Halloween Mishaps and Shenanigans

Halloween can sometimes bring out the devilish pranksters in your area. Has your house ever been egged or toilet-papered (tp’d for short)? If your house falls victim to one of these pranks this Halloween, these tips will help you clean up the mess.

For an egging, time is of the essence to get it off your house. If it’s left to dry in the sun, the baked on egg yolk could stain the siding. Try using a hose on a gentle setting to spray the mess away. Don’t blast the water or it may spatter the eggs even more. Just gently washing it away and if you need a little more elbow grease, gently scrub with a soft brush and warm water with a little dish soap in it.

If you’ve been toilet papered, the one thing you’ll need most of all is patience depending on how thorough the pranksters did the job. Hopefully there’s no rain in the forecast because wet toilet paper is even more of a nightmare to remove. If there is rain coming, try to get as much as you can cleaned up right away.  If the paper is damp from dew, try to give it a few hours to dry if you can before attempting to clean it up. Us a rake or a long handled grabbing tool to pull it out of trees. You can even try a leaf blower to blow it down.

In general Halloween can be messy even if you don’t fall victim to neighborhood hellions. From pumpkin pulp, candlewax in your carpet and make up stains on the upholstery there’s always something to clean up.

When creating jack-o-lanterns and scraping out the inside of the pumpkin, never put the pumpkin guts down the garbage disposal or flush them down the toilet. The sticky, stringy mess will harden and clog up your garbage disposal and plumbing. Just throw the pulp into the garbage or better yet put it in your garden compost pile.

To remove candle wax from carpeting let it cool first. Next try to break it up with a dull knife and throw the pieces away. For any that remains, take a paper towel, or paper bag and place it over the wax. Press a warm iron over the paper. The paper will soak up the wax. Repeat this process always using a clean area on the paper so you don’t spread the wax even more.

Most carpet or upholstery stain removers will also work for make-up stains. As always, you should test an inconspicuous area with the stain remover. Just put some on a cloth and hold it to the test area for a few minutes. If no color is transferred onto the cloth you’re good to go. When cleaning always blot the stain starting from the outside and working towards the center. Never rub or wipe or you may just spread and set the stain even more. 

Halloween is such a fun holiday, especially if you have young kids or live in a neighborhood with lots of children. It brings out the fun side and sometimes the devilish side in people. Our advice to you this Halloween, and always, is to be a good neighbor. It might just keep the pranksters away.