Thanksgiving lands on Thursday, November 26 this year. If you’re hosting, you’ve probably started a mental list of everything you need to clean before Thanksgiving. It’s too long.

We clean a lot of houses the week somebody’s family is about to pull into the driveway, and guests notice only a handful of things. They don’t notice the rest. Put your time into the handful.

The guest bathroom

It’s the one room every guest spends time in alone, with the door shut and nothing to do but look around. Scrub the toilet, including the base and the floor behind it. Wipe the mirror and the faucet. Empty the trash.

Then put out a clean hand towel and a spare roll of toilet paper somewhere obvious. Nobody wants to have to ask.

If you only do one room well, make it this one.

The fridge

You’re about to need every shelf for a turkey, three casseroles and whatever your aunt brings in a foil pan. Toss the expired stuff the weekend before and wipe down the shelves. You get the room, and you skip the moment when a guest opens the door to put away the cranberry sauce and meets a container from September.

The entry and the kitchen floor

People see the entry first, and they all end up standing in the kitchen. Sweep the porch, shake out the doormat, and get the shoes and mail off the entry table.

Mop the kitchen the day before. Then accept that it will look like a crime scene by 4 p.m. Thursday. That’s what Friday is for.

The guest bed

A guest room that’s been closed up since summer smells like it. Open the window for an hour. Wash the sheets even if the bed looks made, dust the nightstand, and clear a drawer or a bit of closet so their suitcase isn’t living on the floor all weekend.

Dust, because cedar season is close

Around here, mountain cedar usually starts dumping pollen in December and gets worst in January. Your cousins flying in from Ohio won’t care. You will, probably by Christmas.

Late November is a good time to dust the ceiling fans, wipe the blinds and swap the HVAC filter, before you’re doing it between sneezes. The fans matter for another reason, too. After the meal, half the room ends up on the couch staring straight up at them.

What you can skip

Baseboards in rooms nobody’s going into. Closets with the doors shut. The garage. Windows, unless they’re bad enough that people would notice in daylight.

The oven is the one exception. If it smokes when it heats up, clean it before you put a turkey in there, or the smoke detector will make the announcement for you.

Nobody has ever left Thanksgiving dinner talking about the baseboards.

When to clean before Thanksgiving

• The weekend before: fridge, guest room, ceiling fans and blinds.
• Tuesday or Wednesday: guest bathroom, entry, kitchen floor.
• Thursday morning: a quick pass on the bathroom sink and toilet, a fresh towel, and an empty kitchen trash can before the cooking starts.

Spread out like that, none of it eats a whole day.

Or hand some of it off

If you’d rather spend the week cooking (or avoiding cooking), we can clean before Thanksgiving so you don’t have to. We do regular and deep cleans around Austin, Pflugerville, Round Rock and Cedar Park. Thanksgiving week is busy for cleaners everywhere, so the earlier you reach out, the better your shot at the day you want.

Request a quote, or book a clean if you already know what you need.