15 Home Cleaning Hacks That Make Cleaning Easy

Kitchen sponges host a plethora of germs. They are often one of the dirtiest things in home, and are known to be dirtier than a toilet seat! Washing it under tap, or putting it in dishwasher don't completely make them clean. 

Hack: To make your kitchen sponges clean and free from germs, microwave them to kill 99% of germs. 

How do you do that? Clean kitchen sponge with water, and then put it in a microwave. Heat it for 2 minutes on medium temperature setting, and let it cool. Make sure your sponge is completely wet before putting it in microwave to avoid burning.

Bonus Hack: Use a binder clip as shown in the figure to store kitchen sponges. Simply leaving them lay flat increases the risk of germ infestation.

Don't we all hate those water stains on our pricey faucets? Let's clean them now in the simplest way possible.

Hack: Use a wax paper to remove water stains, finger prints etc from your faucets. 

How do you do it? Clean your faucet with water or a wet cloth to remove grime off it. Take a wax paper and clean faucet as shown in the picture. Voila! There you go.  You have your faucet shining and twinkling like a new one.

Note that this hack works best with faucets that have a chrome finish.

If you cook food, you already know what cream of tartar is. Even if you don't know, just remember the name, and get it from your local grocery store. 

Hack:  Cream of tartar works great to remove the gunk and stickiness on toaster.

How do you do it? Take some cream of tartar and add little water to it to make a milky substance. Apply it on the external side of toaster, and clean the area gently with a kitchen sponge. Use a damp cloth to wipe clean the toaster. That's it; your toaster is clean and free from gunk.

Bonus hack: You can use a tooth brush to clean the inside area of your toaster.

Your kitchen sink is probably dirtier than your toilet seat(well in case of germs). It can be a host to a wide range of disease causing germs. Sink drain/trap is the dirtiest place in a sink. You have every reason in the world to keep your kitchen sink clean, particularly the drain.

Hack: Use lemon,vinegar, baking soda and tooth brush to keep your sink's garbage disposal clean. 

How do you do it? Sprinkle half cup of baking soda around sink drain. Pour some white vinegar on it, and allow it work with baking soda. This combination makes a buzzing noise. Use a tooth brush to clean off gunk. Boil some water in a kettle, and pour hot water on sink trap. Place two to three half cut lemons on sink trap, and let the tap water flow.

You got to be little careful in cleaning paintings, especially old ones. The regular process of cleaning a painting takes too much time, so we have this cool hack here for you.

Hack: Use bagel to clean dirt and grime off your old paintings.

How do you do it? Cut a bagel in half as shown in the figure. Clean the painting gently with bagel's squishy white part. Use a dry cloth to remove breadcrumbs. Your painting is now clean!

After long usage, a flatiron's soleplate tend to get rough. You can easily make your flatiron's soleplate shining and new again with this simple and trick.

Hack: Use nothing more than plain salt to make your iron soleplate smooth and shining.

How do you do it? Spread salt on ironing board as shown in the figure. Switch on iron, and set the temperature to highest available setting. DON'T put your iron in steam mode. Slowly iron on salt to remove dirt and roughness from soleplate.

Window tracks are usually hard to clean given the complexity of their structure. Thanks to this hack, it's not all that tough to clean them now!

Hack: Use a tooth brush, cotton swabs and some vinegar to clean dirt and dust from window tracks.

How do you do it? First, clean the visible dust and dirt stuck in tracks using a tooth brush. Use a cotton swab to reach the places where toothbrush can't go. Now clean the entire area with a paper towel that's dipped in white vinegar. 

Mattresses too are dirtier than what you normally think.  You can find a ton of things on mattresses ranging from dead skin cells to tiny bugs. And, those coffee and other stains are a big headache. 

Hack: Remove stains from mattress using mixture of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and liquid dish soap.

How do you do it? Add some baking soda and liquid dish soap to hydrogen peroxide, and have the mixture in a spray can. Spray the mixture and rub the stained area with a towel to remove stains. Once you are done with spot cleaning, use a vacuum cleaner to remove dirt and debris off the mattress.

Don't throw away an orphan sock. You can use that for many purposes including the one we will tell you now.

Hack: Clean your window blinds effortlessly, using orphan sock.

How do you do it? Wet the toe end of sock with some vinegar. Put sock onto your hand, and clean blinds as shown in the figure. You may have to frequently clean accumulated dirt on the sock, if you have to clean multiple blinds.

Different homes smell in different ways. If you don't like the way your house smells, this simple hack will help you.

Hack: Microwave vanilla extract to remove house odor, and fill home with pleasant smell.

How do you do it? Pour two caps of vanilla extract in a coffee cup, and microwave it for one hour at 300 degrees temperature. By the end of the procedure, your house starts smelling great.

Don't try this if you hate vanilla smell.

Cabinets are one of the most neglected things in houses from cleaning perspective. This hack will help you make your cabinets look new again. 

Hack: Clean cabinets and remove grime off them with baking soda paste.

How do you do it? Put some baking soda in vegetable oil and mix it until it becomes a soft paste. Apply paste on cabinet and gently rub with the help of a toothbrush. Clean the cabinet then with a paper towel.

Check how to clean lime deposits and iron stains inside a dishwasher using this simple hack.

Hack: Clean dishwasher perfectly using Kool-Aid lemonade.

How do you do it? Pour a packet of Kool-Aid lemonade (no other flavors will work) into detergent cup of dishwasher and run the machine empty.

When did you clean showerhead in your bathroom for the last time? Cleaning them is not a headache anymore. You can easily clean your showerhead with this simple hack.

Hack: Make your showerhead clean, shining and new again by using a plastic bag, and vinegar.

How do you do it? Take a plastic bag and fill it with distilled white vinegar. Add a couple of drops of lemon essential oil. Tie the bag to showerhead and let it remain fully submerged in the liquid for a good twelve to fourteen hours.  Remove the bag and clean the showerhead using a cloth, preferably an envirocloth.

Hairs keep clogging vacuum rollers, making the machine inefficient when comes to cleaning. We have a couple of hacks here to help you simplify cleaning of your vacuum cleaner.

Hack: Use a seam ripper (the tool you use to unpick stitches) to easily clean hair off vacuum cleaner's roller brush. 

How do you do it? It's simple, get a seam ripper and start pulling strands of hair out of roller.

Bonus Hack: Vacuum cleaner filters require cleaning. To clean them, simply put them in a dishwasher. 

Fan blades need to be cleaned periodically, without which huge deposits of dirt and debris accumulate on them, resulting in a squeaky and dirty looking fan. How do you do it easily? Read this.

Hack: Use old pillow cover to clean dust off from fan blades, without making the entire room messy.

How do you do it? Take an old pillow cover and clean the blades as shown in the figure.

All these hacks were shared by people who are experts at keeping their homes clean. They are kind of clean freaks, and absolutely hate to see even fingerprint marks on their stuff. We suggest caution, and want you to be extra careful while attempting to do these hacks. If you are unsure of results, give these hacks a trial run. For example, you can try 'baking soda paste hack' only on a tiny portion of your cabinet to check results and proceed only if you are impressed by the results.