5 Easy Cleaning Tricks to Make Your Life Easier

As much as I enjoy cleaning and organizing, finding the time to do so can be down right difficult. But with pet hair flying around, and our house being shut up tight for the winter, the cleaning schedule is one I really try to adhere to. This doesn't mean I have to spend hours each day tidying up the house though. Here are five tips and tricks I've found and tried that are saving me time in my cleaning routine!

1. Cleaning the Microwave

I try to clean our microwave once a month and, so far, that seems to be enough. But sometimes you get those glued on specks of food that just don't want to budge. Try putting a bowl or cup of water in the middle of the microwave with a teaspoon or so of baking soda. Run the microwave on high power for 1-2 minutes until the water is close to boiling or just starting to boil. Then, carefully remove the cup of water and wipe down the microwave with a damp cloth. The steam from the water should help to loosen any stuck on food and the baking soda in the water helps to eliminate any odors hanging around inside the microwave. Plus, using just water and baking soda eliminates any chemical smells or reactions that other cleaners might cause inside of a microwave. 

2. Removing Pet Hair From Furniture

It's no secret that we have a dog and a cat running around our abode. Their hair is everywhere! I try to vacuum the furniture at least once a week to keep the pet hair under control, but that's not always enough. The vacuum tends to get all the loose hair off the cushions, but there are always pesky hairs really stuck in the fabric that just don't want to come up. Who would have thought a squeegee would be the answer? Certainly not me! But it works amazing. Just take a dry shower or window squeegee and run it across the cushion. As you can see from the embarrassing picture above, it works to get all those pesky hairs off the furniture! (Note: This seems to work better on textured fabric and did not work as well on our microfiber couch.)

3. Dusting LCD Screens

LCD screens are common in most homes today whether they are on a TV or a computer monitor. It gets confusing sometimes as to safe ways to clean these screens. I've tried to dust our LCD screens with a dry microfiber cloth and, while this works relatively well, the static created by the screen sometimes just won't give up dust particles or pet hair. For some reason, using a coffee filter on these screens seems to do the trick! Just dust the screen off with a coffee filter and it collects the dust and hair from the screen very easily without creating more static. 

4. Cleaning the Shower Head

The shower head is an easy place to over look when you're cleaning. But it builds up mineral deposits and soap scum which will impact your water pressure and water flow in the shower. I've tried chemical based cleaners to unclog our shower heads in the past and, while they seem to work well, the chemical smell is over powering. I'm learning quickly that vinegar pretty much cleans everything and this includes shower heads. I put some vinegar in a plastic baggy and wrapped it around our shower head making sure the entire head was immersed in the vinegar. Then I just gathered the bag at the top and clipped it with a bag clip. I let it sit for most of the day and then removed it and ran the water for about a minute. Looked like new! If your shower head is extra icky, you can try adding a little bit of baking soda to the bag just before you clamp it shut. The chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar will help to get really stuck on grime off.

5. Dusting the Base Boards

I try to dust our base boards once a month or so because they do collect a lot of dust and pet hair. As you can see from the picture, our base boards are relatively wide, so the collected dust is very easy to see. Because these boards are so close to the floor where most of the dust and hair fall, they tend to get dusty pretty quickly. I heard that dusting with a dryer sheet keeps surfaces cleaner longer, because it coats them with an anti-static cling film. Worth a try I say! I ran a dryer sheet along all the baseboards in our house and was surprised at how well the sheet actually collected the dust. It left a faint smell good scent along the way too. I may try dusting our furniture with a dryer sheet as well to see if it helps repel dust for larger surfaces too!

These are five easy tricks that you can use around your home to shorten up your cleaning time and reduce the amounts of chemicals you have to use to clean. I hope they've helped you as much as they are helping me!