Everything You Need to Know About Hari Raya Cleaning

Everything You Need to Know About Hari Raya Cleaning

The Day of Celebration known as Hari Raya Puasa is celebrated by Muslims in Singapore and Malaysia. Falling at the end of Ramadan, there is a lot of preparation involved including lot of cleaning.

What is Hari Raya?

Ramadan culminates in a big celebration called Hari Raya. On this day, Muslims go to prayers early in the morning and then visit the graves of their loved ones. In the evening, Muslims again visit the mosque to recite prayers.

New clothes are purchased and worn, houses are cleaned thoroughly and then decorated, and families come together for a big feast.

The day changes from year to year as it falls on the first day of Shawwal, the tenth month of the Islamic calendar.

Preparing the house

In many houses, visiting relatives are taking up every spare space – whether it’s bedrooms living rooms or studies. But here are some tips to ensure preparing your home is as painless as possible.

Spring cleaning

Now is the time for a spring clean and anything that needs fixing should be fixed before guests arrive.

If the roof is leaking, get it repaired. Upholstery ripped on couches or chairs needs to be refurbished. If the walls need a bit of a spruce, whip out the paint brushes. It’s important that your guests feel welcomed and at home, and having a clean, tidy, and neat home is key.

Cooking is a very popular activity during the Hari Raya period, so it’s important that you have a quality kitchen cleaner to ensure you make the most out of the limited time available to cook before prayers start during the fasting period. For example, bio-home dishwashing liquid can wash up to 5x more plates than ordinary dishwashing liquid. In addition, our kitchen cleaner is rinse-free so you can wipe everything down and then immediately continue cooking without having to go over the kitchen a second time.

Get every nook and cranny

Of course, you need to have the vacuuming done and the floors mopped, but what about the little things? Wipe off all the doorknobs or handles, ensure the light switches are cleaned and wipe down the cabinets – inside and out.

The appliances

You’ve been cooking and baking up a storm so your appliances are likely to have been used quite a bit. Give your oven a good, strong clean. Take out every bit that you can and wash that down separately. Wipe down the inside and don’t forget the glass. Also, give the microwave a clean – it’s often the appliance that seems to be forgotten. Pop a bowl of water inside and set it for three minutes. The steam will loosen any stuck-on food. You can then wipe it all away. If you want it to smell nice, pop some lemon in the water. You can also use baking soda in your appliances to get rid of food odours.

Cutlery drawers

So often we forget about the cutlery drawers. And they’re often the ones that have the most crumbs and all sorts of other food dropped in. Take everything out, give the drawer a careful clean and then put everything back. Check to see if anything is dirty and wash that too. When it comes to the bigger utensil drawers, there may even be things in there that you can discard if you haven’t used them in a while.

Dust the day away

Dust can build up, no matter how many times we wipe it off. Remove dirt, cobwebs and dust from surfaces using a small vacuum brush. Wipe off any excess with a damp cloth. Remember to check every single surface, including the ones up high such as ceiling fans.

Make the windows shine

The windows should be so clean that people don’t think there’s any glass in the frame. This will require a bit of elbow grease so be prepared. Newspaper is a great material to wipe down the glass without streaks. Dab on some glass cleaner and wipe until there are no remaining marks.

Ask for help

Cleaning the house from top to bottom isn’t just one person’s job. Not only is it back-breaking and monotonous work, but if there are a few people living in the house, it’s up to each individual to pitch in and help out. Especially when there are so many other things that need to be done to prepare for Hari Raya.

Delegate work areas to each person, whether it’s a particular task such as vacuuming or a particular room such as the kitchen.

Remember, just because it’s quite a boring task doesn’t mean you won’t have fun doing it. Crank up the music and enjoy each other’s company. You can even make it a bit of friendly competition of who can finish first with the best result. Just remember to reward the person who actually wins.

And of course, it’s up to each individual to tackle their own bedroom.

Also, it may be worth doing a bit of decluttering and organising in the lead up to the Day of Celebration. If you break it down and do a bit of tidying up each day in the weeks beforehand, there will be much less to do when the time actually comes.