5 min read
Spring cleaning, in the order worth doing
Clean top down: light fittings and fan blades, then the tops of cupboards and door frames, then flat surfaces, then floors last. Any other order and you clean a floor and immediately drop dust onto it, which is most of the reason spring cleaning feels like it never finishes. Finish one room completely rather than starting five, and do windows once it is reliably above fifty degrees so the glass is not cold enough to streak.
Spring cleaning fails for a reason that has nothing to do with effort. It gets done in the order of what is annoying rather than the order that works, and then it takes twice as long and looks half as good.
Top down, without exception
Gravity is the whole rule. Every surface you clean drops what was on it onto the surface below.
- Light fittings, ceiling fan blades, the tops of door frames
- The tops of cupboards and the high edges of furniture
- Flat surfaces at eye level and below
- Skirting and baseboards
- Floors, last, in every room
People who clean for a living do not do this because they were taught it. They do it because doing it the other way means doing the floor twice, and nobody does the floor twice for free.
One room finished beats five started
A finished room is worth something: you can shut the door on it and it stays done. Five rooms halfway is a house that feels worse than when you started and a job you are less likely to come back to. If you have three hours, do a bathroom and a kitchen properly rather than a lap of the whole house.
The two jobs that are worth the effort
Windows, once it is reliably above fifty degrees. Cold glass makes cleaner evaporate unevenly and every pane streaks, which is why the same person can do a perfect job in April and a terrible one in March.
And bedding, which is the one most people skip because it does not look dirty. The EPA's asthma guidance names dust mites as an asthma trigger, and its advice is specific: wash bedding in hot water once a week and dry it completely, and use protective covers on pillows and mattresses. Dust mites live where people sleep, not on the surfaces that look dirty.
What can wait
Almost everything else. Nobody has ever walked into a house and noticed a clean baseboard, and everybody notices a bathroom. If the time runs out, it should run out on the parts nobody sees.
Spring cleaning in Valparaiso mostly happens in April, which is also when everybody who wants somebody else to do it asks at once. If it is going to be a job you hand over this year, ask early or plan for May.
Sources
- Asthma Triggers: Gain Control, US Environmental Protection Agency
