Witches, Ghosts, and Grime, Oh My! Tackle Halloween Messes with Ease

The witching hour is almost upon us, a time for frightening fun, fancy dress, and scary films!

However, between the decorations, sweet treats and spooktacular costumes, you might wind up with more tricks than treats when it comes to mess.

But don’t fear! There’s no reason to get spooked – we’ve put some tips to help you remove common Halloween messes.

Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkins are an iconic part of Halloween traditions but are often a culprit of many household messes! If you are carving this year, remember the guts can be troublesome to remove and clean up.

Lay down some newspapers or old sheets to protect your surfaces before you start operating on your pumpkins to minimise the clean-up!

But in case you’ve forgotten, use a spoon to remove any mess, and mix one part washing-up liquid with two parts warm water, and dab into any stains with a clean cloth.

Once your pumpkins are outside, don’t forget to keep an eye on them! When they start to rot they can leave a mess and a lingering odour behind – not what you want after all the fun!

Frightening Food

Something wicked this way comes after the fun of trick-or-treating! Halloween brings all manners of sticky messes, and unfortunately, you can’t call the Ghost Busters to clean it up (or maybe you can).

Chocolate

For the aftermath of the chocolate monster on your surfaces, make sure to let leftovers harden and scrape away what you can, or blot liquid stains with a paper towel.

As for clothes, soak your murdered item in some detergent (do not use this for wool or silk!) for up to 30 minutes, gently blotting the area every so often before bringing it back to life in a normal wash.

Sticky Sweeties

Sugar is not your friend and will attract all manner of horrors with its sticky enchantments if not dealt with quickly.

Dry sugar granules from sweet packets can be hoovered easily, but for sticky messes, hot water is great for dissolving sugar.

If the sticky area is stubborn, use one cup of lukewarm water and a teaspoon of detergent to gently blot into the stain. To ramp up the removal, you can add vinegar to the cleaning mixture.

Wicked Wax Dripping

Tealights and candles are perfect for creating eery atmospheres, but don’t let wax cause deathly consequences to your surfaces!

If you’ve spotted a grave error on your carpet, first make sure the spilt wax is as hard as possible before you remove it. Hold an ice pack to the affected area so that once hard, you can pick off the wax with your fingers or a butter knife.

For any remaining wax, place absorbent kitchen paper over the area and iron on low heat – the kitchen paper should soak up any leftover wax.

For wood, you can warm the wax up with a hairdryer and wipe it away with a cloth. For any lingering wax, clear it with a mixture of one part vinegar, and one part water.

Costumes

Everyone might look fabulous in their witch, clown, and skeleton costumes, but what’s not so great are stains and smears from make-up, face paint and fake blood left behind.

Luckily, there are some ways to prevent your home from permanently looking like a crime scene.

Make-up & Face Paint

Make-up is mostly grease-based, so regular dish soap is often the perfect sidekick to lift stains. For more stubborn stains, sodium percarbonate can do the trick.

As for face paint, save your soul by steering clear of oil-based paint!

If the damage has already been done, try dabbing the paint with a little white spirit on a clean cloth to help remove it – white spirit is normally used for thinning oil paints.

For a carpet, dab with water afterwards, or for clothing wash at as high a temperature as the garment allows.

Fake Blood

Don’t leave fake blood as a nasty shock for post-Halloween house guests!

To ensure your carpet doesn’t get you a visit from the police, blot as much of the wet blood away from the surface first with a kitchen towel or cloth, then apply some soda water to the stain.

As for your clothes, apply white vinegar and leave to soak overnight before washing with biological detergent. For any wool or silk clothing victims, use a non-bio-option in the wash.

Deadly Decorations

Oh, the horror! We all love getting our decoration game on, but when it’s time to put it all away, many are often traumatised by the aftermath.

We’ve picked out two deadly decorations out of the myriad of ghoulies that you really need to tackle: glitter and fake spiders webs!

Glitter and confetti might have been fun at the time on all your decorations, but it can prove almost apocalyptic afterwards – it spreads everywhere!

Hoover wherever you can, and utilise play-doh, a lint roller or something similar to pick up anything left behind.

As for creating a haunted Halloween lair, everyone likes to use those spider webs that feel like cotton candy! Unfortunately, when left they collect dust and create even more mess than their real-life web-making counterparts!

We think it’s best left to the spider experts (though you might want to remove those too!), so ensure that all your decorations are packed away safely before they start to haunt you.

…

If you’re too squeamish for the Halloween clean-up, why not let Molly Maid do the work for you – we have the best witches’ brooms for the job!

Find your local Molly Maid here.

generatelindsay

See Full Bio