Closing Up and Opening a Lake House Between Visits

A lake house is a place you want to arrive at and relax in right away. The trouble is that it spends long stretches empty, and a closed-up house behaves differently from a lived-in one. Damp lingers, dust settles on every flat surface, and anything left slightly wet turns into a smell by the next visit. A few habits on the way out make the cleaning that happens while you are away far more effective.

Leaving: the ten minutes that matter

Start with anything that holds water. Wet swimsuits and beach towels left in a hamper or a pile will be musty by your next trip, even in a week. Take them home to wash, or hang them to dry fully before they are put away. The same goes for damp life jackets, pool noodles and the towel that always ends up over a chair on the porch.

Then the kitchen. Empty the fridge of anything that will not last, wipe the shelves, and prop the door slightly if you will be gone for long. Take the trash out rather than tying the bag and leaving it, and wipe the inside of the bin. Run the dishwasher and leave its door ajar so it can air out. These small steps are what stand between you and the closed-up smell that greets you when you open the door.

Sand, slider tracks and the water-facing glass

Sand is the lake house signature, and it ends up everywhere: the floor by the door, the edge of rugs, the bottom of the couch cushions, and the tracks of every sliding door. Tracks are where it collects and grinds, because every time the door moves, grit scrapes against the frame. A narrow vacuum attachment and a damp cloth are the tools for it, and it is the sort of detail that gets skipped when someone is rushing.

Glass that faces the water gets the most attention from you and shows the most. Lake air carries pollen, spray and dust, and sunlight at the wrong angle will show every streak. If you want the glass done, say so specifically, inside and out where reachable, and say which windows matter most. It is easier to tell a cleaner about the big slider than to expect them to guess which of thirty panes you care about.

What to leave out for your cleaner

When you will not be there, a cleaner is working from your written instructions and whatever you have left in the house. Making that easy is worth ten minutes. Leave the supplies you prefer in one place, keep clean linens in a marked spot, and tell them which rooms are used heavily and which stay closed. Mark anything fragile, anything that is not to be moved, and anything that must stay exactly as it is.

• A short written list of rooms in order of priority, with the must-do items first.
• A note about the sliders, screens and any glass you want done.
• Where clean linens and towels are kept, and how you like beds made.
• What to do with food, trash and anything left in the fridge.
• A note of anything that should not be moved or touched.
• How you want to hear about problems: a text with a photo works well.

Opening up: what to check on arrival

When you come back after a quiet stretch, give the house a few minutes before judging it. Open windows, run the fans and let the air move. A faint closed-up smell usually fades quickly if the house was clean when it was shut. A smell that does not fade points to something specific: a damp towel, a drain that has dried out, or a bin that was not emptied. Run water in every drain for a minute, including the ones you rarely use, so the traps refill.

Winter adds its own step. If the house sits through a Wisconsin winter, shutting the plumbing down is a job for the person who services it, not for a cleaner. What a cleaner can do is help you start and finish the season well, with a reset in the spring that clears dust from the closed-up months and a pass before the first weekend of lake season.

Philip Richardson, who has his lake house in Delavan cleaned by Shelly's Home Services, wrote in a Google review: “It’s such a relief knowing I can trust them to take great care of my property even when I’m not there.” That trust is easier to build when the instructions are clear and the access plan is simple.

If you have a lake house around Delavan and want it cleaned while you are somewhere else, Shelly's Home Services can help. Call (262) 812-9137, or see /services/lake-house-cleaning.