Cleaning

And one item only costs 79 cents!

If you've ever ruined a fancy blouse with an iron that sputters icky water, you're smart to be a little paranoid.

Kitchen counters are clutter magnets—plain and simple. As I look at my own countertops, I see seven-ish different piles in the works (kids’ art, unopened mail, recyclables on their way to the bin, etc.). It’s never-ending. And despite being a fairly organized, clean-surface kind of girl myself, and literally interviewing dozens of experts on the subject, there are only two times my countertops ever get clean. Oh, is it midnight the night before an article is due?

It's really meta, but cleaning your cleaning tools is an important part of keeping your homemaking life humming.

Let’s be real: Washing dishes rarely lands at the top of anyone’s favorite chores list. After a big meal (and some small ones!) it can be an especially tortuous task. Hoping to change your relationship with this necessary evil? Take a page out of Marie Kondo’s book and surround yourself with tools that spark joy. Ultimately, your picks should be personal to you.

Just like “little drops of water make a mighty ocean,” it’s those tiny habits you keep around your home that make sure it’s tidy and spotless every day. Cleanliness begets cleanliness, but disorder begets more of the unwelcome same; it’s much easier to stack papers on an already existing pile than on a spotless horizontal surface, for instance. So you could always stand to start a new tidy home habit or two. And why not use the new year to do it?

Even if you ignore the pull to reevaluate your past year and make lofty promises to yourself for the year to come, you probably can’t help but feel a bit of a fresh-slate feeling with the recent turn of the calendar page. You know what stays the same year after year, though? Your household chores. But they don’t have to. Now’s as good a time as any to inject some of that new year pep-in-your-step to the household tasks that could just as easily drag you down this time of year.

There are no gimmicks here—just genius hacks that'll keep your home sparkling all year long.

Let’s face it—doing the dishes is one of the worst chores there is. But it’s often the people who can’t stand doing the dishes who are the best at avoiding them—by getting them done most efficiently. That’s exactly why I reached out for advice from people who don’t have a dishwasher and just absolutely hate doing the dishes.

In my experience, there are two kinds of dishwasher users: people who have figured out the right way to load the dishwasher, and people who really don’t care. Also in my experience, those two camps of people tend to marry each other and spend the rest of their lives complaining about the other’s method of loading or critiquing the other’s loading technique (sorry, husband of mine).

The holidays are demanding, in more ways than one. Whether it’s because you have out-of-town guests coming to visit or a towering Christmas tree to look after, like it or not, you’re going to have to do a little more cleaning for the next week or so. Read ahead for seven things that you might need to change in your cleaning routine for the holidays, and how to make it happen. ‘Tis the season for spending time with loved ones, which means you might have guests dropping by.

When it comes to keeping my house clean and having people over, I try to do my best and then have an upbeat, que sera attitude about whatever’s left undone. We can never please everyone, and trying to leaves us drained and disappointed in ourselves. (Never a good thing.) Besides, I figure that if anyone I invite into my home is displeased by its condition, well, that person may not be a good relationship investment.

You deserve a break. The last two weeks of the year should be time of fireside reflection and pajamas, not cleaning. And here’s the thing about cleaning the house in December: Once you’ve gotten it ready for any parties or guests, you can let the big stuff slide (and even some of the routine stuff) and no one will be the wiser.

As anyone with kids—especially babies and toddlers—knows, all that feeding gear seems to come with tiny bits and pieces that need to be disassembled and individually sanitized. When you’ve got a newborn, buying a sterilizer might feel like it makes sense, but by the time your kids are older, you’ve moved it out of the way to make room for other gear.

For most of us, it’s standard practice to clean before guests come over. We want them to feel welcome and comfortable in our house and we honor their presence by creating a general air of order and cleanliness. And on the other hand, we certainly don’t want to be judged for our dusty baseboards and the inside-out socks that seem to always be peppered throughout the house. But there’s more.

Amazon is currently running a deal on one of the most advanced Dyson air purifiers on the market, the wifi-enabled Dyson Pure Hot + Cool Link. Typically $540 on the site (and originally $600), it’s almost $100 off at $449. If the recent cold snap has you shivering in your house or apartment, this is a perfect time to invest in something that can warm you up and make the air you breath cleaner. So what makes this air purifier worthy of a January splurge?

