Welcome to the mud crew campsite here at Porth Pian the food is starting to arrive tents are starting to go up and runners are starting to appear and I've got one runner with me now who are you Mark what race are you doing this weekend bring out your dad are you are you mad what are you most worried about with the BO ideas I'm calling it falling asleep or slipping down on the steps have you ever done this course before so have you heard of the word steps of death you're looking forward to that yes so what what what is your plan my plan is is the hair not to go out too fast not to go out too mad tell tell me about the rules of bring out your dad there are and he says more than 20 minutes if what anywhere on the course I believe anywhere on the course yes I fall asleep for more than 20 minutes sometimes I was thinking of having a little tip on the steps I've got to admit you have to finish the 24 hours or you will be disqualified yeah and I believe that if you do not finish the 24 hours they take your t-shirt off you and burn it in the fire wow this trumps the plague doesn't it does sound like oh my goodness I'm looking forward to it I feel it strong feeling fit mentally strong from from finishing the art last time should be a good event always is with mud crew can't can't think of anything more fun to do on a Friday night at 7 o'clock when I'm not being paid by night oh my goodness well listen Mark good luck thank you very much for chatting to me okay there goes Mark to prepare right so like I say things are starting to happen so the food is arriving look if you want a latte you can get a latte here what have we got over here let's have a look so these are the pods last year they didn't have these lovely brand spanking pods hello Andy as Andy you've got these hooked up to power look and they are very nice indeed they are brand new and instead of pitching a tent you could have one of these lovely pods what else have we got going on alone so so people are just arriving really because the weather has been pretty bad so people arrived a bit later than they would have done normally if it had been a lovely sunny day this will all be set up and ready now but people are only just kind of getting going there's the barn later on we've got Damien Hall coming to talk just before the start of the plague so that's where the disco is that's where the bar is and that's where the race briefing will be later so welcome to the start of the void this is bring out your dead there are 17 runners in bring out your dead and they are lined up here ready to go for 24 hours of running on the Cornish Coast path up and down some horrendous hills are you ready Laura? I'm ready to celebrate how far are you going to manage? 27 miles 27 miles good luck are you ready? yes nervous? no I'm good actually okay awesome how's it going? the music is now open in the day good luck good luck there's a boat going to take you one year running I'm not sure I'd enter this if you paid me yeah good luck buddy well done guys alright all you have to do is take off mercy on your soul being to a mud crew then before this is your taster next year you runners being led to the start line still standing after 24 hours of running that Cornish Coast path is not forgiving any of the 17 are you hoping we'll get to the end? none that's handy for you so runners will be going 2.5 miles out on the coast path and then turning round and coming 2.5 miles back it doesn't sound tough but when you think there are some hellish steps between here and there they're allowed to spend 20 minutes maximum at Sanctuary which is back here if they spend any longer than 20 minutes they are de-queued they have to get out running again 4 3 2 1 17 sorry souls on their way that is the start of the void 24 hour race so here we are in the registration area which one are you doing? the 11? and it's very busy with plague runners coming in to register I've seen anything so this is kit check here what do you need from the runners today then? what are you checking for? different races for the plague what are you checking for? plague race cup waterproof jacket tape things mobile phone emergency blanket head torch and spare battery and a red tail light they have to carry with the kit but that's all we're checking so when you are running the plague races these days most races are trying to go coupless so you need to carry a cup because they will not be providing plastic cups for you at the aid stations red tail light is becoming more and more common in this country it's popular in Europe obviously it just means you can see runners in the dark that are ahead of you as well as the ones with the white light behind you and obviously things like emergency blankets stuff like that it may feel like summer but if you have a broken leg and you are lying on the coast path it gets very very cold very very quickly these are not optional things these are things you have to carry and they're for your safety so that's the kit check thank you very much that's kit check and then once they've had their kit checked they can go over and get their race number so these are the guys and gals issuing the race numbers they can only get their race number once they've had their kit checked and you've still got loads of numbers still to collect if you know nothing about the rat but I assume you do because you're watching on the mud crew page the rat consists of the new race the boy that bring out your dead race which has gone already they've started that's a 24 hour race then you have the plague which is 100km that starts tonight at midnight then there is the black rat which starts at 8 o'clock in the morning at St Anthony's head 50km all the way back here then there's the red rat and the white rat the red rat is about 20 miles the white rat is about 11 miles so there's all those races so all those runners have to go through kit check and pick up their numbers here race what? Marshall okay, Ellie is Marshall manager Ellie ran the plague last year and I had what for what? I came fourth oh she came fourth oh you did come fourth because I was between you and third place I ran last year and every time I got to the top of the hill I looked behind me and I could see Ellie at the top of the hill before me and I was desperately trying to keep ahead of her you were speeding up towards the end weren't you and I was slowing down desperately but this is Chris who is monitoring see all these here trackers these are monitoring the Boyd runners so the Boyd runners went off about half an hour ago and they're already turning around to come back for their first lap and Chris is monitoring their trackers keeping an eye on how far they've done how many laps they'll have done and they haven't gone off in the wrong direction and you can see little blue dots there on the screen so Chris are you there you're not going to be there all night doing this are you I hope not hopefully I'll get some sleep maybe an hour an hour's sleep so normally on a rat weekend we'd all be out in the sunshine sitting and enjoying the beautiful evening summer's weather it is a bit cloudy and windy but people are still outside and there's always a lovely atmosphere at the rat weekend are you nervous there you go see that's what the rat weekend is all about are you nervous no we'll just go out and have some fun I think the coolest bit is when it's not every day you overtake Jim Walters for you really I've got to build that one that's not going to happen again yeah that's two phrases I've never thought I'd be able to say is when I caught up with Jim Walters when I caught up with Zach Miller as well Jim Walters it was he was already out of the race I think but I caught him and Zach Miller to be honest I can at least pretend that I caught him up in a commensurate way but yeah I shouldn't really be anywhere near them in the race but yeah I guess I don't know what caused them to have the races they wanted but I'm just I'm quite slow really so what's great is all these fast dudes they dash off sometimes they go a bit too fast and the long pier at the back the long pier at the back well secretly I'm just I used to be a hiker and that's really what I like doing like a long lazy hike on the hill me too yeah nothing that's coming up it's all a bit towering and sweaty isn't it sometimes so yeah that's sort of why I like UTMB's there's lots of long hikers really so it's a bit annoying when all these fast dudes come along and travel on bits evening everybody we are live at the mud crew campsite for the start of the plague 100km 50km all the way out from here in Port Peer all the way to Antony's head turn round 50km all the way back it's out in the dark and the rain and back hopefully tomorrow morning in the sunshine are you ready just about doesn't sound confident enough to me I want yes absolutely I'm ready absolutely I'm ready okay what's your furthest distance so far so you've done 100km before selfie's being taken everybody is everybody's just like trying to quell their nerves a bit just calm down are you ready how you feeling raring to go at least it's not pouring with rain is it what's your what's your ultra experience okay so you know the course what's your name Murray hello Murray nice to meet you have a good run what's your name Andy have you done 100km before is this your first ultra okay so we've started on the ultra path first 100km are you feeling nervous it is a bit up and down yes there are one or two hills don't let it frighten you off it'll be fine good look Naomi have you done an ultra before have you done 100km before so what are you worried about have you not done hills before where are you from Essex right you don't know what a hill is in Essex do you have you run on the south west coast path before okay so you've similar kind of terrain well good look have a good race well done so this is radiation man most people have the plague he's disinfecting everybody to make sure that they are sanitised those running the plague obviously they're already infected they have to go all runners who finish the plague have to do this at the end or they don't get their medal Andy try to steal the limelight with his drum like me see Andy is an average ultra runner with a little talent not like Ellie we are a couple of minutes away now from the start of the plague 100 2019 if you want to be part of this next year mudcrew.co.uk go and find out how you can get involved in the rat weekend next year the runners will come through this trail head torches on this is where the nerves really ramp up the flares are lit less than a minute to go now and they'll be off into the night and they're off here we go see you at the turnaround good luck guys that they are into the night yes it is nice to see daylight you're right what's that you're hoping for a particular time nah not really I was hoping to do about 12 and a half so we'll see the hardest bit is yet to come in it yes yes so Thomas pick up any nutrition he needs he said he can't really still look at bacon sandwich at the moment right time to go for it take care good luck buddy get you off in 45 seconds have a great run stay safe out there look after each other and we'll see you all at 4 p.m. so this is the start of the black rat this is 50k 32 miles it's the second half of the plague they're doing it in daylight so it shouldn't be too bad but the wind is all over the place it's not really behind you at all guys good luck guys enjoy yourselves have fun take care well done yeah you'll be walking like this for a few hundred meters I'll tell you that it gets a bit narrow in a minute enjoy have fun take care come on you're late you're late get on with it get on with it so you're looking forward to this now it looks so exciting no it does look exciting you look a bit too excited have you done 50k before okay so you know what you're doing you did it last year so why aren't you doing the plague this year then no no people don't look happy when they start the plague well good luck have a great race and here we are on to St Antony's head so you've got plague runners down there turning round and going back I haven't done 50k already and then the 50k runners just starting out here right down here this is where the plague runners come how are you doing yeah and then you're off well done