What is your favorite housekeeping helpful hint?

Hire someone else to do it.

I have one of those steam cleaner things with a nozzle. I am kinda anal about bathroom/kitchen fixtures. It works well for melting gunk away. Also great if you have a mold problem. Wipe the funk away.

I will not suggest or link to the one I have. It works but it could be better. I bought the cheapest one on Amazon.

If you will take a brush to the toilet once a week it will stay clean. I have renters that are seemingly afraid of the toilet. After they leave I have to take a pumice stone to it. They bitch because of what I charge them. I tell them I am not their mother and if they had taken care of it themselves it would not be an issue but if you leave it for me, you pay, big time. Same goes with the refrigerator. If you spill something, clean it up immediately, don’t let it set. I think housecleaning should be a required course in high school and you must be proficient at it to graduate. What you do after that is your business; unless you rent from me.

Don’t try to do all the cleaning in one day. Break it up into smaller tasks.

Get a vacuum with a superior filter, like a Compact Electra that has 2, or a vacuum with a water filter like a Rainbow. But, on a water filter unit, clean that filter after each use!!!

How to keep grout clean in tile floors. First sweep or vacuum. Then use dry Swiffer to get up dust still remaining. Then mop with a well wrung out mop, and glide over the tile. The point is to not be moving fine dirt into the grout, which is why you need to clean up all the dust particles so you don’t create muddy water. It really works, your grout will stay whiter longer. Swiffer is one of the best inventions for floors in my opinion. The dry Swiffer.

Often I just spray some Tylex in the toilet to clean it. No scrubbing. I do scrub it at least every two weeks, but inbetween I just spray it. Remember to wear white or be naked.

Hardwater stains and rust stains in the toilet bowl can usually be removed with a pumice stone. Just a few dollars at Lowes or Home Depot. For hard water stains I also use Lemi Shine. I just use a little bit, a few drops of water to activate it. It smells good and works well. I HATE the smell of CLR.

Thanks everyone. Keep ‘em coming. It’s not hard to keep your house clean if you are willing to do it, clean on a day to day basis, and have a few helpful hints.

The only thing that works for me is to settle on an amount of time, and then work for that time every day. If I let things slide, they slide a long way.

I break housekeeping down into manageable chunks each taking only a couple of hours or so. Hoovering the carpet, washing the windows, cleaning the kitchen and the toilet. I hate housework and this makes a wearisome chore more acceptable.

One thing I cannot tolerate and there is no excuse for is a nasty tile tub surround. Dirty moldy grout makes me gag. I find myself explaining to people often that the secret is simply drying the walls after you shower. Once a week wipe them down with vinegar. This is a two-minute per day chore which gives you a spotless tub/shower…..well, you do have to clean the tub too, but people seem to be able to do that without MollyHelp.

^^if their shower is done poorly and the wall behind the tile doesn’t dry then it’s almost impossible to get rid of all the mold. If a shower is done correctly you don’t even need to dry the walls usually to keep it clean. A quick spritz of Tylex every few weeks if anything does develop if the person is “lazy” about doing something daily.

I’ve owned a lot of houses, and only one did I have a mild problem, and the guy from the builder’s warranty service implied to me that I wasn’t very good at cleaning. Luckily, I was already in my late 20’s, had owner another house, and had lived in a couple of apartments and knew I knew how to keep a shower clean. They ripped out the shower, and it had standard dry wall behind it rather than what should be there.