5 Reasons You Should Maintain the Exterior of Your Home
No matter how nice a neighborhood is, it seems there’s always that one neighbor that lets the upkeep of the exterior of their home fall behind the unspoken but obvious standards of the rest of the neighborhood. This could be annoying to the neighbors living in the vicinity of the violating neighbor, and for good reason. They are one of the multiple reasons keeping up with the maintenance on a home is important. Here are five reasons to get you started. Here’s a free guide to weeding.
1. Lawn Maintenance
Mowing your lawn and weeding your flower beds doesn’t just look nice, it actually helps the performance of your lawn and protects you and your home from pests. Certain types of weeds can be tough to remove once you have them. If it’s sticky weeds or weeds with needles growing in your lawn, your lawn isn’t going to feel good to walk on and it’s not going to have a nice lush appearance.
By keeping your lawn trim, you’ll deny weeds the chance to germinate.That means only pretty green blades of grass have a chance to take root and flourish in your yard.
Another hazard with a lawn that is allowed to grow wild is it becomes a resting place for mosquitos. The tall grass offers them coverage from the sun. If your yard becomes a haven for mosquitos, you increase your risk of being bitten every time you step outside.
Many people don’t have time or the ability to care for their yards. If you find it difficult to keep up with your lawn, try using a professional yard service.
2. Peeling Paint
Peeling paint presents even more problems than an unkempt lawn. If the paint on your home is peeling, it’s being exposed to the elements, and the elements will wreak havoc on your home’s structure.
As the exposed wood on your home is subjected to repeated rain and harsh sun, it begins to decay. Not only does decay make the stability of your home questionable, but the moist environment attracts termites. Termites can speed up the process the decay has started.
Painting the exterior of a home is not that difficult if you have the right equipment, but it does come with dangers because of the height. If you question whether you can paint your home yourself, hire someone who can. It could save yourself thousands of dollars in damage.
3. Home Values
If your neighbors aren’t waving at you when you see them outside, it could be because your home looks like it’s been vacated for months. A home that isn’t maintained brings down the property values of the neighbors who are closest to you. Your home could be the reason their home isn’t selling.
While you can’t choose your neighbor, you can avoid living next to a potential neighbor, and that’s exactly what homebuyers are thinking when they look at a junkyard. A badly maintained home could cost your neighbor between 5 and 10 percent of the potential sale price of their home. That doesn’t give them much to smile about.
4. First Impressions
It’s been said that if you want to know what the inside of a home looks like just look at the outside first. It’s likely if someone doesn’t take care of the outside of their home, they’re not going to take care of the inside either. If the outside of your home is a mess, this is the first impression your neighbors have of you.
They could also be wondering if anyone lives in the home. Often, homes that have been empty for long periods of time have overgrown grass and could use a little maintenance. If you look out the window and see someone looking in your windows, it could be that they think the home is on the market.
5. Maintaining Efficiency
Everything a person does to care for a home helps maintain its energy efficiency. From fresh paint to exterior repairs and a maintained lawn, when you take care of your home you know it well enough to identify potential issues before they become major problems.
If you regularly clean your gutters, you’ll identify that missing shingle. If you clean your windows, you’ll notice the caulking is eroding. Caring for your home is good for its overall health. And you know what they say about healthy homes? They’re happy homes.
Keeping up with the maintenance on a home is no easy task, and no one has ever said it is. It requires commitment and a healthy maintenance budget, because you never know what could go wrong next. If you can’t maintain your home you might want to consider apartment living. It’s much less demanding and if something goes wrong you can tell the landlord to fix it. There’s no shame in admitting when something is beyond your means. But, if you really want to stay in a home, for the sake of the home and those around it, learn to love it and all the projects that come with it.