guys keep it up keep going so this isn't really a checkpoint it's just a cut it's just the turn around point they can get a bit of water but nothing else really you have to wait to get back to Port Scathow in about 4 miles and then they can have a bacon sandwich back there what's that so see there well done there's medics here there he is look and then the the tail runners are here so when the last plague runner comes through these ladies are going to follow on thanks guys well done guys good job well done excuse us guys thank you anyone in the black rat follow me come on come on black rat and film crew coming through black rat and film crew black rat and film crew coming through black rat and film crew film crew coming through right so here we are at the top have a good run girls so this is a beautiful view you can see the black rat runners coming down the hill there as well and any plague runners there are hi guys have a good race so all these people are 20 mile runners the red rat runners hi there so they're right at the start of their race 20 miles to go from Port Lou back to Port Prian hi there morning good morning have a good race guys it is still very windy here but at least it's not pouring with rain which it was a minute or two ago and they're keeping on coming there's no let up hi guys keep coming beautiful view here over Port Lou absolutely gorgeous well done guys hi there you're right hopefully my wife will film Tom crossing the line at the end of the plague finishing shortly and the white rat runners will be going off in a couple of hours time hi there hi gang keep coming that's alright no problem hi mate hi there enjoy your race have a great day there's a few more of these steps to come you know and here's some plague runners always good that they're wearing the green vests you can tell who they are you know they've worked the hardest out of everybody these guys are now at oh what 80k now no 70k yeah 70k they've got 20 miles to go you've worked hard as well I know you're running faster aren't you half the distance but twice as fast yeah come on you're going well done guys and there in the distance there that is the rat so called because it's shaped a little bit like a rat guys we'll see you back at the finish line for everyone crossing the line and we'll be live from there in about an hour's time take care bye time to the finish now well done Tom that must be a negative split Tom from the turnaround you turned around about 10 to 6 this morning that's I think it was a myth I've got two things for you you better sign up for that how'd you feel Tom yeah were you pushing it hard all the way I felt pretty strong on the hills to be fair I was trying to just plod there but then run what I could on the straight to make up time I had no idea I was in the lead no one told me you didn't know you were in the lead until at what point you're kidding so that gave me a lift when I came back I was on the next guy because you were quite a way you were quite a way ahead for most of the race to be fair Tom how long have you been ultra running the classic quarter 2017 from the black rat it's about it I've done two or three I think first race win one more local races are on informal but that's a big one where are you from Falmouth so you're a local lad is there a race are you thinking of the archivatrician is that something that's on your mind now that you've got the invite that hurts so much I can't imagine doing another well that was 100km you've got another 40 miles to do the missus has done it well you can't let the missus get away with that can you so other than thought thinking about the arch what are your plans for future ultra running you have discovered now after three ultras that you're quite good at it I'll just sign that to the Ben Nevis Ultra Salomon oh I'll see you there I think I'm doing that yeah excellent you need a rest don't you buddy need to lie down thank you very much absolutely well done congratulations on your first major ultra win really well done and we'll see you at the Ben Nevis Ultra and hopefully the archivatrician yeah we'll see well done Damien we were just saying the young ones were going to pull away from you in the end they were going to beat you oh well I'm only 7 in running years you see we were honestly we were thinking would you want it that much but you did you did want it how far ahead are you yeah we'll see someone maybe a minute behind yeah we've been dueling quite a bit well I mean I was with you at Cahaze you were all together at Cahaze then apparently you were all together at Gorin Haven I don't know where that was about 9 miles away so we've been discussing where you might all be me and the guy with the beard sort of pushed on a little bit Jamie yeah he's a really good runner he was better than me on the flats he was probably about equal on the downs he was like better on the climbs good for you but have you have you done any climbing before come on how does this rank this must be right up there there you go do you know what though it has been perfect weather really actually it's quite it's quite deceptively hot for a while it's sweating I smell very bad I won't nice breeze nice refreshing showers go and get a drink well done Damien now there's a question you've qualified for the art yeah you've qualified I will definitely do the art one day you have that on whether it's next year I'm not sure Damien Hall says he sorry he will definitely do the art one day Damien Hall winner of the 2019 Black Rat well done buddy and Jane heard it as well so these guys in the great tops these guys are the 24 hour bring out your dead runners they've been going since 7 o'clock yesterday evening they're now 16 hours in 16 hours or so in to their run they've covered between 40 and 60 miles some of the runners ok so here comes second place in the 50k well done good job Jamie well done well done well done well done well done well done until the last 10k everyone says that I want to appreciate how do you feel really good for finishing so when you say you loved it what did you love chasing him wouldn't it have been better him you would have been better just getting out there on the coast path have you done the course before so what about the coast path before I needed a pen to hear it was horrible I knew the first 12k it was alright and it was alright we didn't know anything in between good fun I recognise you have watched your videos on youtube from some people have I'll get off with you Damien last year was it I've done this a couple of times and I was worse than you when I finished I fell on the floor for 20 minutes and I was 3 hours slower than you well done buddy what's your surname Jamie Stevenson second place in the 2019 Black Rat well done mate good job well done Colin well done Colin Colin how you doing we want to see your apple we have an apple ok what does the apple sorry I'm clueless what does the apple signify 3 more laps then really 2 more laps so that's just you those apples it's an apple pie afterwards ok right so Colin Bave is on 60 miles now with another 7 hours left to run this is tailwind are you surviving on tailwind still I've got tailwind and I'm eating sandwiches oh ok at least you've got something solid and it's coming yes well done Anna well done Anna good job now who are you your second in the 2019 plague where does that rank in your history of ultra running I won one of their events before ok what did you win I won the quest in 2016 ok cool and I've had the odd seconds but I don't race much are you pleased with this what were you expecting from today what were you hoping for from today finish everybody says I just wanted to finish do you must have had a time in 90 I was expecting it I just wanted to finish so I didn't expect the penta got seeded ok ok and fourth place in the black rank well done now 450 450 excellent so what were you hoping for what were you expecting I wasn't sure about time I was hoping for podium if I could I think I missed it by a couple of minutes yeah I think with the field we had some quick runners and you did astonishingly well 450 on that course can't argue really can you well done good job buddy alright how was that that's horrible isn't it you've done 20 miles quicker than that before Dan the first half was real it just gets a bit more tricky on the second it was all great but it's just hard to run hard on that last yeah you can't can you because I think it's only people that are really churned up but it makes it fun because you're kind of coasting and then all of a sudden it gets not only the elevation but just underground yeah and with it being rainy and then dry and then rainy and then dry this ground is a bit weird isn't it I mean the first half is all really that fast vulnerable it's not too wet I had a brilliant did you go over yeah but I was on top of a grassy hill and I just slid on my bum down it's grassy hill and it managed to get up and carry on good stuff so Dan you didn't take a medal just for the people watching explain why you didn't take a medal and the shirt that you're wearing and just I know you're tired give me two minutes we run a social enterprise called RERUN which kind of encourages as little waste as possible in the running community and I then take a medal because it's fine I'm happy me personally I don't need a momentum of the race the momentum is in my mind it's my memories so I don't need to take something that I don't need and I think RERUN is about spreading awareness about that don't buy too much kit don't take race shirts if you don't want them as runners consume less because the least we consume our trails last longer do you know what I mean does that make sense so my t-shirt is a mashup of two race t-shirts and it's kind of like a statement t-shirt to say that we've got too many of these race t-shirts and I'm not against race t-shirts and we don't need them or don't want them so if people want to join that movement if people want to take part what do they do how do they get involved in RERUN the best thing is to consume less and to lobby their race organisers to give people an option whether they want medals or whether they want race t-shirts because we get given things we don't necessarily want first of all we don't necessarily need and second we don't necessarily want we get thousands of donations of race t-shirts that have never ever been used so it's about it's not like coming by a second hand stuff from us it's about just think about what you're doing and ask yourself the question before you purchase anything do I really need this and if the answer is yes then buy it, if the answer is no then don't flood the world with more and more stuff that we don't need of course Dan well done, what race have you got coming up next Ultra, the same one as David Ultra Tour or Monterosa I've been doing four of these I've been doing them over four days the 24 hour world championship excellent are you great britain shirt for that yeah yeah yeah me and Paul Paul's here he's at Goren Haven isn't he doing the aid station there helping out there so me and him will be on the team and another lady that would have run Sarah and Warwood is on the team as well so the mud crew is well represented she's a mud crew runner and I can see them myself like a good friend of mud crew if you don't know Dan also does the british ultra running podcast with James do you know where the next one is no James if you're watching yeah he needs to sort out another one well done mate good job buddy so that's Dan Lawson winner of the red rat 20 mile race any soul any soul well done well done Megan Amy how are you yeah no of course you are I always cry at the end of my ultras are you coming yes you are oh please come come on you can do it what position were you for third well done mate great stuff well done buddy how are you feeling you do have to continue all the way to 8 o'clock though don't you 25 yeah but you'll get your 64 miles done well before that won't you good for you yeah and then get out quick good job you alright what was that did you white the white rat was that the first time you've done the race the first time you've ever done a trail race the first time you've ever done a trail what's your name Freddie Brown nice to meet you Freddie so does that inspire you to