8 Cleaning Hacks You Need to Know

There are two types of people in the world. The ones that love cleaning and find it therapeutic… and the ones that can’t stand cleaning and want to get it over with as quick as possible. Regardless of what category you fall under, the 8 cleaning hacks below are great to know and are extremely effective.

Unclog & Refresh Your Kitchen Drain

Simply fill your sink with 2 cups of waters. Next, you’re going to add a 1/2 cup of baking soda, followed by 1 full cup of vinegar. Remove your drain plug, watch the mixture bubble up, and as it goes down your drain it will be completing the cleanse! You see – the mixture will help to eliminate any fatty acids that might be gunked up and hanging on to your drain, as well as leave your drain smelling fresh. Bonus: Vinegar is a natural bug repellent!

Avoid Cross Contamination

The reason we clean our homes is to get rid of dirt, dust, and germs. Allowing cross contamination to occur can have the opposite effect on our cleaning efforts. To avoid this, consider color coding your cleaning clothes. For example, use blue microfiber clothes for your bathroom, green for your kitchen, and pink for any other area in the house. I mean think about it… would you really want to use a cloth that was used to clean your toilet bowl in the kitchen next? Yikes. Color coding your rags will prevent cross contamination from happening!

Cleaning Hacks to Clean Your Blender in Seconds

After using our blenders, many of us are guilty of “soaking” it in the sink with some warm water and dish soap. It really does seem like the easiest way… plus it is a pretty great excuse to make sure we can enjoy our smoothies RIGHT AWAY… before doing any cleaning, right? Well, no more soaking for any of us. Immediately after using your blender, add a few drops of dish soap inside, along with some warm water. Turn that bad-boy on for 15-20 seconds, drain the water, rinse well, and you will have a perfectly clean blender.

Lint Roller Cleaning

Clothing is not the only thing to use a lint roller on. Below are additional areas of the home that we can use lint rollers to keep our homes clean:

• Cloth Lamp Shades
• Blinds… for Quick Dust Touch-Up
• Screen Doors
• Fabric Couch
• Inside Purses, Bags, or Backpacks
• Vehicle Seats

Does Your Coffee Taste Stale?

Is your coffee starting to taste – well, not so fresh? It’s probably time for a deep cleaning.  Whether you realize it or not, mineral build up inside our coffee makers can really affect the taste of our coffee. Fill the coffee pot with half water and half vinegar. Run this mixture through your machine. After that mixture has run through, run 2 full pots of plain water through to really flush your machine out.

Carpet Refreshers

Before running your vacuum through the house, run yourself through the house and sprinkle some baking soda all over your carpets. This acts as a natural deodorizer. If you can manage to sprinkle your baking soda on the night before and allow it to really penetrate into the carpet, even better! Bonus: You can use this baking soda and vacuuming method on your fabric couches too. Double Bonus: Add a few drops of essential oil to your baking soda before sprinkling it on the carpet for an even more refreshing scent.

Cotton Balls & Essential Oils

If you experience a smelly trash, a simple solution is to add a few cotton balls soaked with your favorite essential oil scent to the bottom of your garbage can. The cotton balls will help keep your can smelling fresh (well as fresh as possible), and will last up to a week. So, basically, you will want to change out the cotton balls everytime you change your trash bag. You can also add some of your essential oil cotton balls to the canister of your vacuum. With these cleaning hacks, you will smell the scent as you are using your vacuum and they will keep the canister smelling fresh.

Keep Your Toilet Brush Clean

Sure, you might be right… I mean why do we need the brush that scrubs our dirty toilets to be clean? Well, a clean brush is going to be more effective than a dirty brush. After scrubbing our toilets, we typically plop the brush back into its appropriate spot. However, water is continuously dripping and puddling up at the bottom of your brush container. This could potentially cause mold and mildew to form. Cleaning hacks: After you are done scrubbing and cleaning your toilet, let your brush drip by placing it between the toilet bowl and the toilet seat. Put it back into its normal spot after all or most of the water has drained from the brush.