Cleaning Outdoor Toys

[Unregistered]

I'm going to be honest here and just admit that my outdoor play area looks awful right now. We have a swing set, sand box, ball pit, toy box, and bikes on the deck. The play house always has cobwebs inside and needs a good power washing on the outside. The ball pit always seems to have random bugs making their way inside along with broken bits of leaves, dirt, etc. The sand box is good. Toy box, large dump trucks, action figures, etc just look filthy. And I'm always finding spider webs on the swing set.

I'm just wondering, how much of this is normal b/c of being outside and how much is just that I need to do a better job of upkeep? I mean, should I be hosing everything down once a week or is a good cleaning in the spring and again in the fall sufficient? I hate feeling like everything looks so dirty all the time, but then again we are outside playing in sand and dirt....so? I'm just not sure. The ball pit probably bothers me the most. It is a little tikes boat with a lid on it that houses the balls. The balls always have dirt on them, as does the bottom of the boat, but I don't have a clue how to avoid that when they're running through the yard and then entering the ball pit. And I don't want to worry about taking shoes on and off between toys as most of mine are 2 and under so big enough to toddle around, but not big enough to handle their own shoes. How do you handle outdoor upkeep?

[childcaremom]

I clean in the spring and aim to do it before putting it away for the winter.

[Blackcat31]

I'm going to be honest here and just admit that my outdoor play area looks awful right now. We have a swing set, sand box, ball pit, toy box, and bikes on the deck. The play house always has cobwebs inside and needs a good power washing on the outside. The ball pit always seems to have random bugs making their way inside along with broken bits of leaves, dirt, etc. The sand box is good. Toy box, large dump trucks, action figures, etc just look filthy. And I'm always finding spider webs on the swing set.

I'm just wondering, how much of this is normal b/c of being outside and how much is just that I need to do a better job of upkeep? I mean, should I be hosing everything down once a week or is a good cleaning in the spring and again in the fall sufficient? I hate feeling like everything looks so dirty all the time, but then again we are outside playing in sand and dirt....so? I'm just not sure. The ball pit probably bothers me the most. It is a little tikes boat with a lid on it that houses the balls. The balls always have dirt on them, as does the bottom of the boat, but I don't have a clue how to avoid that when they're running through the yard and then entering the ball pit. And I don't want to worry about taking shoes on and off between toys as most of mine are 2 and under so big enough to toddle around, but not big enough to handle their own shoes. How do you handle outdoor upkeep?

I hose everything off when it looks dirty and plan for deeper more thorough cleaning 2-3X a summer.
I will involve the kids for cleaning too... a hose and some mild tear free soap and it's FUN for everyone on a hot summer day!

[jenboo]

When i had a bunch of outdoor stuff, especially play houses, i hosed them off every monday to get rid of the bugs

[e.j.]

I try to clean outdoor toys in early spring and then again in late summer before the cooler fall weather starts. We have a big maple tree in the play area that can make things under it very dirty if it rains a lot so I sometimes have to clean those toys more often. I use a power washer for the big jobs but those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers work great in between. I have a Little Tykes Tugboat that I used to fill it with either balls or sand but found the kids actually played in it more when it was empty so now I just leave it empty - except for in winter when I use it to store balls and larger sand trucks. It's much easier to keep clean when it's empty.