go on and do more yeah well that was 11 miles of it two years two three years time do the whole 64 so that you do you know what you look really fresh and you look like you thoroughly enjoyed that yeah recommend it to people there you go there you go live on facebook you will not regret coming and doing one of these races at the rat weekend sit down sit down sit down get him on a chair get him on a chair yeah yeah that's what it means to people I miss you so much it's the last time I'm doing it next time I'm with you well done that's what it means to people some people they put their absolute all into these races and almost breaks them it's such an achievement to finish these things sometimes and sometimes the emotion just overwhelms you and I know it does me sometimes when I finish races like this good job buddy you alright buddy I thought you were cramping up there which one did you do yeah oh that's why okay well the first one of the rat or the first trail race oh that's okay you're the second person I've spoken to just in the past 5 minutes who said that was their first ever trail race enjoyed it then so the hills didn't put you off I'm pretty good for the first half it's the second half I think we've said to everyone whether you're doing the plague the 64 mile or the the 31 mile or whatever the last everyone does those last 10 miles and everyone feels the hills what's your name Mike Gettings well done Mike good job I hope to see you again either at another rat or another event glad you enjoyed it cheers buddy there we are do a double interview obviously the last time I saw you the competitors were up I guess you had a fairly busy night as well actually I thought I'd get to St Anthony's head nice and early to catch the leader in the plague at the turnaround point and I got there really early and fell asleep in my car and missed him so I then had to get in my car and catch him there and you didn't tell me Stephen you were desperate to make sure we caught the first plague runner at the finish and I never going to receive your own smas I'd phoned my wife to say if I don't make it back to the finish line can you please video the plague Tom when he crosses the finish line luckily I made it back just in time I've never seen his legs move smas everyone so there we go we're going to be interviewing Stephen because I'm going to be interviewing me going live on Facebook right now enjoy that guys kind of would you come again next year it's got to be a plague next year isn't it you going to do the plague I might get to talk to you I've got something to think about are you going to I'm already doing the 50 so you can upgrade it's already said to me that they made me something to do I might be able to do it hope you enjoyed it today well done guys how was that for you hard well it's supposed to be hard it's a trail race on the coastal path what did you do today the red have you done that 20 miles before and you did the black last year so when are you doing the plague never no answer would you recommend the coast path to a new ultra runner well done guys what did you do how did you find it it's supposed to be tough but it's brilliant now what do you think 40 I would have said 20 I would have said 20 so is 11 miles a distance you're used to no oh brilliant you chose the coastal path to do it on we're locals so we do train a bit on the coastal path but we've never done this distance before well done would you do it again are you going to step up to the 20 I don't know about that 20 is just about the 20 well this is very well done today take care bye bye how did you do today really well have you done the 20 before have you done a rat event before brilliant excellent how did you find it really good support has it made you think about doing another rat event a longer distance or would you go and do another trail event somewhere else what do you think I would definitely do this one again next year if you've done 20 miles on the coast path does that mean you can do a flat fast road marathon I've entered the Cornish in October so we'll soon find out excellent well done well done today how did you all do today please would you recommend mud crew events to anyone which what did you do 20 mile okay so what would you say would you prefer would you like 20 miles on a coast path or would you like a marathon on the flat road coast path for sure coast path every time oh you look give me a flat road marathon any day she says I was thinking yeah I know like the last mile climbing I know really good though I'm glad you enjoyed it today bye bye hello what did you do today 20 miles did you do it together awesome is that the first run you've done together or do you run together a lot done a few are you gradually increasing the distances so next year we're going to go for the 50k are we I'm I'm staying on triathlon long distance triathlon you might go for the 30k I don't think I will yeah that's dad pushing daughter into it it was a very good event I enjoyed it have you done a rat event before have you done a mud crew event before where are you from good luck with your triathlons and good luck with training for the black rats next year hi guys how did you find that what did you do the red rats 20 miles have you done 20 miles before have you done trail races before you've done the plague this is easy easy for you I don't know we've stopped for half a side of that why not why not you were with yourself today it was good so has she convinced you to do the plague next year then no I've done 50 and that's my limit well you look like you've enjoyed yourself anyway well done thanks for chatting guys well done you've done the white rat today is that a distance that you're used to never done it before never on the trails so how would you compare running 10 miles on the road to 10 miles on the trail way harder on the trails way harder on the trails but more enjoyable everyone's so nice it's been a real good camaraderie out there you'll be back excellent stuff thank you very much guys well done what have you done today 32 excellent stuff is that the first time you've done 50k no that was the hard one so what are the 50k's have you done before what are the distances three man in Bristol you've done a couple in Italy yeah oh right what have you done Dolomites Dolomites extreme excellent this is pretty extreme though it's hard work especially that last 10 miles isn't it last 10k or so I know the cocktail girls were there so would you recommend my crew events of course brilliant spectacular brilliant excellent well hopefully we'll see you again next year take care thank you bye bye well done guys how did you do tired 20 miles a day and did you did you run today you did a bit of running with daddy daddy's faster than nana well done today enjoyed it yeah really good well done good job well done how was it for you the last few miles were quite tough the last few miles are tough that is everybody saying that that was good though I really enjoyed it is 50k a distance you're used to I've done it once before do it again or are you going to step up I'll do that one again are you tempted by the plague not yet how are your legs you look like you're stretching them out a bit keep moving yeah I'm feeling a little bit sore now so I just want to stretch it out great stuff well done thank you hello who are you Susie what have you just done today the white rat is that the first time that you've done that distance before what got you into running in the first place I was losing weight and I needed to lose more weight and still eat and drink my partner runs as well so he's doing the black rat at the moment is he still out there good for him yeah and I have watched the rat in supporting people it's always exciting was it something that was always in your head something you wanted to do and how do you feel now that you've completed the white rat quite exhausted even though we have run that distance in total it's tough do you think that at some point you would try the red rat we'll see oh that wasn't a no he's never a no we'll see I'm mad Susie really well done today thank you for talking to me bye bye these are the feet of a man who's just run 100 kilometers on the south west coast path and finished the plague are you mad so how long have you been running in sandals about 18 months now 18 months actually not all that long then what made you what made you go for sandals you see my feet yeah now that just enjoy is this the gnarliest race you've done with sandals were you at all worried before starting and were there any dodgy moments going out when it was proper wet and slippery I had to like take it easy on the dance but other than that yeah we've got this group of runners over here who are all looking at you like you are a complete what do you think of him running in sandals running in sandals you're insane sir yeah are you doing the archivatrician in sandals never say never mate what's your next race nothing planned the archivatrician then congratulations well done monumental effort in those sandals mate cheers right so this is the finish of the boyd race they've all timed it they're allowed to stay in sanctuary here for 20 minutes they've all timed it so that they get in across the finish line just around about 20 minutes before if they got in early earlier they'd have to wait 20 minutes and then go out for another lap so that's why they've timed it all to come in now so they've been running for 24 hours here they come here some more coming in now Chris Wade making white room you alright Bec yeah really pleased well done you how many miles did you do do you think in the end so 65 65 miles so that qualifies you for the arch good for you Steve alright happy I'm not going to touch you just because you smell not because of any outside assistance well done mate what do you do what do you think 75 lunatic so we think that Colin is the winner of the boyd because we think he's done more miles than anyone else and he's been collecting an apple per lap so the boyd takes in basically the hardest bit of the whole course so every single runner whether you've run the 100k the 20 miler the 11 miler, the 50k all the boys you all do this last little bit which involves a ton of steps but the boyd runners are basically just doing that for the whole course up and down hundreds of steps and that's what they've done for 24 hours come on do you want to they miss all the other steps do you want to go over there and tell them run away run away really fast they're not going to catch you they won't catch you these are the hardcore fans I've stuck it out till 8 o'clock to see everybody home have you enjoyed your weekend everybody so race directors here frantically working out distances and times and who's won who's come second Andy's just rubbing his chin because he needs a shave he's not really thinking after 36 hours of James just rubbing her chin because she needs a shave and there's the tail runners there's our tail runners well done girls and this is what it's all about guys if you ever think that you can't do something this is proof that you can and the emotional comes out and you can see how hard this lady's worked to get in 10 minutes before the cutoff a massive achievement for some people a massive achievement for anyone who completes a 50k run over that kind of terrain hello what's your name Michelle Michelle you did the black rat first was it your first 50k and Jane hi you're Jane so you did it together how much of it did you do together the whole thing well done so you pulled each other through was it your first 50k as well well done to both of you absolutely fantastic job well done enjoy it that's what it's all about isn't it that is what it's all about and the winner is bring out your debt 2019 with a distance of 70 miles and in first place and the winner of the men's bring out your debt 2019 with a distance of 80 miles Colin Beggie is Tom Carthy is Rebecca and I may like it last five years she's been out as logistics director general dogs body organises everything that we haven't got time to organise and we have a memorial trophy that we sometimes give to a runner who's done something or has achieved something special but this year we're not going to give it to a runner we're going to well she does run but we're going to give it to Melissa because without Melissa we couldn't hold this event get drunk and do a live broadcast of dad dancing in the barn in the disco tonight that is it for live broadcasts of the rat weekend it's been a blast even though I haven't run I've thoroughly enjoyed it come and join the festivities next year come and run one of the rat events if you're brave enough to do the boid or the plague then great otherwise come and do the 11 mile or the 20 mile you'll thoroughly enjoy it promise you it's horrible like I say there may be some live broadcasting tonight from a drunken barn but that's only a possibility so take care from the mud crew from the rat weekend have a safe one enjoy trails take care bye bye


