What are your best cleaning tips?

Most people underestimate the power of basic cleaners. Soap is actually enough to clean most nonporous surfaces.

The power of any given cleaner increases the longer it soaks into the mess. This is true even if you are just using water. So rather than reaching for the harsh stuff, try soaking the surface to be cleaned first, waiting a minute, and then scrubbing it. Go with a stronger cleaner only if this doesn’t work.

If you have a particularly stubborn toilet, it’s probably because you don’t clean it often enough. I know this because I … have reasons. The inside bowl can be really easily cleaned if you purchase a toilet cleaner where the active ingredient is an acid of some sort. But once again, it will have to soak for a bit.

If you like the original pine-sol but don’t like the “new” pine-sol, you can actually special order a case of the original straight from the manufacturer.

Bar keepers friend stainless steel cleaner's the best for any stainless steel pans, appliances, and sinks! Pretty good at making anything like that shine and look new!

I own a small house cleaning company, and I buy hundreds of generic melamine sponges a year. The thicker the better (but they are more expensive), and I wash them! I have serious sponge protocol, and one sponge only wipes one counter or one toilet or one floor etc before it goes in a bin to be washed on the sanitize setting with rags. I typically get three washes out of each sponge, and they progress down a ladder of usefulness: new ones are used on countertops, sinks, stove tops, second wash - any non sanitary critical job, third wash - toilets and floors or other gross tasks, and then into the trash. By that time they are small, shrunken and flat and ready to go anyway. Do not put in dryer.

I'm a bleach man, I love it. Toilets, sinks and any mold above windows and room corners gets the treatment, neat. I usually apply on a cloth so as not to go overboard for surfaces. Then a water wipe about 10 mins later so it doesn't dry and voila, mold be gone and everything sparkly. I'm 44 and done this for years, the wife hates it and she's all about perfumed cleaning sprays as she's a believer in the crap that goes on the packaging. She's definitely a big brand fanatic.

Main tip though isn't so much about cleaning, more of tidying. Putting stuff away as you go keeps the place visually clean and organised, it helps the brain. If only I could get the wife and kids to go along with this my life would be so much easier...

What helped me is using first principles thinking. Learn what the active ingredients in your cleaners are and how they work chemically. Learn about the different types of contaminants and which solution works best for each. Here are a few concrete tips that I've picked up:

• microfiber cloths and distilled water will pick up most dirt and bacteria.
• if you fold a square microfiber cloth in half twice, you have eight clean surfaces to work with
• cleaning and disinfecting are different and should be done as separate steps
• don't ever mix bleach with anything
• essential oils and green cleaners are not always safe, so do your research
• You can clean and disinfect just about anything with the right choice of following basic ingredients: water, vinegar, dish soap, isopropyl alcohol, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide.

General:

• Soaking makes everything easy.
• Avoid overly abrasive products when possible. If you scrub the finish off of your toilet or ceramic sink it will get way harder to clean and stain easier.
• Don’t contaminate. Use different tools for different areas and never mix kitchen and bathroom.
• Work in passes: sediment, soak, scrub, sanitize. For a kitchen counter that would be damp sponge pass to get crumbs, wet sponge pass to moisten, back of sponge to scrub (leave it wet), damp sponge to get mostly dry and then a cleaning solution spray/wipe (Lysol, vinegar, whatever you’re in to). It’s not necessary every time, you can maintain with just a sediment/soak pass.

Preventative:

• Trust your nose.
• No shoes in the house.
• It’s easier to maintain than renew. Wipe that spill now, vacuum that dirt now.

A good meter for kitchen clean is if you dropped a piece of bread on that surface would you still give that bread to a guest? For bathrooms: if a guest touched that surface would you want them to touch your face? For floors: if you walked on those with socks would you want those socks in your bed? For beds: hey no judgement here do whatever you’re in to just wash your sheets once a week.

As far as products I don’t have strong preferences for cleaners or solutions but I couldn’t live without blue Scotch-Brite sponges (or equivalent). They don’t scratch, they scrub well.

