No amount of interior decorating wizardry will help sell your house if the windows are dirty. “When you’re marketing a house, clean windows are like clean teeth: they’re the first thing people see on the outside and the first thing they see through on the inside,” according to broker Phyllis Jane Young. So how do you make your windows sparkle? You need two things: sudsy water and a squeegee. That’s it!

A mild detergent solution is fine on inside windows with natural woodwork, as well. “Don’t let it linger more than half a minute or so. And don’t do too many panes at once,” he cautioned. You want the squeegee to glide, and you don’t want a lot of drips.

Carolyn Forté of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute recently tested six store-bought solutions, a homemade solution of ammonia and water, and three pre-moistened towels.

“We made a lab mixture of greasy, dirty soil; let it dry; then applied a measured amount of each cleaner,” she said. The winner was Hope’s Perfect Glass, available at Bed Bath & Beyond and other major retailers. “It was best overall for cleaning and removing streaks.” Regular Windex was a close second.

And you thought your home wasn’t selling because of the imploding housing market.

The Squeegee Dividend [The Washington Post]
(Photo: michale)

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