Let me just say this, learning how not to take things personally is probably one of the hardest things to do and at the same time, the most important thing to do. The most important work you do in your life is to love yourself and we can learn not to give our power away to another human being and just merely look at it as an experience, be grateful for the experience and recognize that this thing called life is just a lot of experiences because at the end of the day, even couples have been married the longest, someone dies and the other person might live years or decades.


Hey, hey, hey, we are live hi there guys. I'm super excited that you've joined me I'm Angela Brown and I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina today Or we have a nice sunny day outside and many of our friends across the country are in the bitter cold and they're claiming that there's No, I hate that for you guys, but I'm so glad those those of you that are joining us did I've got Aaron Brown with me today Hey Aaron, how are you today? I am fantastic. Thank you for asking. Thanks for having me today You bet and you're in where are you today? San Antonio, Texas So yeah, not a San Antonio and I got to tell you it is a little cold here today But the weather has been pretty much in the 70s. So really yeah, wow, okay, so you guys are having an awesome winter as well I love that No complaints on this side of the world There you go. So tell us what we're covering today Yeah So really when it comes to people selling their homes Some of those things you need to look out for when it comes to cleaning and specifically deep cleaning I will tell you we have just moved into a buyer's market And that means a lot more inventory on the market and still more so than ever You're gonna need to really look at these things if you're trying to sell your home So it's it's gonna be really fun today lots of really really fun stuff to cover that will help you get your home sold in this market. I Am so glad that you allowed us to have this conversation today and that you invited me to join you because we've been working on the cleaning side of move-in move-out cleans for the last three decades and There are a lot of people that think they don't have to clean the house until actually the house is gutted And they're in the process of moving like right before The the sale goes through that's when they think oh, I should hire a house cleaner and get my house clean It happens long before that you guys and you guys are ready to put your homes on the market There are certain things you have to do if you want to sell your home And there's a difference between the money that you're gonna get for your home If it's just as is and then if you tidy it up a little bit So we're gonna talk on another episode of this about the home repairs that you're gonna do So we're not talking home repairs today today. We're only talking deep cleaning and this is deep cleaning that you can do on A budget okay, so it's a handful of small Household tools you can do these deep cleaning things and I I'm really excited that we're having this conversation because this is so important Okay, so the first thing that we're gonna jump into is The deep clean where you're gonna clean your ceiling now You're probably asking me what I gotta clean my ceiling like what's up with that Well, the reason that I bring this up is because there are a lot of people that don't realize That just because the ceiling is up there that there's stuff on it and it's true There's stuff up there. Okay, and so we have to dust the ceilings We got to wipe it down and how are we gonna do that one of my favorite tools is with a Swiffer sweeper And this is a Swiffer sweeper miss if I can get this in my screen here the Swiffer sweeper is It has a reusable cloth on it and I love these reusable cloths if you guys don't have these and you don't know about these I need to introduce you to these. These are great big cloths. They're kind of like um, I don't know They're thicker than a paper towel and they're not as thick They're not as thick as a microfiber cloth and you can just wet them and squeeze them out And you can use them again and again and again But while you're deep cleaning you're gonna need some of these now These are excellent mops that go on a Swiffer sweeper and this is what we use to sweep the ceilings with So if you haven't already I want you to consider using this to get all of the cobwebs up from the top of the room You can use this wet or dry Okay, and I'm leaving links to everything below so that you guys can access that and learn more about it If this is not something already in your toolkit But one of the reasons that I like this is because with the Swiffer sweeper it does have A 360 swivel head and so this allows you then you can use the same Swiffer sweeper different cloth To go like underneath look how flat that is that can go underneath a sofa So you can use this on the ceiling you can use it underneath the sofa You can use it all around the corners of the room you can turn it sideways and use it on the baseboards It's a really great tool that I think you're going to need for this particular project But when you when we talk about cleaning the ceilings what i'm looking for is I don't want any bugs I don't want any cobwebs. I don't want anything that is Dust that has collected because of air vents that are up at the top of the ceiling So one of the very first things Go through every room of your house and look at your house with new eyes Pretend like you're the buyer and you're as you're walking through the home Look at the ceilings because guess what that's what people look at when they walk in They're looking at the whole space like hey would my lifestyle fit in this space And so as they walk in we want to make sure that what they're seeing if they're looking at the ceilings that they're not looking at stuff that's dirty or cobwebs or bugs that have laid eggs up there or any of those things Aaron do you have any comments on that? On the ceiling before we move on with that Yeah, I have a really really big one when it comes to selling your house And that is taking the vent plate off And washing it I can tell you how important this is if you're not replacing your Filters on a regular basis like at least every three four weeks You're gonna have dust build up and here's what happens People see that dust and they think that your vents The the actual venting through the house is dirty And they will request After an inspection report that those get cleaned depending on the age of the house It can damage the actual venting if they run If if they run cleaner through it and the way that works is they run They actually run an air hose up through the vents and that air can actually break the inside of the The venting apart and so depending on the age and sometimes we get it requested and then it creates a huge problem If you would just take those vents off clean them or if there's a way to clean them Without taking them off then it looks clean your filters are clean and it doesn't become an issue down the road But for sure it's a big issue if there's dirt coming out of that vent There's dirt around that on the ceiling that's going to come up as a request And minimum you're looking at a five six hundred dollars just to get that part of the service done So it becomes a big deal quickly And that's something you guys can do yourselves So don't don't wait to do it do it before the realtor and the the home the perspective home buyer come over Candy says so true. I looked up at my bedroom ceiling and there was blood splashes from my dog who cut her ear This sounds like suddenly we're in a horror movie. I never thought to check my ceiling Candy, that's really sad story. I'm sorry that that happened But I'm glad that you've joined us today and we've got Barbara here and we have charlotte you guys This is so much fun. I've got linda here from san antonio, texas. Hey from san antonio I've got uh, the arborist's wife from sonoma county california. I've got melanie parker She says i'm afraid the popcorn ceiling is going to start to crumble and fall down any suggestions. Yes Yes, yes, yes when it comes to the popcorn ceilings if the home is older than 1970 It's possible that there is as is asbestos in the ceiling and if it's falling apart That's kind of a sign that it's not sealed And so there are tests that you can take and I don't have it in the notes right now But I will leave it after the show if you want to come visit the replay There isn't asbestos kit that you can get on line And it will just test it takes like two days to get the test back and it will say yes Your home is good.  So that's what it's designed to do But when you start to clean the ceilings and it's it's interesting because Dust catches on those little beads and yet it looks really bad If you have dust it's like from fireplace soot and it hasn't it's not coming off with the swiffer duster You can spray a bleach water combination up there and it will it will change the color of that It will kind of bleach it out If you're going to do that my recommendation is that you put maybe a drop cloth down over your furniture So that none of that leaks down you don't want anything that has bleach in it to then hit your furniture So that would be my suggestion for that Hi candy Candy says my crazy life from chicago illinois. I love it you guys We've got uh emily isaac aeriline isaac Hi angela, you're right the ceiling and the wall Yes, and high to melanie ceilings are also a great way to check for roof leaks and pipes that are in the ceiling Yes, that's true as well And so you guys are are right on the money right on the money But we have to look at the ceilings because Our home buyers are going to be looking at that as well All right, the next one is we have to clean inside our oven I don't know why but people will walk in and they'll open the oven like how big is this oven? And it's going to be a standard size oven right But people will open the microwave and they'll open the oven and this happens a lot on walkthroughs I don't know why you just don't want last night's pizza or if you made a yam pie and it oozed out over the sides You don't want that in there So most of us have clean ovens But you want to just wipe it up and tidy it up so that it looks nice in case somebody opens it up Now there's a secret that I want to share with you if I haven't already There are liners that go right inside the bottom of the oven And though they are a fiberglass liner and they're very inexpensive. You can buy them two or three in a box They're like nine or ten bucks. I will leave a note in that. I don't think I left going for you But I will leave a note to that as well But one of the things that's really cool about that is if you have company coming over You simply slide it out Dump it in the trash shake it off a little bit and put it back in the oven They're reusable and they work really really well It's a really quick easy way to get your oven looking on top of the world Especially if you have like a showing in five minutes And you want to hurry and make sure that there's not no gunk or nothing in your oven So that's a cool one Erin do you have any comments on that? um speaking about Appliances Yeah, I can tell you how many times I have been in homes with clients Where they go open that oven or they'll open the microwave. It's dirty And they turn around and say can we talk the sellers into buying a new appliance for us?  