Maintenance Tips

I've got a few more interesting tips for all of you residents (or future residents) out there!

I know you know you're supposed to clean your garbage disposal on a regular basis (we talked about it in the last tips, just put citrus peels or ice cubes down there), but you should also clean the splash guard! If you've got a funky smell coming out of the drain, don't just assume that it's down in the drain, it could be the cover.

These are super easy to remove. Make sure that the disposal is not on, because we'd like you to have all of your fingers, and then grab hold of the splash guard and pull it out. You can toss it in the dishwasher or clean it with a scrub brush.

Now if your other sink drain (the one in your bathroom) is clogged, a lot of people's first reaction is to use drano, or some other chemical to unclog it. This can be rough on your pipes and cause them to wear out easier. Plus it's not so good for the environment either. Our lovely Assistant Community Manager, Laura, was telling me about Zip-It*.

Zip-it looks like a plastic zip tie but it has plastic tines on it. You just shove it down your drain, and when you pull it out, all of the hair (or whatever was clogging your drain), is attached and you can just throw it away. It doesn't look very pretty coming out, but it works wonders, and then you don't have to have the maintenance people come out and judge you (not that they would, but you would think that they were).

Now that the weather is getting warmer, you might turn on your AC just to check and make sure that it works. A lot of people tend to turn theirs on all at the same time, and if your apartment doesn't have the best maintenance people (unlike our apartment complex), you might have to wait a little while for it to get fixed. If you check it out now then the maintenance staff will have some time to come get it fixed right away.

When you're doing your deep spring cleaning make sure to pull your refrigerator out from the wall to clean underneath and behind it. This is going to save you a lot of time in the long run, because you don't want an extra cleaning charge after you move out to have the apartment clean it. Just be careful, they usually pull out pretty easy, but you don't want a rip in your vinyl!

While it is nice outside, unfortunately it means it's also nice for bugs as well. If you see any inside your home just contact the office and we can put your apartment on the list for OPC to come out and spray.

If you have any other tips, or would like to write a guest blog post, e-mail me at blankenbaker5@yahoo.com!

*This is not a product placement for them, it's just a really cool product, all opinions are my own and I wasn't asked to write this post by them