When it comes to spring cleaning, or housekeeping any time of the year, nobody knows how to make it more efficient than professional home and hotel cleaners. Try these tips from the pros in your own home.
Stock up on gloves and microfiber cloths. Rubber gloves can help you through a variety of messy tasks without soaking your hands in water or chemicals. Microfiber cloths can be used wet for kitchen and bath cleaning, or dry for thorough dusting.
Simplify your cleaning products. You should not need more than three or four products, including a mix of vinegar and water in a spray bottle, to tackle every cleaning job in every room of your house.
Keep cleaning tools handy. Having products and rags in a moveable carry-case, and brooms and a vacuum in a central spot, saves time and energy. In a two-story home, keep a second vacuum upstairs for quick and easy pick-ups.
Clean the kitchen every day that you cook. Not the whole kitchen, but the range, the counters to the side of it, the refrigerator handle and the sink. New kitchen dirt is easy to clean, but old kitchen dirt can harden into rock.
Don’t get bogged down with clutter. Spend some time once or twice a month sorting and putting clutter where it belongs. In between, just pick up those light piles of mail and magazines and clean under and around them.
Keep your pets brushed. It will minimize the time you spend dusting and vacuuming.
Have a cleaning path. Whether it’s back of the house to the front, or tougher rooms first, know the route you will take. In any case, clean from the top down, ceilings first, so floors that catch the dust and debris are the last to be swept and/or vacuumed.
Start with the worst challenge in a room. In the kitchen, it’s the range. In the bathroom, it’s the shower. In the dining room, it may be the chandelier. Once you complete the main challenge, the rest of the room is easy.