Yeah We don't we definitely don't want this old used one Do you think that you could negotiate a new stove for us? Do you think you could negotiate a new microwave? Or do you think you could have the sellers pay for professional cleaners to come in And make sure this is all clean before we move in So oh my goodness.  Yes. Yay. We've got folks from all over the world here You guys this is so awesome. Thank you You've got Joanna and we've got care You guys i'm so happy that you joined us.  Thank you Charlotte says do I need a liquid cleaner for my ceiling and walls for maintenance or deep cleans? Okay, so your regular maintenance clean You're going to dust your walls on a regular maintenance clean and when you do a deep cleaning Depending on if there are spots you may want to spot treat your ceiling But I recommend that you don't just wash your ceilings if you haven't washed them And you're not a professional service because I don't want you smearing stuff And I don't want you spraying stuff up there that then has a chemical reaction If you're not trained for chemicals on your ceiling Because then it's going to look weird and spotty and the light's going to hit it from weird angles And that's going to be as weird as if you just had dirt up there Okay, so dust it dust means just remove the dust that's there keep it dry If you want to use a damp cloth you can also use water water will dry. Okay Don't be spraying chemicals up there if you don't need them and I say if you don't need them I know during the pandemic people are like, oh, we got it. We got to disinfect everything Well, no, you don't for the most part like for a ceiling We don't eat our dinner or anything on the ceiling just cleaning the dust off is going to be sufficient So for the walls and ceiling walls are vertical. They're going to get some dust on them But unless there's like a a wallpaper Dusting it should be sufficient if there are fingerprints and marks Those can be removed but like on a spot treated basis I don't want your walls to look so totally different than Another wall or another part of the wall because then people are like, what what happened? Did the wall get replaced halfway through like what what's going on here? We don't want to raise any questions that no one's asking. Okay, so That's that's my my saying on that All right, so the next one is dust I don't know if you guys can see this picture or not But there is a lot of dust that is visible in plain sight Now I know this seems like a an obvious thing But if you walk in and there's obvious dust, we got to get rid of that We got to get rid of that so that when a Person that walks through sees our home. They're not like looking at the dust because their first question is And I promise you this they're not like Oh, it's dusty. No problemo. They're like, oh wow, this house has really been neglected I wonder what else they've neglected Right. I wonder what else is that the water heater? Is it the air conditioning unit? Is it the HVAC system? Are the pipes bad? Are there leaks somewhere? I mean like if I can see the neglect What is the neglect? I can't see Right, so we don't want to raise any questions. They're not asking if it's as simple as dusting something Then by all means get a cloth and this is just a microfiber cloth We're not using any chemicals here all we're doing is a wet damp microfiber cloth We're wiping down the items in the room because here's the catch if that Whatever that is an air filter or a fan or whatever that is is sitting on a desk. That's that dusty I promise you that the item itself is that dusty. Okay, it's caught the same amount of dust So what we want to do is we want to wipe down the items and we want to wipe down the hard surfaces that they're on Whether it's a dresser whether it's a bed stand an end stand a special This is just a little folding table, but we want to wipe everything down So there are no surprises so that as people walk in our house They're looking at the room and they're looking at the space and they're not looking at what has been neglected Right, so this is not deep cleaning deep cleaning, but like with a damp cloth Literally, this is this is something easy to do. This is easy to maintain Aaron, what are your thoughts on that? Part of my job as a buyer's agent when I'm representing a buyer is to find anything in the home that I can negotiate price on And if I can find dust in the house if I can find that it's dirty neglected I'm going to make it sound so much worse than it is And so writing up that offer I will feel totally justified coming on an offer 20 30 000 under asking price because the home is neglected and so Believe me when I say we will write up a laundry list of all of these items Air vins and dust here and baseboards not being cleaned, etc To show that the home is really neglected and that it's not worth the asking price When clearly, you know, somebody could use a cloth and wipe off the table But people don't And you better believe we'll come in and negotiate far under what you've listed your house for And in a buyer's market, there's a lot of options And if it comes down to a really clean house versus a house with a laundry list of items that need to be addressed and fixed You better believe we're coming in way under ask I hate to hear that but i'm really glad that you shared that with us because for Extra sweat equity meaning I got to get my hands dirty and I got to go clean the house We can actually probably save several thousand dollars on our house just by cleaning it before somebody shows up So I mean, I hate I hate that that's the case But i'm really glad that you told us that because that's that's stuff we have control over we can we can fix that So sally says I have baked on stuck pieces of aluminum foil on the bottom of my oven tips on how to remove that Oh, I love this question So this happens a lot right people use instead of using a fiberglass liner They use tin foil or aluminum foil And then what happens is it does get caked on it gets stuck on and then what happens is it's hard to remove So in the process of that happening what I recommend is that you get something like this Now all of us professional house cleaners carry these in our aprons and on one side We have a plastic razor and on the other side we have a metal razor And so for the inside of an oven we have enamel so we don't want to use the metal razor because that's going to Scratch the oven and we don't want to scratch the element off So what we're going to use is the plastic razor type. Okay, so the cool part about this is At the bottom of your oven and your oven is Well, let me ask you this Have you ever had stuck on gunk on a pot or a pan? And what do we do? We put a little bit of dish soap on it and we soak it for a couple of hours until it all loosens up and then We scrub it off right so the bottom of the oven has a little dip in it It's probably about this big you can probably put like a cup or a cup and a half Of hot soapy dish water at the bottom of your oven and you may want to take a rolled up towel And line it underneath like the seam of the door just in case if it starts to leak forward to the door It will run into the bath towel and it will absorb that But soak the bottom wherever that aluminum foil is and just let it soak for about an hour Okay, just like you were soaking a pot or a pan and it's going to loosen up a little bit Then you come in with a plastic razor and you just scratch it off It comes right off, but it has to soak first. Okay. It's been cooked on it. What three four five hundred degrees So it's cooked on and at first glance it's not coming off. It's like stuck there forever So soak it like you would a pot or a pan And then just scratch it off and scratch it off with the plastic razor not the metal one Okay, we do not want to scratch the enamel then then Once you have the bottom cleaned off. That's when you want to put the fiberglass liners in there And that way the next time you come back to To do this you don't have baked on aluminum foil because if like if you're making a blueberry pie and the blueberry oozes out And it gets on there It's going to cook right through that aluminum foil and it is going to get stuck It's going to be very hard to clean so and you don't want that especially if you're trying to sell your home So anyway, could you could you please provide a link for those cleaners? I would love to get those for my clients That would be yeah I will I will as soon as this is over I know some of my team members have already left for the day And so I don't have those links with me But I will add those to the show notes as soon as we're done here I've already added a few of the stuff that we're talking about already But i'm going to add the razors as well because I don't have the razors there And a quick a quick question for somebody who doesn't clean ovens often Is it okay to pour liquid in an oven with it being plugged in? Yes, you can leave it with a plugged in but you don't want it turned on you don't want the heat on Now a lot of a lot of oven cleaners will say oh do this at 200 degrees and that doesn't make sense to me at all Okay, because an aerosol can we'll say right on the can even an oven cleaner can says do not use around heat Okay, so there's I will leave links to my favorite oven cleaner below And it is it is one that you spray cold Okay, don't don't be spraying it when the oven is hot because you're asking for a fire or a combustion of some sort And I don't want there to be any combustions unnecessarily. This is that's not how we do okay All right, so nancy. Oh my goodness nancy's from new zealand from from zealand michigan And we have you guys this is awesome. Somebody says I got to clean my microwave as soon as possible Barbara says mine slides under the heating element on the bottom of the oven. Okay, cool awesome And uh, is this renais? This is good afternoon from paris ontario. You guys this is so cool. We got people from all over I'm super excited that you guys joined me. Hi, angela. I just found you I worked as a property manager for a thousand units Is that a thousand units? Oh my goodness. You got your work cut out for you retired now and feel like The show yeah, I'm telling you a thousand units. My goodness. I can only imagine what you must have gone through Susan says I vacuum and dust one day than the next morning. They're dust kittens. Yes. Yes. Yes I'll tell you what as soon as you dust dust is coming back And so what erin was saying about before cleaning your air filters What is also important is to clean the air that replace the air filters themselves that are inside those vents Because if we don't Stuff's blowing in and out and I know the vents are meant to catch stuff But if you have vents that haven't been replaced in a while Um, it's going to blow more out than it's actually catching So make sure that you replace those especially if your house is on the market and you're showing it Replace those every 30 days Now typically we say if you have a really high mirv rating And that's a thicker one that catches more stuff If you have a higher mirv rating Air filter you might only have to replace it every two months or every three months But if you have pets and it's catching a lot of pet hair or if you have a lot of dust in your house Especially if you live in a dust Favorite area like maybe utah or vegas where there's lots of sand and there's lots of dust And you don't have like the trees to block that when you open your front door You've got dust blowing in for no good reason, right? It's just it's just there And then also during the spring and summer like if you're in the caroline is where I live We are just Caught up by by pollen in the spring. So come march april may june We've got a lot of pollen you open your door and all of a sudden there's this Coat of green all over your furniture and your Remote controls and it's it gets stuck in your vents and it doesn't let that dust through So you got to replace the air filters even more often. So I love that question. That was fantastic Do you have any questions or comments on that erin? on the air filters Just that most people believe that they only have one air filter in their house And most homes have at least three or four So make sure you know where those air filters are make sure you keep them replaced It is a really simple thing to do. They're very inexpensive But neglect to do it and now we need the ac service and clean two different services Here in texas minimum five hundred fifty bucks to have a service and cleaning done It will happen during the cell of your home If there is any speculation that there is dirt in the system And it was the seller get to pay for that 99 percent of the time So if you're the seller do it do it right up front and avoid the extra costs, right? 