This is a pretty minor one, but if you run a blender with warm water and dish soap shortly after using it, and then just scrub out the remainder, it becomes way easier to clean. You might be less reluctant to use your blender as a result.

Also if you don't do this already, turn your graphic t-shirts inside out before washing them. The graphics won't crack nearly as quickly this way.

There are a lot of great tips for the performance of cleaning, but my cleaning tip is this: if you see something that needs cleaning, then clean it up. This means if you notice that it's dusty, grab a duster; if the dishes are dirty, clean them; if the sink needs to be cleaned out, do it; if the shower doors are streaky, wipe them down; if you have a food wrapper, put it directly in the garbage.

If you do the small tasks as they happen, then they remain small tasks and are relatively easy to deal with. A bit of cleaning every day is way better than a lot of cleaning on one day.

Hey there, I owned a cleaning business for a little over a decade. I'd still have it, but I was burnt out on it. Needed a change.

I almost never used bleach. Never underestimate the power of hot water (doesn't have to be scalding), and Murphy's Wood soap, on just about everything. Scrubbing bubbles for stubborn residue. Greased lightning is a great degreaser. Follow that up with some Sprayway glass cleaner for streaks (I used this stuff for any surface really, and it smells amazing).

Also, yellow microfiber towels from Costco are the best. Magic erasers are are incredible, just be mindful of the pressure applied when cleaning finished surfaces, as it can damage the surface if overused.

Lastly, a couple of tools will make your life easier to clean. Xoxo brand has a corner brush set with a rubber cleaning tip. And get a painters multi tool (at any hardware store), for scraping surfaces and getting in corners. Razor blades too... Just be careful! It's easy to poke yourself. :)

In general, a bit of Dawn dish soap in water will clean the majority of stains in your house. I've found that if you have cats, it's far superior in cleaning up after hairballs than any other commercial cleaner out there.

I use a mixture of dish soap and vinegar and hot water (in whatever ratio suits my fancy that day) to get rid of soap scum on showers. Works really well. And when it doesn't, I reach for CLR

A chainmail scrubber works beautifully to get kitchen pots and pans clean of any stains or burnt-on material that remains after soaking. No chemicals required, and it will likely never need replacement.

The chainmail is safe on cast iron and enamel/ceramic-coated pans, but not advisable for Teflon coatings. I've even used it on the stainless steel sink and glass-topped stove without issues of scratching.

Melamine foam sponges are the miracle they’re marketed as. (AKA “Magic Eraser”) The only drawback is that they don’t last long; they crumble and fall apart after some usage.

Retracted per comments below.

Vinegar. Vinegar is my cleaning tip. Use it to clean basically everything. It works VERY well for hard water stains/calcium deposits.

Two tips:

For dealing with that black stuff that accumulates (grows?) in edges and corners of shower stalls: No chemical has served me as well as simply dealing with the moisture. Two things: Use an inexpensive small squeegee (under 5 USD on Amazon, or so) to swipe down most of the water after you shower (three walls and the door); then leave the door open to allow the stall to get more air circulation to dry the moisture faster. I've never seen black stuff ever since I started doing these two simple things, and I've never needed to buy cleaners to deal with it (save $$). I'll admit it might feel like an annoying chore at first, but nowadays, I don't even think about it. I can squeegee all 4 surfaces in under 60 seconds. One more thing: I did have to use cleaners and elbow grease first to remove any existing buildup.

If you ever fry with anything sweet, the sugar and oil hardens on your pan when it cools down. Yes, you can run it under hot water in your sink, and it melts away, but the problem with that is you're simply moving that hardened stuff from your pan into your plumbing. Over time, that will build up and clog your plumbing, causing plumber costs. Instead, what I do is warm the pan on low heat to get the hard stuff back to liquid form. The better thing to do is dispose of this stuff as you dispose of biodegradables. i.e. in your designated bin, if your municipality collects this; else somewhere outdoors will do. If there is too much liquid to pour into a bin (plastic bags/liners will just melt, so you don't want to do that), discard some of it first (outside). Then, with the solid stuff still melted in liquid form, wipe (soak) the rest into paper towel, which is also biodegradable. Obviously, the pan is hot enough to burn, so I fold up a generous amount of paper towel so it's thick enough to protect my hands when wiping. This wiping is often enough to get it so there's almost nothing left on the pan. Finally, hand wash the pan as you normally would to get the final thin layer of grease or oil.