Tis the season for celebrating, which means you’ll be stuck with some post-party cleanup sometime over the holidays. But before we get too deep into the holiday party season (a.k.a. “oops” season), it’s important to remember that a certain seemingly recyclable material actually isn’t actually salvageable at all.

As we say goodbye to one year and hello to the next, it’s only natural to want to shake some things up in your life. And there’s nothing like a fresh, clean home to set you up to make 2019 your best year yet. And we want to help you do it! Sign up now for the January Cure—it’s Apartment Therapy’s free group project designed to give you a more organized, more peaceful, and more in-control home in just one month.

Recently, I was talking to Melissa Maker, author of Clean My Space. While I consider myself pretty neat and tidy, she’s made a career out of being a bit of a clean freak—she ran a cleaning company for 11 years, has her own line of cleaning products, and for-real washes her kitchen towels every day! And there’s one common cleaning tool she just loves to hate: paper towels. “Paper towels are the worst!” complains Maker.

For as much as we tidy up around our homes, how often are we really giving our place a good old-fashioned deep clean? We called on housecleaning expert Jennifer Gregory, Brand Manager of Molly Maid, a Neighborly company, for suggestions on what tasks you should absolutely cover to consider your clean a truly thorough one.

Believe it or not, squeeze bottle tops—you know, the inexpensive plastic ones you use on bottles of condiments—are actually quite versatile. Along with dispensing ketchup, mustard, or salad dressing, we’ve discovered an unexpected way to use them to better clean your home, too. These commonplace bottle tops can make deep cleaning your home a whole lot easier if you use them like a makeshift vacuum attachment.

Turns out that your favorite go-to canola oil spray for non-stick cooking, like Pam Cooking Spray, also has some pretty stellar uses outside of the kitchen, too. Don’t believe us? Read ahead for a handful of surprisingly savvy ways to use cooking spray in your bathroom—yes, your bathroom—no skillet or cookie pans necessary. Who knew cooking spray could tackle soap scum buildup in your bathtub, shower, and sink?

Besides, you know, cleaning your dishes, your dishwasher can do a few other fun things.

Here's our fail-proof, get-it-done method for getting your kitchen back in shape so you can relax.

You know how to clean a kitchen. So do I. But there are things we learned from our parents, shortcuts we developed ourselves, and just straight-up habits that may make our cleaning, well, less than optimal. Heck, half the time I research a story, I learn I’ve been doing something wrong my whole adult life!

Being an adult means tackling things we’d rather not do, and that is especially true when it comes to certain household chores. According to a new survey compiled by the American Cleaning Institute, over half of Americans rank this task their most hated out of all of them—do you agree? When it comes to cleaning tasks people dread cleaning the most, the top answer is (understandably) the bathroom, which scored 52 percent of the vote.

I hate to be the bearer of stressful-yet-delicious news, but the American holiday of Thanksgiving is just about 10 days away. Luckily, 10 days is plenty of time to ready both your appetite and your home. If you’re hosting Thanksgiving this year, this list is a lifeline for staying on top of things and avoiding that frantic day-before energy.

This is like an elevated version of the classic hang-a-bag-over-the-cabinet-handle move.

Look, we know when you get home after a long day of work the last thing you want to think about is cleaning, but like it or not, it’s a great time to get a little light housekeeping done. If you commit yourself to cleaning a small handful of things before you change out of your work clothes, you’ve got yourself some instant motivation and the opportunity to set yourself up for a calm (and clean) evening of chilling at home.

A good household cleaner can make housekeeping a breeze. But a good household cleaner that only costs five bucks or less? Well, that’s a game-changer for your home. To help make your housekeeping endeavors go more smoothly (and affordably), we rounded up the best commercial cleaning products under $5.

Window cleaner can be a game-changer for your housekeeping routine. Along with cleaning everything from your windows to your shower tile, this bright blue household staple is slightly less abrasive than most other multi-purpose sprays—making it great for use on more fragile surfaces. Unfortunately, however, there are some things you should never use window cleaner on, no matter how contradictory it may seem.

As much as we all love autumn, the transition from summer into the cooler, darker fall months can be a rocky one for many of us—from abrupt changes in routine and the sudden resurgence of cold and flu viruses to the gloomy feeling of darker, shorter days (FYI there’s light therapy for that). Struggling to take full advantage of those cozy, fall vibes? Start with how you take care of your home environment.

