Most, if not all, of us like to clean our homes, offices or even our lives during the season of spring. It just feels good to be able to achieve a fresh, clean start. Here are some great tips to supercharge your home spring cleaning efforts: 1. Protect the environment, your kids and pets by selecting non-toxic cleaning products. You can find safe products in your home to use. Baking soda, essential oils, lemon juice, and white vinegar all work well.
2. Make cleaning easy with tools you have around the house, like a basket to hold all your supplies in that you can carry from room to room. Use disposable wipes or, to be kind to landfills, you can use old rags and cloths.
3. Your old vacuum cleaner could be doing more harm than good if it is just spreading dust and dirt around instead of sucking it up. Have your vacuum serviced before spring cleaning time or purchase a new one if needed.
4. After washing bed sheets, blankets or comforters and quilts, hang them out to dry in the fresh air and sun. This will not only save dryer energy, it will get rid of bed bugs and humidity.
5. If you have leftover yard leaves from last fall, take the time to rake them up. Use a biodegradable paper yard waste bag. These bags not only help the environment, they are also strong and easy for you to use. The outside of your house will look fresh and clean, too.
6. Here is an old trick for getting baked-on, stuck-on gunk from pots and pans. Put a dryer sheet in the bottom of the pot, fill it with water and let it soak over night. Works like a charm.
7. Baking soda or club soda will clean and shine stainless steel sinks. To remove water spots from stainless sinks, scrub with a cloth dampened with rubbing alcohol or white vinegar.
8. Your floors need help to when it comes to spring cleaning. Vinyl, linoleum or ceramic tile floors need squeeze mechanism mops and a decent-sized heavy duty pail to really get well cleaned. Clean hardwood floors with a light duster such as the Swiffer. You can use a broom or vacuum attachment to sweep any messes, or dust from the surface and then damp-mop with a mild cleanser such as Murphy Oil Soap (smells so good).
9. Dust all furniture, picture frames, knick knacks, table tops and any crevices where dust can gather, before you sweep or clean the floors. Use a feather or lambswool duster. Extendable ones are great for reaching in those high or hard-to-reach places. Natural-fiber cloths work best for those damp cloth jobs.
10. Save time by multi-taking during spring cleaning. You can put a load of laundry in the wash, then while the clothes are being washed, dust the rooms and tidy up. While the laundry machines are humming is a perfect time to do up those dishes or run the vacuum cleaner.
Kristi Patrice Carter is a housecleaning maniac and the proud author of Super Woman Doesn’t Live Here Any More: The Ultimate 2 Week Plan for Getting Your Family to Help With Housework.” For ordering information and information on Daily House Cleaning Schedule, please visit http://www.dailyhousecleaningschedule.com