100 percent It's so easy to go put new filters in just replace the filters wash wash the ducts And you're gonna have such a different experience right off the bat There you go. Hi debbie and mildred. We've got eileen. You guys. It's so awesome to see you here Thanks so much for joining us. We've got susie You guys this is uh, this is really great Susie says how to clean and display the display bricks of the fireplace That's really an excellent question and I don't have the brush with me But the brush is going to be a soft bristled brush Think of the the brush that goes inside the dust pan that you brush stuff up with That's the brush that you use It's a really soft bristled brush and you're going to brush all of the dust off of all of the bricks Because you can't use a swiffer duster, which is something like this And we use this a lot in dusting but because of the fibers if you use this on brick This is going to get caught in the brick, right? And so instead of this dusting your brick you're just going to have a bigger mess to clean up So we want to avoid things like this and use like a soft bristled brush Which it's just going to brush the dust off and if you want you can hold the dust pan right there And brush the dust right into the dust pan you can brush it off onto the floor There's no trap and lock technology with the brush So the dust is going somewhere and you want to make sure that you have a vacuum nearby so that you can vacuum that up when you're done But I love the question about the fireplace because they do get dusty and they do get sooty So that was a really great question. All right our next item the toilets I know that this is a topic for regular basic cleaning, but it's also a topic for deep cleaning So if the realtor calls and says someone's coming over right now They're going to be in your bathroom And here's the reason why the bathroom is one of the most used rooms of the house in every house And so people spend a good hour a day inside the bathrooms And this is to get up in the morning to get dressed. They put on their makeup. They shave They do their hair. They do whatever they do take a shower Hang out get ready for bed get dressed in the morning Whatever it is but people spend a total of about an hour a day in the bathroom So believe it or not when they come into your bathroom to look around They're looking at is this going to be my new safe space for an hour a day And if they walk in and there's gunk we'll just call it gunk if there's gunk on your toilet Please don't please don't like lift up the seat of the toilet clean under the seat clean around the rim clean Underneath the rim Make sure that your toilet is clean so that as they walk in the first thing that they're seeing is like the room itself Right. It's the ambiance of the room the first thing that you want them to see is not an icky toilet Because they're gonna go. Oh, this is so gross and they're gonna like bolt, right? We don't again. We don't want to raise any flags and ask any questions that no one's asking We don't want to make them go. Well, wait a second if there's gunk all over the toilet Is there also gunk on the wall behind the toilet? Is there gunk also on the floor? Is there gunk like? How far does this go right? We don't we don't want that We want to just eliminate that by having a really nice clean toilet and i'll share a secret with you Even though it's your house if you got a call and the realtor says hey, we're 10 minutes out Fold the toilet paper into a triangle We we see this a lot when we go into hotels And the first thing that we see is like oh look they were prepared for us like they got it already for us Right, so it's nothing more than wipe the toilet really fast and for this I would encourage you that you keep like a roll of paper towels and some spray underneath the bathroom sink So in a quick fix you can go ahead and wipe the toilet seat down and I don't recommend that you always use paper towels for the vanity But in a pinch like you got just a minute You're not going to have time to run to the other room and go grab your microfiber claws and all this stuff If you've got just a couple minutes and they're on their way over right now Use a paper towel but spray it wipe down the faucet handles get the splashes off the mirror Get the toothpaste off the mirror wipe down the vanity and make sure that it's presentable Because you don't want somebody that doesn't know your bathroom We call it clutter blindness where we've got like stuff in our house, but it's our stuff So it's cool. It's not cool to a perfect stranger. They're gonna walk it and go That's so gross We don't want that right we want them to come in and go Oh my gosh, I could totally see myself getting dressed here in the morning I like this bathroom. This has a nice feel to it. This is a great ambiance And so for that I like to keep inside my bathroom a little night light And so even if I'm turning out the lights and I know realtors a lot of times We'll turn on all the lights and make it really bright But if you are showing the house and all the lights are not on yet At least have a little night light in there So their first approach is like, oh, this is so cozy and this looks so nice Then when they turn the lights on of course, it's nice and clean and I totally could see myself in here Right and they're looking around and it's just beautiful what they see Any comments on that so far? Yeah a couple for sure People have this notion that no one is going to use their restroom While they're there on a showing I'll most a hundred percent of the time someone is going to use your guest restroom They're going to use it a hundred percent of the time almost a hundred percent of the time even if we're looking at multiple homes That they're good so either we're out with families they have kids We're out with an elderly couple that need to use the bathroom every 10 minutes Whatever it is you almost every time you go into a home Somebody's going to be using that guest bathroom Please have some toilet paper Please have the water on because that The bathroom is going to get used. I can't tell you how many homes I've walked in And somebody's come out of the bathroom and said hey, I'm really sorry My daughter just used the bathroom and there's no water Yeah, and so you as the realtor are like trying to figure out how to take care of a payload in somebody else's restroom Before your next showing and you like it puts us in that situation on a daily basis Especially people that have just moved out of their home into their new one Their home is still on the market and they've decided that it's okay to turn the water off or the power Or to take the toilet paper out of the bathroom and so please from a realtor perspective You know then I'm going down like to the gas station or to the neighbors and trying to find a bucket and a hose And figuring out how to flush the toilet and I'm 15 more minutes at the house Trying to figure out how to flush the toilet Or even worse you come into the home The last showing didn't flush the toilet and the whole house smells And you're going what is going on and your clients can't wait to leave Because the water wasn't left on or the sanitary products weren't there to accommodate someone And it happens every day in real estate. So please Have your bathroom prepared your guest bathroom prepared for people to come in and use I'm really glad that you brought that up and from the house cleaners perspective I want to jump in here as well because you just hit a really big hot button with me So many People that do move and this this is a different conversation really about the move out clean But they do think oh, I don't need my power and my electricity because I'll just transfer those accounts to my new house If you've moved into the new house already you have two accounts You have the old account and the new account until You've sold your old home. Here's the reason why every time a cleaner comes to your house They can't vacuum if there's no electricity And they can't clean up like if they put soapy water on something There's no way to clean it up if there's no water And so if there's a scenario like the one erin just mentioned where someone has Maybe used the toilet and the toilet was left in an unsanitary situation And heaven forbid they should leave gunk all over the seat and or the floor or whatever There's no way to clean it up if you don't have some water And there are so many house cleaners that contact me on a daily daily basis and they're like, what do I do? There's no water and there's no electricity And I'm like that should be in your contract if there's no water and there's no electricity How on earth are you supposed to clean a house? And you know how we like to leave vacuum lines? So it looks like hey, this is really awesome Nobody's been here go ahead and walk in on this awesome carpet. You can't do any of that Let alone pick up dead bugs or anything that's happened since the owners have moved So please electricity and power. I'm really glad you brought that up, erin also on on the inspection The inspector cannot test your appliances They can't test the outlets and they certainly can't test the water So during an inspection when you're going to sell your home, they're going to request And then you get to pay for an inspector to come back out Which is usually another hundred and fifty dollars to reschedule to come back out and that Is put back on the sellers because the buyer doesn't want to pay for the inspector to come out twice When the power and utilities should have been left on So please it's very inexpensive. No one will be in the house It's very inexpensive to leave them on for the month that you're out of it Wow, I have to say hi to rachel rose. She's from england and she often jumps in on our youtube channel And she's very supportive and I just I just love having you guys here because you guys have you make my day every time I see you in my feed. I'm like, yes, I have friends. This is awesome And we have uh in quiz. I'm not sure how I say this from the cali coast So this is really awesome. And I just really appreciate you guys being here. This is so much fun I've got kr here. This is sure. I wish my landlord would have watched some of your videos This place was filthy when I moved in I'm so sorry about that.  