10 Amazing House Cleaning Hacks Everyone Needs to Know

We all want to live in a fresh and clean house, but very few of us actually enjoy the act of house cleaning. Sure, there are those Martha Stewart types who revel in the process; they find great comfort in sweeping, polishing, scrubbing, and disinfecting, almost to Zen-like proportions. Then, of course, there are the rest of us.

Really, cleaning up the house is a thankless chore. There are so many things to clean, it takes hours to do properly, it’s backbreaking work, and then within a few minutes, everything is scuffed and muddy and dirty again. It’s no wonder that so many people who can afford to do so hire out the job to a cleaning service. If you’re on a tight budget, though, you have to choice but to do it yourself.

And then there’s the problem of household cleaners, many of which smell bad and are made with synthetic chemicals that have questionable implications on human health. There’s also the issue of dirt that caked on or in hard to reach spots. But the good news is that there are some things you can do to make the job easier, use fewer harsh chemicals, and make the clean last just a little bit longer. Here are ten amazing house cleaning hacks that everyone needs to know.

1. Clean your oven with household pantry items.

Sooner or later, you’ll need to clean the walls of your oven, but it’s a nasty chore. Oven cleaners are notoriously harsh: most of them smell horrible, and many don’t even work all that well. To get the grime off your oven without the chemical cleaners, pull the vinegar and baking soda out of your pantry and get to work. To do it, mix about half a cup of baking soda with a few tablespoons of water to make a paste. Slather it all over the walls, ceiling, and floor of your oven (wearing rubber gloves is recommended for this), and leave it there overnight. In the morning, take a damp towel and wipe off as much as you can. Then, spray down the walls with vinegar, let it all foam for a few minutes, and use another damp towel to wipe it down again until everything is completely clean.

2. Use a bathroom tool to remove pet hair from your carpet.

There’s no getting around it: pets shed. Depending on the type of dog or cat you have, you might have a terrible amount of pet hair in your carpets. Vacuuming regularly helps, but even with the most powerful vacuums designed to pick up animal hair, you’ll still leave some behind. How can you get it all out? With a squeegee! You probably have on in your bathroom — just dry it off well and scrape it across your carpet. The amount of pet hair it will gather is both awesome and horrifying.

3. Clean stainless steel appliances with something in your spice rack.

You probably have a small jar of cream of tartar in your spice rack, but what do you actually use it for? Aside from a pinch when you’re whipping up egg whites, probably not much. Fortunately, you can put it to good use when it’s time to shine up your stainless steel appliances. Create a thin paste of cream of tartar and water, then use a sponge to gently scrub it on your stainless steel. It’ll remove stains, grime, and anything else, leaving your appliances sparkly and shiny.

4. Get dust off lampshades with something in your closet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zqFRFFDkTY

Lampshades can get dusty, which means they’re not only dirty, but they can diminish the amount of light they give off. Regular dust cloths don’t work very well on lampshades, and using your vacuum’s attachments to get the dust off is clumsy and only partially effective. To remove the dust easily and efficiently, grab your lint roller and start rolling. The dust will stick to it almost immediately, which means it should take you only one or two passes to clean it completely.

5. Clean your blinds with simple ingredients and a sock.

Dusty blinds spew dust in the air every time you raise and lower them, but they’re awkward to clean by conventional methods. To get your blinds back to new condition, make a simple cleaning solution of half water and half white vinegar. Then, slip an old sock on your hand, dip it in the cleaner, and wipe the blinds clean one or two at a time.

6. Disinfect your mattress with something from your liquor cabinet.

How do you clean a mattress? You can’t exactly throw it in the washing machine, and taking it outside to hose down seems like a bad idea. Instead, disinfect it with some vodka. That’s right — vodka! Here’s where you can use up the cheap stuff from your liquor stash, as it works just as well as the expensive stuff. Pour about a cup of it into a spray bottle, and if you want, you can add a few drops of your favorite essential oil for a fresh scent. Then, mist the whole mattress; you don’t want to soak it, but you want to get it covered with a thin layer of your vodka-oil concoction. Let the mattress air dry completely before putting (clean) sheets back on it.

7. Clean a ceiling fan with something from your linen closet.

Ceiling fans collect dust, and they’re hard to clean. Even if you’ve got a ladder that gets you high enough, wiping the dust off is tricky because it either falls all over the floor (which then has to be cleaned) or all over your head. The solution? Grab an old pillowcase and slip it over each fan blade to pull the dust off. It will collect neatly in the pillowcase, which you can then empty and throw in the washing machine.

8. Clean a showerhead with a pantry staple.

Hard water deposits can make your showerhead look bad and impede water pressure. To clean them off, put about a cup of vinegar in a plastic bag, then wrap it over the showerhead and secure it with a rubber band, making sure the showerhead is in full contact with the vinegar. Let it soak for at least an hour or up to overnight, then use a soft cloth to wipe away the gunk.

9. Clean crayon off of walls with something from the medicine cabinet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N760n8IYJi4

If your kids have left crayon and other stray marks on your walls (accidentally or otherwise), grab a tube of toothpaste to clean it up. You’ll want to use actual paste and not gel, and if it’s got baking soda in it, even better. Apply it to the mark with an old (but clean) toothbrush, scrub it gently, and then wipe it all away with a damp cloth.

10. Give the inside of your microwave a steam clean.

The insides of microwaves can get pretty nasty. To clean off all the food that’s splattered onto the walls and ceiling of yours, microwave a bowl of equal parts vinegar and water, maybe half a cup each, for about four or five minutes. You’ll want to put a wooden spoon or chopstick in it to keep it from boiling over. This should soften all the caked on gunk inside your microwave, and you can then just wipe it away with a sponge.