Jul 21 2008
10 Household Cleaning Quick Tips
- Cleaning Louvers & Venetian Blinds: Use a soft paint brush to get in and wipe away the grime in between louvers (slats) and venetian blinds. If you do this regularly, the paint brush technique should be enough to prevent a grime buildup that will need more scrubbing power. Here are more types of brushes you can use for detail dusting.
- Remember To Clean Hair Tools: Wash combs, brushes, curlers and hair accessories (that are washable) in a sink full of warm water and a few capfuls of shampoo. Swoosh around and let soak then rinse well. Make sure to remove as much of the hair first before immersing in the water. This helps remove all the oil and hairspray/gunk buildup. You can also toss these in the dishwasher.
- Expired RealLemon Juice: Out of bleach or have a big bottle of RealLemon sitting around that’s expired? Toss in 1/2 cup of RealLemon juice when laundering your whites. You could also just keep the bottle on hand to spray on stains as a pretreater and stain remover (whites). See more ReaLemon tips here.
- Carpet Pest Control: This is especially useful when moving into a new apartment or rental place before moving the furniture in. For pest control in carpets, vacuum the area thoroughly then sprinkle a generous layer of 20 Mule Team Borax over the carpet surface. With a broom, sweep the powder over the carpet so that it’s covered completely with Borax. Break up all clumps. Leave the room alone for 7 days, allow no foot traffic. After 7 days, vacuum well. The bugs and eggs should be dead & gone.
- Cheap & Natural Carpet Freshener: Sprinkle carpets with baking soda and leave sit for a few hours then vacuum up. Your carpets will smell noticeably fresher.
- Vacuuming Under Dressers: Dressers can be heavy to move but if you’d like to vacuum underneath, just pull out the bottom dresser drawers and you’ll be able to fit the vacuum hose in the space to clean.
- Shiny Shower Doors: Try rubbing baby oil or shaving cream on your clean shower doors to keep them shiny and fog free. Shaving cream can also be used to remove built up soap scum on shower doors, walls and fixtures. Did You Know: Using car wax on shower walls and tiles helps prevent hard water deposit buildup and spots? Don’t wax a bathtub or shower floor though as it makes things too slippery and can cause injury.
- Dusting Walls Ceiling to Floor: Here’s an easy way to regularly dust and de-dustbunny your walls from ceiling to floor–Purchase a cheap, soft bristle floor broom and sweep dust, cobwebs and dustbunnies off your walls. Start from the top and sweep down. Doing this weekly will keep dustbunnies and furballs at bay. Use this broom to only sweep your walls–not floors or any other part of the house. To wash walls, here’s a homemade cleaner recipe and tip.
Try Artgum Erasers for Cleaning Touchups: If you have random dirt spots of gunk or grease streaks on places such as walls, overhead stove fans and appliances that your cleaners aren’t removing very effectively–try rubbing the gunky spot with an artgum eraser. These are handy little things to keep in your cleaning toolkit!- Glass Bits Cleanup: Tiny, shattered shards and bits of glass can be picked up easily by patting the area with a piece of fresh bread (or a bun). Fold a piece of bread in half so you have some extra padding before pressing down and dabbing on the glass bits–you don’t want to cut yourself.
These quick tips were previously published on Tipnut as single tips, they’ve been moved to this page for better organization and convenience. Any bookmarks you may have had will automatically forward to this page.
The comments below are timestamped earlier than the post date since they have been moved from the original tip post to here so they won’t be lost.
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Posted in Cleaning Tips | 
( 9 )
10 Feb 2007 at 5:51 am
all u have to do is mix a bit of water with wheat flour to make a dough. Roll it up into a ball and roll over the place where the glass broke. the small glass pieces stick to the dough. then mop up the place to remove stickyness
14 Feb 2007 at 5:18 am
Another great tip.. Thanks
16 Feb 2007 at 12:30 pm
ETA: Washing A Dishwasher or Washing Machine
Koolaid also contains citric acid and now comes in “invisible” flavors, meaning no dye. If your store doesn’t have invisible flavors, the lemonade flavor contains the least coloring. It’s less of an investment if you haven’t tried this technique before.
16 Jun 2007 at 12:55 am
use a floor dust mop with a removeable/washable cover to dust your walls. Use a clean one for your walls 2x year. Pop in the washing machine when done!
26 Jun 2007 at 10:59 am
ETA: Washing A Dishwasher or Washing Machine
you can probably buy citric acid in a well sorted grocery store or your nearest pharmacy. no need to buy soft drinks and literally pour them down the sink.
vinegar and acetic acid can also be used to remove calcified deposits in your washing machine and toilet etc. both of these usually can be found in your grocery store.
you might find large cans of acetic acid in your gardening store. then for the use a weed killer.
12-24% acetic is fairly strong stuff. perhaps dilute ten times in water.
11 Jul 2007 at 6:34 am
You can use a hairpin, safety pin or any similar poity object to pull out the hair entagled in the brush before washing.
18 Jul 2007 at 9:30 am
[...] had a good reminder about washing brushes, combs and other things we put through our hair, to remove hair and gunk [...]
23 Sep 2007 at 8:26 pm
I use straight lemon oil on a dry rag. Works best when doors are dry not wet. Cleans and shines soap scum off glass shower doors and railings. I also use it on the faucet and dial.
14 Jan 2008 at 4:06 pm
Another great way to clean the shower is pledge or no brand cleaner. Just spray on and wipe off. No scrubbing! and the soap scum comes right off. Works great on the tracks and chrome/stainless steel also.
21 Jul 2008 at 7:52 pm
I also use shaving cream on my bathroom mirrors to prevent them from steaming up.