Our Top 8 Best Spring Cleaning Tips

The right spring cleaning tips can make a yearly chore seem more like a vacation at home.

Allergy sufferers, in particular, take note: spring cleaning is a great way to freshen up your house and keep yourself healthy. 

A deep clean can disinfect and sanitize your living spaces and make your home ideal for guests or prospective buyers if you’re looking to sell.

So put down the rubber gloves, the bucket of soapy water, and the cleaning supplies for now. 

It’s time to learn how to enjoy a healthy and happy home by using our best spring cleaning tips and spring cleaning hacks for 2022.

1. Create a spring cleaning checklist

Where to start? What needs doing? Which room needs the most work? Which needs the least?

Take a walk around the house and make a spring cleaning checklist. Then, create an attack plan and try to stick with it. 

For example, start with one room and finish it before moving on to the next room. This tip will also help your motivation because you’ll be able to see success sooner.

2. Baking soda to freshen your mattress

When it comes to your bedroom, don’t just clean the pillowcases and linens.

A bit of banking soda can deodorize and refresh your mattress in a flash. It can also remove some of the residual moisture in the fabric and foam, making for a more comfortable sleep and increasing the mattress’s lifespan.

Sprinkle some banking soda on the bare mattress and let it sit for at least two hours. Then, use your HEPA vacuum cleaner to clean up.

3. Declutter

Mental health professionals have shown how decluttering your home improves your life.

Clutter annoys us, distracts us and can take time and energy away from other, more important matters. It can cause feelings of fatigue, stress, and even depression.

Because many of us are working from home these days, it’s more important than ever to organize the possessions we already own and rid ourselves of things we no longer use. Donate, sell, or just throw out your unused items.

Start with the closets and the dark corners of your basement. You’ll be amazed at what it feels like to remove the clutter from your spaces.

4. Cleaning your washing machine

Here’s a handy DIY trick for cleaning one of the most important appliances in your home, let alone your laundry room: your top-loading washing machine.

1. Set the water temperature to hot and fill the empty washer.
2. Add a quart of bleach. Let the full machine run for one minute.
3. Open the top door and let it sit (water and bleach together) for an hour.
4. Shut the cover and let the machine complete the wash cycle.
5. Once the cycle is complete, start the same cycle over. But this time, add a quart of white vinegar* to the water and into the bleach reservoir.
6. Run the washing machine for a minute, then open the door for another hour. Afterward, let the cycle finish.
7. Once complete, use a spray bottle to spray the exterior of the washing machine with a mixture of a cup of water and a cup of vinegar. Use a cleaning cloth, damp cloth, or a microfiber cloth to wipe it all down—clean crevices with an old toothbrush.

*Note: make sure you don’t add the vinegar and bleach during the same cycle; they should not mix. Also, consider cleaning out your dryer vent for safety reasons. 

5. Vacuum with a HEPA filter

With a quality vacuum cleaner, you can clean more than just surface dust in your house. High-quality HEPA-filtered vacuums can also remove unseen and airborne particles that can aggravate allergy symptoms.

However, if you don’t have access to a HEPA vacuum, use a vacuum with a crevice tool and other attachments that can get around the baseboards and higher places like ceiling fans.

6. It’s a top-down approach

Start from the ceiling and move down from there.

When you have dozens of choices of where to clean first, we sometimes forget the basics. Any dust or particles you knock off of high areas will float down to the ground, making you clean those areas again if you’ve already done them.

Use a duster to remove pesky cobwebs from the kitchen ceiling corners before moving on to the grime and gunk on the stovetop and the faucets.

7. Clean windows with this DIY cleaner recipe

All the surfaces in the house may be spotless, but the light coming through a smudge-y window will not make your things look their best. You can’t just wait for cloudy days, so make sure clean windows are on the schedule.

A steam cleaner with a squeegee attachment can do a great cleaning job, but you can also use a simple, DIY, relatively streak-free window cleaning solution.

Mix 1/4 cup of vinegar and a 1/2 teaspoon of liquid dish soap in a spray bottle. Dilute it with two cups of water, then shake vigorously. Add about five drops of your favorite essential oil if you like (ironically, it’s not essential).

You can also use this DIY cleaning product on mirrors like your medicine cabinet.

8. Don’t forget the shower head

Those with hard water in their house will tell you that hard water stains will clog up your shower head and look unsightly.

Try pouring white vinegar into a small plastic bag and tie it onto the shower head. Let it sit for thirty minutes. The hard water stains should come right off.

Spring Cleaning Tips—Conclusion

Getting rid of the winter build-up of dust and grime can do wonders for your home. 

But, even if you don’t intend to use any of these spring cleaning tips, a bit of hot water with an all-purpose cleaner can make a big difference.

For those looking to sell their home, these spring cleaning tips and hacks can increase a home’s value from the view of potential buyers. home.com by Homefinity can help you find your new dream home or even refinance for a lower monthly payment*.

Call us for a rate quote to help you get a picture of what is possible for you. You can also book a convenient time to chat with us. We can help you secure a mortgage pre-approval** and get you into your new house in no time.

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

*By refinancing your existing loan, your total finance charges may be higher over the life of the loan. **Pre-approval is based on a preliminary review of credit information provided to Homefinity, which has not been reviewed by underwriting. If you have submitted verifying documentation, you have done so voluntarily. Final loan approval is subject to a full underwriting review of support documentation including, but not limited to, applicants’ creditworthiness, assets, income information, and a satisfactory appraisal.