Sometimes, unknowingly, we get so stuck in the intended purpose of something that we never realize how useful it could potentially be. That’s why discovering a new cleaning hack is so universally tantalizing; it jolts us with a zap of “Why didn’t I think of that?” and snaps us out of that humdrum rut of using things merely for their intended purpose.

If you thought reusable cupcake liners were only good for baking, then think again. Turns out those colorful silicone cups, like these rainbow-hued cuties by AmazonBasics, are awesome for cleaning and organizing stuff around your home, too. Don’t believe us? Read on for a bunch of ways you can use (and reuse) silicone baking cups outside of the oven. Searching for a cute and inexpensive way to streamline your workstation?

Keeping your home organized on a limited budget is never easy. But what if we told you that we’d discovered a $4 buy on Amazon that can instantly create extra storage space in just about every room of your home? Believe it or not, suction holders for sponges, like this one from Amazon, can work wonders for over-cluttered and storage-deprived areas throughout your home, all it takes is a little imagination.

Raise your hand if you have a household chore that you just love to do. Even if you hate cleaning, you probably have your hand in the air. There’s always something. I love, love, love using the Shop-Vac. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch it cut a swathe through dust and dirt, swooshing everything up into its roaring nozzle. I can Shop-Vac all day long, and I always claim the job when we’re doing a big project. I even picked one out as a Valentine’s Day present once.

There is something in your kitchen that’s a super-cleaning agent, and you’re probably not using it often enough. And that’s silly — because it’s free (or almost free). That super cleaner is hot, hot water, and it costs about $0.0005 a gallon even in New York City, where everything is expensive! Few stains or debris stand a chance against super hot water, and it disinfects surfaces, too.

If you’re afraid of the luxury of having something nice like a leather sofa, we’re here to put your fears at rest. Leather is a performance material, and fortunately you don’t have to work hard to maintain it. “People make the mistake of assuming that because leather is more expensive, it requires more care—when it’s just the opposite,” says Whitney Tinsley, Moore & Giles‘ Director of Education. “Leather is meant to be lived in.

You can actually get your slow cooker to clean itself.

If you’ve ever fallen as a willing victim to the IKEA marketplace, you already know: When home basics are well-designed, aesthetic, and affordable, we can’t get enough. But there’s another spot like the marketplace to get your fix. It was right under our noses the entire time—right in the store’s name. Muji was founded in 1980 in Japan, but has since arrived stateside (including online) to offer up brandless quality goods.

We’ve referred to Dyson products as being the “Cadillac” of its category, but at this point, Dyson has become synonymous with industry leader, meaning we should really start calling Cadillacs the Dyson of cars. In which case, we’d have to say the Dyson of air purifiers is on sale today. But it’s a Dyson, so maybe we should just stick with the car metaphors for now.

It might sound like something straight out of “Downton Abbey”or “The Crown,” but you need a clothes valet. No, it’s not a butler you can tell your deepest secrets to as he fastens your cufflinks. But it is going to make getting dressed—and by extension, your mornings—a bit more luxurious and a lot more smooth. A clothes valet is a tall piece of furniture, usually about the size of a full-length mirror, that holds your clothes for the next day.

One extremely valuable feature of Amazon—one that takes some of the uncertainty out of buying many things sight-unseen—is the power of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of user reviews. When at item has pages upon pages of high-star ratings, it’s almost impossible not to check it out. Especially when it’s touted as a miracle cure-all for all your cleaning conundrums. Bar Keeper’s Friend is one of those.

If you moved in a rush, you probably just tossed everything in a box. But while you’re setting up the bathroom in a shiny new apartment, one look at your shower curtain liner sends you into a panic: You suddenly notice the bottom of the liner is brown or gray or cloudy. When was the last time you cleaned this curtain? If you have to ask, then it’s time to treat yourself and your new space to a fresh curtain liner.

Believe it or not, there’s a big mistake most people are making when they clean. Not cleaning your home from top to bottom—a.k.a. dusting first and leaving sweeping and mopping for last—can have some major consequences for your housekeeping routine. Don’t believe us? We called on cleaning expert Kadi Dulude, owner of Wizard of Homes NYC, to help us break down the benefits of cleaning your home from top to bottom. Read ahead to see what she had to say.

