogged screen noticeably cuts airflow through a window.

In our maintenance cleans this work rotates across visits rather than being done every time, so nothing accumulates unseen and nobody pays fortnightly for a job that is not due. Doing your own, you are the rotation, and spring is the sensible slot. The corners that most often go untouched are listed in the spots most cleans miss.

How to clean it without a cupboard full of chemicals

Tools and technique do the work that harsh chemistry is usually brought in to cover: professional HEPA vacuums, the right brush for the surface, steel wool where a surface can take it, citric acid for mineral build-up and soap scum, and genuine physical effort. Dry first, wet second. Vacuum and brush before anything liquid touches a surface, or you turn dust into paste. Work top down so you are not cleaning the same floor twice.

For shower glass, tiles and taps, citric acid in warm water with time to sit does most of the job, and the rest is scrubbing. Nothing about that is glamorous. It works.

Killing mould is the wrong goal. Physical removal is the goal, and bleach removes colour while leaving growth in a porous surface, on top of adding moisture to a problem made of moisture.

What I would skip

Plenty of the seasonal advice out there is really a shopping list. Here is the part I would not bother with.

• Fragranced spring products, air fresheners and plug-ins. They add synthetic fragrance to a house you have just cleaned. Every product we use is fragrance-free, and that includes essential oils, which are still a fragrance and still a common trigger.
• Foggers and bombs marketed for mould. They put a mist through a room and leave the growth where it was.
• Wet extraction or shampooing on a mattress, particularly in the weeks before the humid season.
• Shampooing carpet you cannot dry quickly. If the weather has already turned close and sticky, wait for a run of dry days.
• A separate specialist product for every surface. Most of this list needs a vacuum, hot water, a brush, microfibre cloths and citric acid.

If 2 weekends is not realistic

Plenty of homes have not had this done in years, and catching up takes real hours. Our reset deep clean for a 3 bedroom home runs 10 to 15 hours, usually 2 cleaners across a day, at $85 per hour. It is not a different list from a regular clean. It is the same list on a house where nothing has been done yet, so everything takes longer.

After that, weekly or fortnightly maintenance holds the line, with the higher detail work rotating across visits. Once a home is genuinely well maintained we do not leave early. The remaining time goes on the extras: under the kitchen sink, the shelf at the back of the pantry, inside the fridge. If particular areas matter most to you, tell us before we start and those get prioritised. If something we agreed on has been missed or not done properly, let us know within 7 days and we come back and put it right at no charge.