We’ve gone through endless online cleaning tips to find ones we’re certain you can easily incorporate into your routine to get your home extra clean. Our only requirements were that the cleaning tip was quick to do, didn’t require any special equipment, and made an impact on how clean our house feels. Only the best-of-the-best and most useful tricks have made it into our field-tested tips.
Remove mold and stains from your toilet water tank
Citric acid occurs naturally in fruits like lemons and limes. It’s often used as an active ingredient in kitchen and bathroom cleaning solutions. You can find it wherever home canning supplies are sold.
To clean your water tank, make sure the water is turned off and flush the toilet to drain as much water as possible. Pour a bucket of warm water into the tank and add about ¼ cup of citric acid. Let it sit for an hour, then turn on the water and flush.
Freshen your garbage disposal
“Something I learned is to make sure to clean the rubber cover over your disposal. The bottom part gets dirty with food,” says Alexandra. Run baking soda, vinegar, and hot water through the disposal to neutralize the odor and clean out the remaining food.
Keep your mattress clean
Dan found keeping his mattress fresh and moisture-free was easy using common household baking soda. “Shake baking soda on your mattress and let it sit for a while. Then, just vacuum it up!”
Baking soda works wonders as a cleaner and deodorizer. It’s gentle, non-toxic, and an alternative to expensive store-bought solutions. Sprinkle a little on your cutting board, scrub, and rinse to freshen it. Add ½ cup of it to your load of laundry to boost colors and help remove stains. There are endless ideas for ways to clean with it.
De-stink your frontload washing machine
Ever notice the little hatch on the bottom of your machine? It’s how you access the machine’s filter. Pry open the hatch, drain the water from the tube, then pull the filter out to clean it. If you haven’t done it before you’ll probably find all sorts of gunk that’s causing your laundry (and frontload machine) to smell musty.
Stephanie learned to keep her machine fresh by wiping the door, soap drawer, and rubber gaskets with a little water and vinegar. She recommends this video for a quick tutorial on how to get your frontload machine stink-free.
Dust fan blades
Spray the inside of an old pillowcase with a cleaner, then place the whole blade into the case. Now, wipe the top of the blade with the case and the excess dust will fall into the case, not onto you or your floors. “I always do this when I’m cleaning my bedroom fan now. It hangs over my bed, so this trick keep my fan and my bed clean!” says Jessie.
Don’t forget about baseboards
A lot of dirt and pet hair builds up on and alongside your baseboards. Dedrean found that going over his with the vacuum every time he cleaned his floors helped keep his home clean. Another easy trick is to run a dryer sheet along your baseboards to repel dust for a few months.
Clean the outside of your fridge
We all know to clean our shelving and drawers, but Pete says cleaning the outside of your fridge is just as important. “The old ones get especially dusty, so pull it out and vacuum the coils on back as well as the area under the fridge.” Newer models have coils under the fridge. Pete recommends cleaning them once in a blue moon, but experts recommend doing it every six months.
The benefit to getting rid of all that dust and pet hair? It helps the coils push out heat and keep your foods colder.
Still want more tips?
For those of us who can’t get enough tips, Amber recommends almost everything on Go Clean Co’s Instagram page where they go over ways to clean almost everything using basic household cleaning products like powdered Tide, Windex, Dawn dish soap, white vinegar, and scrub brushes.