Quick tips to keep a clean home

To those who know me well, it is no surprise that I’m a tidy and organized person. To those who may not know me as well, one step into my home and you could easily figure out that I like to keep things in order. This is just my personality; I’m most at peace when I have order in my house and for as long as I can remember I have been cleaning and organizing anything and everything.

My approach to cleanliness has evolved over the years; I wasn’t always so meticulous.

When I was younger, my method was to shove everything into drawers and cabinets, my family still jokes about my cleaning ways from back in the day, “Where’s the newspaper? Oh, Sara’s been cleaning, check the kitchen cupboards.” My mindset was that if it was out of sight, it was out of mind.

Over time I took on a more organized approach to my method of cleaning and picked up a few helpful tips along the way.

Here are useful tips I’ve discovered over the years, and hopefully they will be useful to you too.

Throw cut lemon peels into the garbage disposal.

Garbage disposals are gross but they are appropriately named as they dispose of garbage. I don’t even want to think about what’s been down mine.

Occasionally, I’ll have to stick my hand down there to retrieve a lost baby spoon, I’ll fumble between the slime and metal; it gives me the willies just thinking about it. Next time you’re using lemons for a recipe, instead of tossing them into the trash, cut them up and throw them into the disposal. This is a natural way to eliminate odors that may be residing down there.

Use a cut lemon and the juice to clean your microwave.

If you’ve got some lemons left over after you’ve cleaned your garbage disposal, you can also use them to clean your microwave.

Squeeze a cut lemon into a small microwavable safe bowl, toss the cut lemon in your bowl and microwave them for a minute or two.

The lemon and juice will create a steam and will loosen any stuck on food. The lemon scent will also neutralize odors.

Use OxiClean to clean and remove stains from grout.

One of my biggest pet peeves is dirty grout, I can’t stand it. I was nine months pregnant and two weeks away from my due date when I decided that our second child could not come into a home with dirty bathroom grout. I took a whole bottle of OxiClean and sprayed it directly onto the grout. I let it sit for about a minute then scrubbed the grout with a scrub brush. I had to mop several times to get the OxiClean residue off the tiles but I could clearly see the difference.

Microwave your kitchen sponge to kill bacteria.

You could probably assume that your kitchen sponge accumulates a lot of germs. You can kill these germs by microwaving the sponge for about two minutes. Make sure the sponge doesn’t have any metal on it and it is completely wet when you put it in the microwave. Wait a few minutes before removing the sponge as it will be very hot. The sponge will also create a steam inside the microwave thus making hard stuck on food particles easy to remove with your newly sanitized sponge.

Clean your vacuum with compressed air.

I give my vacuum a good thorough cleaning about every three months. I’ll take apart every piece that can come off the vacuum and I’ll wash it with warm water and set out in the sun to dry for a full day. For those areas that are harder to reach, use a can of compressed air (used for cleaning dust out of computer keyboards).

Products to keep on hand:

Goo Gone, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and disinfecting wipes.

If you’ve got children, pets or are just sometimes prone to making messes, these three products will make your life a little bit easier. Whether it’s sticky, gooey, messy, marked on, painted on or scuffed up, chances are one of these three things will get rid of it.

I understand that for a lot of us out there, deep cleaning our homes, though it may be a priority, often gets put off because life just happens. I’ve got a rambunctious 4-year-old and a clingy 7-month-old, cleaning my home often gets put on hold. However, you can incorporate these six simple cleaning tips into your everyday routine and you’ll be surprised at how a little effort can make a big difference.