EDIT: Oops, forgot a key part of the tip. If the hard stuff doesn't liquify with heat, add a small amount of water (maybe a few tablespoons, or however much you need).

I see a lot of comments on chemicals and scrubbing things down, this is more about attacking clutter, which I find to be a huge nuisance and a barrier to doing proper 🧼 cleaning.

• Use a laundry basket to collect all the clutter from a room. You can than place the laundry basket in a closet or a other location. This gets a lot of junk out of the way quickly. You can sort the basket out on a later date, or just let it exist as a storage container for that stuff.
• The classic get rid of anything that doesn’t bring you joy. Throw things away you don’t need. You may find that laundry basket you hid away a year later, that’s a good sign you can ditch the whole bundle of junk.
• Robot vacuums will encourage you to clear your floors of clutter so they can do your job. You’ll be amazed how much dust and hair these things pick up every day. Your floor will get this little shine to it as well.
• If things are piling up in a specific place over and over, that means you probably need to adapt that space to organize and store items there.
• The kitchen counters should be as bare as possible. I found by having a place to move kitchen counter clutter to lets me get my counters clear quickly so I can properly wipe them down.
• I find open storage is more likely to get used than closed off storage. If it requires opening a door or a drawer, then stuff just never finds its way there. Something like a bookshelf can convert your clutter to decor—and stupid little bins and trays and hide the less pleasing items while still maintains open storage.
• If you have kids and work full time then you might want to just hire somebody to clean your place. You just might not have the time and energy to do all that plus remember to scrub your shower walls.

You can make your cloths and sponges (almost) sterile again by dampening them and putting them in the microwave for up to 30 seconds. This kills the bacteria.

Use car wax on your mirrors. It will keep them cleaner longer

Beyond just finding a good standby multipurpose cleaner, my biggest tip: if all else fails, try a melamine sponge (magic eraser). There are so many tough stains/spots that I’ve just obliterated with one of these trying to de-bachelorify my fiancé’s place. I credit knockoff Mr. Clean almost entirely for how spotless I’ve gotten the bathroom.

Bissel Steam Shot is amazing. Helps get even the most stubborn stains out. Be careful around paint though.

Tree sap on your car windshield/glass? Use a little rubbing alcohol.

Use newspapers to clean mirrors for a streakless shine. I can't remember where I found this but I've been doing for as long as I've been cleaning. I know newspapers aren't as prevalent as they used to be but there's a good chance you receive a monthly mailer of some kind that is printed on newpaper paper.

Second this is less about cleaning and more about accepting that microorganisms will just do their things. The pink rings you sometimes see above the water line in the toilet or around your sink (caused by Serratia marcescens) and the black stuff growing in the corners (mold/mildew) are just a product of high humidity environments and require a bit of elbow grease to maintain. No daily spray, no toilet bowl cleaner, no home remedy is going to completely eliminate the need for regular cleaning (e.g. elbow grease), reduction of humidity, and if needed, the replacement of grout/caulk.

Never mix bleach with anything other than water.

Tree sap: olive oil
Sand: baby powder

Well, it's not what you want, but you asked so I'll answer. My cleaning tip is, don't get things too clean. Cleanliness is next to neuroticism, and a little dust and a few spiders never hurt anybody.

I take out the trash when it starts stinking, vacuum after a spill, and that's enough.

A razor blade scraper will easily take hard water deposits off a smooth counter top. It's also great for removing tree sap, and other things, from car windows. I got one with replaceable razer blades and it's come in handy many times.

Rubbing alcohol (and pretty much every hand sanitizer) will remove Sharpie from hard surfaces.