Introduction
There are very few household chores as tiresome and boring as cleaning. That’s why many homeowners prefer to search for “cleaning services near me” and hire professional help. However, if you’re inventive enough, you can clean your home quickly without spending as much effort. Let’s check out a few essential hacks for home cleaning.
The Essentials
- Dishwash light fixtures – Unless you have unique light fixtures made of wood or hemp rope, most light fixtures are made out of glass and metal. Those fixtures hang up there for a long while before you decide to clean them. Unfortunately, all that accumulated dust and marks become as hard as scales, and cleaning those light fixtures becomes very difficult manually. Instead, you can put fixtures made of metal and glass inside the dishwasher and let those hot and high-pressure bubbles do the trick.
- Use pillowcases to clean ceiling fans – In recent years the combination of ceiling fans and single air conditioner units has become very popular since they allow you to cut down on power consumption. While the air conditioner gets cleaned by a professional when it gets services, you need to clean those fans yourself and it can get messy.
Your floor gets dirty due to the lint that accumulates on the fan blades and falls down when agitated by a broom. However, it doesn’t need to be that way. Instead, slip on a pillow cover on the fan blade and wipe away the dust while collecting it in the pillowcase. The dust would never leave the case and can be disposed of very easily. After that, you can throw in the pillow covers inside the washer.
- Clean blinds with socks – If you’ve ever hired professionals to deep clean your home, you may have seen how they use advanced equipment to clean blinds and vents. They have an air compressor attached to a bunch of rubber strings that beat on those blinds and remove everything without damaging them.
However, that kind of equipment is bulky and not fit for domestic use. Instead, you can efficiently clean those blinds by wearing a dampened sock on your hand and wiping the blind panels from one end to the other. This way you can remove dust from both sides within seconds.
- Limes and lemons for the garbage bin – Garbage bins, both organic or otherwise. Do a lot of filthy heavy lifting every day. That’s why they get exceptionally dirty. While the garbage bin sheets exist to minimize the filth, you have very few ways of getting rid of the stink.
The best hack for getting rid of garbage bin stink or kitchen stink, in general, is to use a lot of limes and lemons. Dice up a few lemons into equal pieces and fill the garbage bin with them along with a lot of water. Limes, lemons, and citrus fruits, in general, are great at cutting down grease and deodorizing.
- Olive oil for buffing – Cleaning pans, pots, and stainless steel appliances is not an easy task. While general cleaning with dish soap gets most of the gunk and grease out, you have limited options for getting rid of stubborn dirt marks and spots. Since stainless steel has a certain appearance and finish, you can’t just use lime or cleaners with strong acid content.
That’s where olive oil comes in. While olive oil is much more expensive to be used as a cleaning liquid, it’s ideal for these situations where the application area is small. Put a few drops of olive oil in a soft and clean cloth and rub the dirt spot in a circular motion. Apart from cleaning stubborn dirt spots, olive oil would also buff and polish the stainless steel and restore its shiny appearance.
- Paint roller for ceilings – Ceilings are difficult to clean. You need to get on a ladder with a broom and be very careful. Otherwise, you may knock out expensive stuff. The problem becomes worse when you have a textured surface. However, things can become very easy when you replace the broom with a paint roller. Dampen the paint roller and roll it over the ceiling to catch cobwebs, dust, and lint.
- Baby wipes for spot cleaning – People don’t realize how powerful baby wipes are. Since they are made for the gentle skin of babies, they have little to no moisture and use effective yet gentle cleaning agents. Moreover, they dry out rapidly. All those features make them perfect for spot-cleaning fabrics.
Always keep a few baby wipes at multiple places in your home so that you can quickly spot clean spills and marks from expensive fabrics. Make sure not to confuse baby wipes with cleaning wipes. The latter contains harsh chemicals like bleach.
- Get the kids to clean your mattress – Kids are full of energy and are always looking forward to spending that energy by running, jumping, and playing around. You can harness that energy to make them clean the mattress while they have a good time. Take your mattress out to the patio and make your kids jump on it as much as they want. All that jumping will dust out the mattress effectively while you relax and take a break.
- Vinegar and baking soda for dishwasher – The insides of the dishwasher can get scaly and dirty after some time. They also collect all kinds of smells from food particles. Fortunately, you can clean the dishwasher easily with some vinegar and baking soda. Let a large cup of baking soda sit in the dishwasher overnight and then run the hottest cleaning cycle with vinegar instead of the detergent.
Conclusion
There are different ways of doing the same task. It’s the same for cleaning. While you can take the traditional approach and tire yourself out while cleaning your home, there are other sustainable methods and hacks for the same chores. On the other hand, you can also outsource your cleaning tasks to professionals by searching for “cleaning services near me”.