A few years ago, I learned a trick that changed my life. No, seriously, it was a complete game-changer in the care of my kitchen sink. This is a tip you’ll shrug off and then eventually grudgingly try. And then you’ll say, “Oh man, that was so easy and awesome! Why didn’t I do that sooner?” The key, my friends, to the most shiny and luxuriously polished stainless steel sink, is very cheap, very simple, and very weird: flour. Why would you want to polish your sink?

I’ve been cleaning my house according to this room-by-room cleaning schedule for years. When I keep up with it, my house looks perpetually clean. But (spoiler alert!) I don’t always manage to keep up with it. And I’ve begun to wonder if a particular shift in my routine could save me time and give me the impetus to finish my daily tasks. The room-by-room method works well enough.

Many of us are familiar with the trick of microwaving sponges to help disinfect them. Although that practice has been thrust into the spotlight and put under scrutiny lately. Turns out that microwaving sponges only kills the worst of the bacteria they harbor; the other microbes quickly recolonize the sponge and it’s as bad as it ever was, ewww. But there is a reason to microwave your rags, one that sidesteps the whole question of how to keep your kitchen cloths sanitary.

Forgive my hyperbole, but I firmly believe the very best thing you can do for your home is to clear the kitchen each night. It’s the heart of your home—and the place you’ll make your coffee in the morning—so you want to keep that heart healthy and happy. Sometime after dinners have been made (and a few bites of ice cream have been taken straight from the freezer), but before you turn in for the night, take a quick 20 or so minutes to clear your kitchen of its daily mess.

When it comes to air purifiers, it’s possible to go high end (and really big), or pretty inexpensive. We love the Dyson model that went on sale earlier this week, but when we did our guide to air purifiers early this year, we also found that one of the best budget options was both small, effecitve, and (relatively) attractive. It’s also currently 30 percent off on Amazon right now in the black color, making today a great time to buy one.

You can grab a vacuum for under $50, but when it comes to top-of-the-line versions, few can compete with Dyson. The company’s powerful stick vacuums have become one of the few brands that can be called “the Rolls Royce” of its kind. Accordingly, at full price, Dyson can cost as much as $700. Which is exactly why we get so excited when we see a Dyson as part of Amazon’s deal of the day section. The daily deals, which run from midnight to midnight P.T.

I grew up in a pristine home. I don’t mean to say that it was fancy — it wasn’t — but it was spotless from the fan blades down to the baseboards. This was no easy feat, considering our house was a century old and so had the unique ability to create dust after you had just wiped down that surface (whatever that surface happened to be).

You might not want to know.

My mother has a strict policy against specialty cleaning products in her house. I have no idea how she keeps the place so clean without the help of a Swiffer or Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, but she manages. She does, however, break her own rule for one specific cleaning product. She always keeps a little bottle of yellow stuff under the sink — and it’s since become a staple in my own apartment, too. What is it? An adorably named product called Goo Gone.

Not only can a good stain remover save your garments, carpet, and upholstery from unsightly spills and stains, they also work to keep your stuff looking fresh and new for longer. That’s why it’s important to always have a handful of solid stain removers on hand, so you can rescue your goods from blemishes before it’s too late. So to help make your life, or at least laundry day, go more smoothly, we rounded up the top-rated stain removers on the market.

One of the trade-offs of living in a big city is small living quarters in exchange for easy access to culture and nightlife. I live in an itty-bitty studio apartment on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Space is at a premium, and to make the best use of my square footage, I own quite a bit of Lucite (or acrylic) furniture and home accessories. The see-through material looks chic and doesn’t take up a lot of visual room.

Dish soap is great! It’s handy not only for dishes, but also for cleaning all sorts of other things. It cuts right through grease and makes things squeaky-clean. I truly believe that with a good sponge, dish soap, and lots of hot water, you can clean just about anything. But I’ve learned — through research and real life experience — that there are a few things you should never do with dish soap. Here they are. When it comes to cleansers, you should never, ever mix them.

The logic should make sense: smaller spaces are easier to clean, right? In reality, small spaces, and even tiny houses, come with their own set of cleaning challenges. If you convert a trailer into a tiny house, you can expect plenty of dirt, grass, and leaves to be tracked in—300 square feet likely doesn’t allow for a mudroom. Since every inch is utilized in a tiny house, that means each surface is prone to messes.

