Never Store These Items on a Windowsill

Keeping the house tidy and tidy is a chore no matter where you live, but it presents a particular challenge for those who live in small spaces. While people with large homes may have spare closets or even entire rooms for storage, the rest of us have to get creative when it comes to finding a place to store our belongings.

It may seem that any flat surface is fair game, but unfortunately it is not. Take, for example, window sills. They might seem like the perfect place to store and display a few aesthetically pleasing household items or items you can’t find anywhere else to store, but that’s not the case. Here are some examples of things that should not be stored on the windowsill.

Books

It might be tempting to create a cute little vignette with a few (or many) books on your windowsill, but this is a bad idea . Books may fade or deteriorate if stored in direct sunlight. Also, fluctuations in temperature and humidity can make the window sill susceptible to moisture, which can cause your books to become damp or eventually moldy.

Medications

Depending on when and where you take your medications, the bathroom first aid kit may not be the best place to store them. If so, you can hide them on the windowsill in your bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen. But medications can lose their effectiveness if kept in direct sunlight, so it’s best to keep them away from a window.

Food

As a general rule, do not keep food on the windowsill. It makes sense to use this flat surface for storage, especially in a small kitchen, but most foods don’t handle direct sunlight and temperature fluctuations well and can go bad before their expiration date. This includes fresh fruits and vegetables , which can also attract fruit flies if left for too long.

Cleaners

Like medicines, cleaning products, including dishwashing detergent , can lose their effectiveness and disinfectant properties if stored on a windowsill or other location with fluctuating temperatures and humidity levels.