That's not fair for you guys and I hate that Helen says is a steam cleaning good for cleaning or use non-chemical products I love this question And I'm not sure if we're talking about still the oven or if we're talking about other areas of the home But if you're deep cleaning your home and you have an option to use steam, please use steam Here's the thing a lot of times people will use cleaning chemicals And then they use them and use them and use them like oh, I got five showings this week So let me hurry and spray like five times Please don't because that's chemical on top of chemical on top of chemical And we've literally had people that will come in and they're like And it's it's overpowering So there are people with really strong chemical sensitivities and a cleaning company a professional cleaning company often they will use Like non-scented chemicals For that very reason it bugs out your eyes and it hurts your respiratory system and your nose and your eyes will clog up And you don't want someone coming into a beautifully clean home that for all intents and purposes You've cleaned all the cat hair. You've cleaned all the vents. You've dusted everything your house looks amazing And then just the smell drives them bonkers. Please don't do that. Again. It's it's really a sensitivity with most I say most with a lot of people It's it's a big issue Um, so yeah, I want to pay attention to that um The next thing The front some of your kitchen cabinets. This is a really really really big important thing and for the reason that um, for example, people have uh, these pull out garbage cans that are hidden inside the cupboards But when they're pulling them out oftentimes they're pulling them out because Um, they have I don't know they've cracked an egg or something and they're going to throw it in the garbage can So they open the garbage can with one hand and then as they crack the egg the egg dribbles all the way down The cupboard and it's on the front of the cupboard and they throw the the egg away And this happens a lot with just cooking it would be stuff on their fingers And then they open the cabinet doors or the cupboard doors And there's like gunk stuck on the cupboards and around the cupboards and while it might not look dirty If you hit it from a different angle in a different light You can see all this gunk on the fronts of the cupboards and stuff that's dribbled down the side And you really need to stop and just clean it down Now what we're seeing in this picture is an electric drill I didn't leave this in the notes, but I will put it after this is over Um, because i'm a really big fan of it if you're not like in this kitchen this kitchen that i'm showing you right now There are 79 cabinet fronts Okay, and so every one of these has to be cleaned before somebody comes over And once you've done it you're going to try to keep it clean You know during the showing process, but clean it up and the electric drill. These are little like scrub brushes It's a little drill bit that goes right inside an electric brush And so this way you can use an electric drill and no lie You can have the whole 79 cabinets done in about an hour. It takes about an hour to do 79 But that's all the drawers the silverware drawer It's all the kitchen cabinets that are by the stove that are Everywhere and that way when people walk in they just gleam and it's like wow welcome to my kitchen, right? Again, we don't want people asking questions that don't Don't need to be asked So we just want them to come in and go oh wow, this is a really cool kitchen I totally see myself making big meals in here. We don't want them to walk in and go There's like gunk on every one of these cupboards and stuff dribbled down the sides Not cool, right? So just just a small cloth And you can use a non-scratch scrub sponge in some warm dish water Or you can use like murphy's oil and a scrub brush this particular scrub brush was designed for kitchen cabinets But it's so easy to do. Please don't neglect this one. This is a really big one And I know a lot of cleaning services don't offer that as a service Except for an upsell package and so lots of cleaning services you pay extra and they're not going to clean your whole house But they'll come in and they'll do just your cabinets. So if you don't want to do it yourself hire somebody to do it But please don't skip that step all right Our next one the bathroom vanities. This is a really really big one I know that like we've already talked about the bathrooms a couple of times This is a really big issue for the fact that everything that's sitting on top of your bathroom vanity Has toothpaste on it. It has soap. It has whatever it was lotions Dyes, whatever it was you were touching while you got dressed. It might have makeup on it There's just a bunch of stuff that we transfer from our hands to the stuff that's sitting on our bathroom counter And again when people walk in we want them to go. Oh, yeah, I see myself in here We don't want them to go and go. Well, look there's toothpaste everywhere and there's gunk and I see makeup You know stuck on stuff Don't do that. Okay. So it's going to be your mirror It's going to be all of the stuff that's on the vanity and it's going to be all the stuff under the vanity I can't tell you how many homes that have been shown where people walk in and just at a glance as you're walking in You see it from a distance and you're seeing just a layer of dust But all the stuff on top is the stuff that we use every day You got to move that stuff You got to wipe underneath it wipe the bottles down and put them back I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but you can do it very inexpensively And if you're using a cloth like the one that I mentioned just get it wet hot water It doesn't need any chemicals on it whatsoever. Just hot water wipe everything down wipe down every Toothpaste toothpaste holder toothbrush Wipe down the the stuff that holds your razors if it's a little container If it's a container of soap if it's mouthwash if it's shaving gel It doesn't matter what it is hairspray if it's hydrogen peroxide. I don't care What's on your counter but wipe it down with a damp cloth move it and wipe underneath it so that it's Whatever's there is like neatly stacked like arrange it so it's neatly stacked But wipe underneath it so when people walk in they're not like, ah, that's so gross Erin you're laughing. Why are you laughing at me? Just because I've run into this daily Even something as hair around the faucets It grosses people out and it will turn a buyer off so quickly If you have in your mind that Airbnb It's kind of thought when it comes to your bathroom and that your home is a product while it's being sold It's just an easier approach You're going to put those things on the counter that look really nice that you're not going to use on a day to day basis And keep that stuff under the sink in a box You'll pull it out use it put it back in the box put it back under the sink It looks like an Airbnb people walk in they see themselves at home right away Um, as soon as they see hair in the sink or around the the faucets, they're like, oh gross This is so gross and they want to leave And it's so simple So I don't know why the hair gets people I've been cleaning houses for a long time. I've seen a lot of hair And I have a lot of hair of my own like when I comb my hair a lot of hair comes out or whatever But if I even see my husband and he's like shaved and there's hair in the sink He's my husband, right? I mean, I love him no matter what but I see in the sink and I'm like, oh, that's so gross And I don't mean to be like that. But I mean, I'm the cleaner, right? I'm the one who gets to clean that kind of stuff and I see that and even though he's my husband. I still see it I'm like It's awful, especially if there's like toothpaste stuck in it and stuff like that this from the sink that This is gross. Okay enough of the grossness. Uh, Julie from Tallahassee, florida. Hey, how you doing? I'm super excited. She's been cleaning professionally since 2002 Julie, I'm gonna give you a happy bell. This is my happy bell happy bell for the cleaning I promise you've seen most if not everything we're talking about today That's a long time to be cleaning that speaks volumes about your business way to go girl Um, and Susie says thumbs up for the reminder Rachel rose says I often light a little tea light in the bathroom Especially after my husband has used the bathroom and it takes the smell away. That's a great tip. Thanks for that Um, lots of comments here from you guys. Thanks so much for joining us. This is just really awesome My husband uses his to mix our cake batter our official blender broke, but we still have one spinning I don't know what that's about, but I hope we're not talking about the bathroom on that one That was about the kitchen hit the kitchen cabinets. Oh, I'm so glad. I was thinking oh, oh dear Charlotte's husband is in the bathroom making cakes. Not cool. That is not cool. Charlotte. Don't do that All righty, um our next one Um behind the toilet again in the bathroom this I cannot say enough about this Behind the toilet There will always be stuff. Okay. There's a little hose that goes behind the toilet And it connects the water to the toilet itself And there's a lot of dust and we call it toilet paper dust So if your toilet paper is near the toilet when you rip the toilet paper off the the toilet paper roll There's toilet paper dust that goes floating away.  I'm like why is this here? But it has gunk plus toilet paper dust on it So there is a time and you are going to be down on your hands and knees I've never figured out a way to actually get it clean unless you actually get down there You got to get down on your hands and knees. I don't care if you take a cloth and you put it on the floor so you can kneel on it I don't care how you do it But you have to get around the toilet bowl.  Do it so that in a pinch if the phone rings and they say we're on our way over You're not stopping scrambling trying to like wipe down the toilet and wipe down the area behind the toilet Okay, this is a deep cleaning thing. It's very inexpensive to do, but it must be done every single day Okay, it must be done if you're showing your house There's no forgiveness if you have toilet paper dust and gunk behind and around the floorboards of your toilet And like Aaron just said in a in a very bold move that a hundred percent of the time people are going to use your toilet If that's true, we want them we want them to have the most In the world of marketing. We call it the best user experience, right? We want to create that for our new homeowners that are going to buy our home and spend all the money Right, so we're you guys can also ask your agent for a checklist We have a couple of checklists. We have a make ready checklist for your home And then we have a get ready checklist the get ready checklist is he I've got a showing coming over What are the top five things I need to go do right now? And so you can always ask your realtor for that and then also ask your realtor to give you an hour of warning On your showings So at least you have a few minutes to grab that list and and make those arrangements unless You do that in the morning before work and then you leave the house and it's already done for the day Right. Thank you for mentioning that. That's awesome. Um, and great great tips There's another one that I want to share with you Um, and this is you got to clean underneath all of the stuff now We typically don't do this on a maintenance clean This is more of a deep cleaning thing and if you hire a professional house cleaner They're also going to do this on a deep clean and what they're doing is they're taking something And they're going to go underneath your sofas and they're going to go underneath your end tables And they're going to go behind your couch and here's the reason why If i'm standing across the room I can actually see not completely under the sofas But I can see a good bit and if there's dust and gunk under there or if there are dog toys If there's dog hair I can see that okay So we want to make sure that we have some kind of a tool that we can get that Now I want to share with you one of my favorite tools That we use a lot in homes and this is Uh, a silicone rake. This is called a pet rake and I do have links to this below on the other side of it is a squeegee Okay, so if you have cat and dog hair and this is flat and it extends Okay, so I can make this I can extend this to be much longer and it will then go underneath Uh sofa it will go underneath bookshelves It will go underneath like a wine rack or a china hutch or any of those things, okay What we're going to do is we're going to rake All of the dog hair all of the cat hair and if we have a hardwood floor We're going to use the squeegee part of it We're going to squeegee all of that out to the front so that it's not hiding underneath because here's the catch if The air kicks on and we can't see it and it kicks on it's going to blow that all over the house So even though the house looked clean When the new perspective buyer and the realtor show up What they're seeing now is they're seeing like dog and cat hair all over and they're like man This house is a mess You want to scoop all of that to the front and then you want to sweep it up and put it inside the trash Okay, so the silicone rake works wonders if you have lots of dogs and cats or maybe a couple but lots of hair This is a great rake for the carpet. You can use this on oriental rugs You can use it on berbera carpet. It doesn't work so well on shag Just because the shag is a a higher pile of carpet You're going to need a vacuum for that But for any kind of a rug like the front door mat the entrance