Let’s face it: Pretty much everything at IKEA feels like a steal thanks to their perennially super low prices. But that doesn’t mean we still aren’t stoked to discover that the mega-retailer offers a slew of cleaning and organizing items you can take home for just $1. That’s right. A buck. For less than a cup of coffee, you can score an assortment of awesome housekeeping tools that are every bit as stylish as they are inexpensive. Don’t believe us?

I’m not typically squeamish when it comes to bugs. Until they get inside my house where they don’t belong, that is. The creepiest are usually those teeny tiny ones—like springtails—that are so hard to see I start getting paranoid that they’re everywhere. Springtails are minuscule wingless bugs found all throughout North America that thrive in dark, damp places.

Keeping the kitchen clean is hard work. Every single day, multiple times a day, you spill food across the floors and countertops. You chuck crusty dishes into the sink. You splatter sauce or grease. And the effort of keeping it all spic and span— all that wiping, sweeping, and scrubbing! — can get totally tedious day in and day out.

Soap scum and water marks are ubiquitous in most showers and baths. So often we treat them as an inevitable nuisance that is hidden from most eyes and that we address when we deep clean the bathroom, have guests coming, or just can’t take it anymore. And then we look for quick fixes and hacks like the baggie method to tackle the clinging grime (nothing wrong with that!).

Let’s face it: Of all the arduous tasks on our housekeeping to-do lists, cleaning the toilet is arguably the worst. And while certain hacks, like removing the toilet seat, can make the process of deep cleaning your toilet go a lot more smoothly, we discovered a $20 solution that will make it even easier. An easily-removable toilet seat, like this one from Home Depot, will make cleaning your bathroom a breeze.

I’ve written a lot about dusting, but like a doctor who stops for Krispy Kreme on the way to work, I have some blind spots when it comes to this one part of homekeeping. Namely, I’m not the best at staying on top of dusting the hard-to-reach spots in my home. Not that it doesn’t bother me that the tops of my built-ins and kitchen cabinets are coated with a thin coating of dust (ok, more than a thin coating).

The magic of IKEA pieces is not only in their well-thought-out, small-space-maximizing design, but in the numerous ways each versatile piece can be repurposed and hacked. Here are four ways to transform one of our very favorite IKEA staples, the VARIERA bag dispenser, into more than meets the eye.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s Chore-Free Summer. Every weekday until July 20, we’re arming you with time-saving shortcuts and hacks that’ll help you work smarter, not harder, when it comes to homekeeping this summer. Because cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. This post is the last day of our chore-free summer series, to get the rest of the posts go here.

I recently learned something that totally blew my mind: you uh… actually don’t need soap to wash your dishes. Or at least, that’s what one cleaning brand called Goodbye Detergent claims, thanks to their Original Spaghetti Scrub. Spaghetti Scrubs are an environmentally friendly sponge alternative.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s Chore-Free Summer. Every weekday until July 20, we’re arming you with time-saving shortcuts and hacks that’ll help you work smarter, not harder, when it comes to homekeeping this summer. Because cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. Not all kitchen messes are created equal. But whether you’re a dedicated home cook or somebody who has local takeout joints’ phone numbers saved as favorites, you still have to clean up after yourself.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s Chore-Free Summer. Every weekday until July 20, we’re arming you with time-saving shortcuts and hacks that’ll help you work smarter, not harder, when it comes to homekeeping this summer. Because cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. Cleaning the bathroom is an oft-reviled chore, and for very good reason. You’re forced to get intimate with your filth—and the filth of the people you live with.

Before you spend another minute wiping, dusting, or disinfecting something you don't have to, look for these things that can get clean in the dishwasher.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s Chore-Free Summer. Every weekday until July 20, we’re arming you with time-saving shortcuts and hacks that’ll help you work smarter, not harder, when it comes to homekeeping this summer. Because cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. Our goal with this whole chore-free summer series is to give you back your time and let you enjoy a more carefree season.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s Chore-Free Summer. Every weekday until July 20, we’re arming you with time-saving shortcuts and hacks that’ll help you work smarter, not harder, when it comes to homekeeping this summer. Because cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore. There are few summertime tools as versatile as the garden hose. It’s a pool-filling, sprinkler-fueling, heat-quelling, thirst-quenching blessing of a thing.