13 clever house-cleaning hacks from professional cleaners

Want to know the secret to streak-free mirrors and windows? Well, it’s an easy at-home solution you can make yourself. According to Rapinchuk, all you need is:

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons rubbing alcohol
• 3 drops peppermint essential oil

Place in a spray bottle, and away you go.

If you swish your toilet every day with your cleaning brush, you’ll keep it relatively clean without a ton of hard labour.

Use the water already in the toilet to swish the entire toilet bowl.

Your bathroom probably gets dirtiest the fastest and is the hardest to clean.

Of course, you need to polish your wooden furniture and hardwood floors every once in a while (once or twice a year, or when they begin to look foggy), but all you really need to keep them shiny is a dry microfibre cloth.

“Your furniture will actually get less dusty without using furniture polish,” says Reichert.

“[Start] with scrubbing areas such as kitchens and baths, then moving on to de-cluttering, dusting, bedding, and finally floors,” McGee advises.

“Look at your home carefully to determine what needs most attention to bring it to your idea of clean.”

Maybe you just found out your in-laws are coming over and you need to quickly tidy up the place – knowing how to speed clean will be your saviour.

Make sure you hit the places that are most visible first like kitchen countertops and the bathroom.

You can skimp on things like the top of the fridge and behind the coffee maker.

Reichert uses a stiff paintbrush around her furniture to pull the dirt out without having to move all the furniture around.

“You are brushing it out away from the furniture so the vacuum can suck it up,” she says.

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Source: RD.com