mat the back door mat If you have a mud room any room of your house that has hardwood floor You can just scoop it up It'll come up in a great big pile and you scoop it up with a dust pan or in your hands If you have like uh latex or nitrile gloves on you just scoop that right up and put it inside the trash can And that works wonders as a quick pickup So it's a favorite rake of mine for so many reasons But I love it because it goes underneath the sofas and it goes underneath the chairs and it goes underneath all of the heavy Furniture that is like two or three inches off the floor So I recommend that as well just because you never know When the air is going to kick on and it's going to blow stuff that you can't see around the room And I hate it again Aaron made the comment about hair Even if it's your own pet and these these the homeowners might have pets But if they come in and they see someone else's pet hair they could go in your groves. That's so awful All right, mary says do you mean handy wipes to clean the ceiling? Uh handy wipes can work. I know that uh centiva makes a handy wipe And I'll make myself big here so you can see this This is a handy wipe that uh chlorox came out with I believe during the pandemic That also fits on top of the swiffer sweeper So you can use these these go right over the top of this. They're the same size And this is just pinned in if you guys have seen the swiffer sweepers. It just has these little tiny Little things like this and you just poke them in there with your finger and it holds them in place So you can either use these reusable wipes or you can also use the disinfecting wipes that are made by chlorox Now swiffer does have their own version of those pads and they don't stay wet very long So if you're if you're going to use them for like a whole house, for example I do recommend using the and I point over here like they're over here Um, I do recommend using the ones that are are wettable And then you can wet them and they stay wet for a much longer period of time rinse them out You can use them again. These have lots of different You can fold it three or four or five times because they're big And so There you go So you can fold it in half and half again and then put this on flip it over use the other side that hasn't been Contaminated yet before you rinse it off and squeeze it out So you can get a lot of uses out of it and a lot further around the house without drying out So I do recommend that so the handy wipes reusable wipes Whatever you want to call them, but there there are lots of options The the secret is that you have something that you can use for the ceilings And we also use I point over here again like they're over there You can use them for the ceiling and also underneath the sofas because that also fits You guys are saying some very kind stuff over here. Thank you so much She's a rock star and i'm using her to help teach my teenage son how to clean properly Thank you you guys you guys just made my day. Yay. I'm super excited All right, let me uh move on here because we have we've got lots of of stuff that I want to cover here And we're running out of time. I hate that. We're running out of time. I've got so much going on We want to clean the ceilings and this is recessed lighting We talked a little bit about cleaning the ceilings It is super important that you have the right tools and one of the right tools in order to do this properly Is the swiffer duster now I use the swiffer duster for most everything Okay, this is this they say they're going to bury me with one of these in my back pocket Because I use it all the time But the recessed lighting this is true for all the lighting that's in our home We want to turn the lights off when we do this and you'll see this is kind of a dim picture It's because the lights are off if by any chance you go after a cobweb And you have this in your hand if the light is on the filaments on this are going to burn the swiffer duster It's going to start to smoke. It's going to smell bad and it's going to stick to your light Now if you're careful, that's all that happens if you're not careful It's going to bust a bulb and you don't want to bust a recessed light bulb before a realtor comes over Because then they're going to go. Hey, how come there are no lights in the house, right? So you want to make sure that they're able to turn on all the lights and it creates that bright airy Feeling but you want to make sure that there's no dust on those lights and that there are no cobwebs So before they come over make sure that you clean those lights now next to cleaning the lights And while i'm already up on a chair On the the ladder and i'm up on a step ladder I want to get the top of the refrigerator and still using this swiffer duster what you cannot see in this in this image Because it would be easy to assume that nobody can see on top of the fridge You do not know how tall the people are if they're six five They're going to be able to look right on top of your fridge with their own bare eyes But coming down the stairs there's a stairway right coming down looking right on the top of this refrigerator So you don't want somebody coming down the stairs going this is such a beautiful house Oh, but they've neglected the top of their fridge, right? So while you're on that step ladder get everything within within site you want to get the recess lighting You want to get the tops of the cupboards you want to get the top of the refrigerator Make sure that that's nice and clean doesn't cost you anything to do that But I have Aaron here telling me he's going to try to raise the price if i'm the seller and he's working for the buyer He's going to try to get more money out of me by saying Oh, you need a whole service to come in. Surely that's going to cost a lot of money Let's deduct that from the price of the house. Okay, we don't want that We love Aaron, but we don't love his antics if we're selling the house and he's the buyer Also your heisy personalities will usually walk along touch the tops of door frames The tops of cabinets and the top of the fridge if they can pick up dust they're grossed out. They want to leave I know that's only one personality type, but we get it a lot Wow Yeah, it's it's unfortunate and it happens a lot so ick All right. I do want to share this with you We call these ridges ridges are on the sides of the staircase Most people are great about keeping their staircases clean But those little ridges that are on the outside of the staircase pick up a lot of dust And when a home buyer walks in from any time of the day and we don't know what time of the day they're coming We might go to work every day at the same time and it looks clean to us But when the sun hits it from a different angle and they come in at 10 or 11 o'clock in the day and we're at work What happens is they're seeing all this dust on the outsides and it looks like we skipped our cleaning So we don't want to do that at all. We want to make sure that the outside ridges are clean all the way down the stairs It's a little tiny thing, but it makes a huge difference Also, if you have like a hidden handrail the handrail turns if your stair curves Make sure you get all the way around the handrails because We've gone into homes where the whole handrail is perfectly clean except where the ridges are and there'll be like cakes of dust Where somebody just skipped that and you can't see it Because there's not really great lighting in this stairwell But when it the the sun hits it from a different angle it looks nasty So you want to make sure that you get the whole area and the side rails of the ridges of the stairs Small thing makes a huge difference All right, then the next one plants plants are a really big thing We like to have plants in the room because it brightens up the room and it adds some color But if those plants are dusty, it's nasty and so we got to grab the swiffer duster The swiffer duster is easy to do if you're doing a plant like this And this is a huge plant in the side of the kitchen. There's lots of sun coming in from every angle It's going to hit all this dust. Okay, so you're going to see it from every angle What we're going to do is we're going to start at the we're going to hold with our hand We're going to hold the bottom of the the plant. We're going to hold it down We're going to grab the swiffer duster with the other hand and we're going to bring the dust Like dusting down with the grain of the plant that way We're going to dust it because we don't have time in most cases to take this great big plant outdoors and hose it down If you did, that's how you would do it. You would haul the plant outside And this is as tall as the room So it's going to take two or three people if you have the chance to do that great You'll put a garbage bag around the base of the plant and then you'll hose the plant down and get all that dust off If you don't have the luxury of doing that you can use a swiffer duster because of the trap and lock technology Make sure you go over every one of the strands. Here's a secret.  Are there any leaves or anything that are dead? Anything that needs to just be removed so that my plants look nice again and use are friendly for that experience We we don't want dead looking plants or droopy leaves or dust or any of those things All right a couple things this this goes without saying but the blinds are a big one The blinds will be open most likely because for every realtor that I've ever met and I'm sure erin is no different But for every realtor that I've ever met the secret is with light And so we want to open all the windows and turn on all the lights and make it look as bright and as happy as we can And if you open all the windows you're going to see all the dust on all the blinds if there is dust And so again, this is something you yourself can do. It doesn't cost a lot of money Swiffer duster once you have one you can use it for all the different surfaces in your home But go over all of the blinds and remove all of the dust now if you cook a lot of bacon or Fry things in your house. There's going to be gunk on those blinds And this is one of those times where I'm going to say this is worth the clean Okay, either hire a professional to do it or take the time and do it yourself But you're going to want to get a good degreaser and a wet cloth You're going to want to spray your cloth and you're going to want to wipe down every area on both sides of those blinds Because if the windows are open and there's like a green orange Caked gunk grease and then it's caught the dust that's come through the air It's going to look nasty and that that is one of the biggest turnoffs So that's that's not going to help you in any way And even though you could replace all the blinds in the house You're probably going to be asked to do that before you sell your home And if you have 55 windows in your house that gets really expensive really fast So even though it's going to take some time this one's not going to be easy if you've got grease on your blinds Stop and clean your blinds and then from now through the end of the showing Do not cook any grease in your house. Don't make any sausages.  Do you have anything that you want to you want to share with us before we wrap up here? I appreciate all of you today amazing questions. This was a lot of fun and I can't wait to do this again I I have so many comments here that I did not get to answer you guys. I'm so sorry and we have 23 tips We only got through about 13 of them So I'm going to leave links after this is over with a list of all of the slides that we had So that you guys can go through and you guys can get the rest of the tips that we didn't cover I talked too much. I'm so sorry I'm super glad that you guys are here And I'm going to respond to all of your questions as soon as we're done here So that I I can honor the fact that you guys showed up here today I just I just had so much fun This is a 12 part series that we're doing on how to get your home ready to put on the market So we'll be back again next thursday same time same place. We would love for you guys to join us again But for today, this is it. I had so much fun with you guys. Thank you and erin. Thank you so much for joining us Likewise, thank you guys