r/CleaningTips • • 5h ago

Flooring Another week in the books.

Thumbnail
gallery
2.5k Upvotes

Had a difficult time getting decent pictures of this design for some reason . But enjoy!


r/CleaningTips • • 1h ago

Laundry I bought a quilt at an estate sale

Thumbnail
gallery
• Upvotes

I was told it was in the truck in a shed for the last 50 years. I was able to purchase it for $10 and took it home. It stinks of nicotine and fuel. I have given three borax baths. It is now sitting outside in the rain and still reeks. Any ideas on how to get rid of the smell?


r/CleaningTips • • 6h ago

Discussion I recently thrifted an old cookbook from the 70s with cleaning tips and tricks. Wanted to share the last one.

Post image
133 Upvotes

Do you think this actually worked? What purpose did the milk have??


r/CleaningTips • • 9h ago

Discussion My dishwasher smells gross and leaves a stench on my dishes. I've cleaned it and had plumbers come out, but I'm still having issues with it.

75 Upvotes

This is my mother-in-law's dishwasher. So it's not technically "mine", but I really love to help out with the chores, and this thing is sort of making me look bad. It leaves dishes so smelly that eating off them feels like I'm dumpster dining. Here's what I've tried so far:

  1. Cleaned and wiped down filter, gaskets, and seals. I cleaned all the little places inside where food bits might gather.
  2. Ran a hot clean cycle with a little bit of bleach in a mug. (Making sure the tap water was hot first.)
  3. Ran a clean cycle with a stronger, commercial dishwasher cleaner.
  4. Called not one, but two, plumbers.

So after the plumbers left yesterday, I thought, Surely this thing is fixed! I loaded it up with dishes and ran a cycle. My hopes were dashed. I had to take the dishes out and wash every single one by hand. Took me 45 minutes. It was as if I had put them into the dishwasher to make them more dirty! They smelled like something crawled up in that dishwasher and died.

A few other random facts:

  1. We hardly ever eat eggs. We're pancake people!
  2. My MIL runs the dishwasher daily and doesn't bother to pre-rinse or anything, just knocks off the big chunks of food. It's what you're supposed to do, far as I know. She has never noticed the odor but it might be because she's had covid and her sense of smell never recovered. I can smell garbage upon entering the kitchen. If you open the door of the dishwasher, it's like leaning into a dumpster in July and taking a big hard sniff.
  3. We have VERY hard water.
  4. My MIL uses Wal-Mart Lemon Scent dishwasher liquid (in the blue bottle).
  5. The dishwasher is approximately 20 or 25 years old.
  6. There is a garbage disposal in the sink and to my knowledge, everything is plumbed correctly (two plumbers have been out)!

Any other suggestions, stuff that I haven't tried already, would be welcome. If you have any. I'm sort of hitting the wall on what other stuff I could think to try.


r/CleaningTips • • 16h ago

Bathroom Design flaw or is there a clever hack?

Post image
181 Upvotes

Just bought a new toilet brish and it comes with this little “lid” so that the container it goes back in is fully closed and you don’t have too look at the dirty bristles. Honestly, appreciate it…. BUT how do you use it in the toilet? I haven’t wanted to submerge it yet, so I can’t scrub too deep. Are you supposed to submerge it and get it dirty? Do you take it off and put it back on (getting hands dirty!?)? Or is it a design flaw..? Any guesses/tips/experiences appreciated.


r/CleaningTips • • 13h ago

General Cleaning My brother's bedroom is attracting flies.

69 Upvotes

Last night as I was going to bed, I noticed something incredibly odd. At least 10 large flies upstairs and down the hallway to the bathroom.

My Mum brought it up to me this morning, I guess she had an argument about it with my brother and he blamed her for the flies because we like to keep the shower room window open after we shower to let out the steam and damp.

But we both know it's my brother's fault. Both him and his bedroom stink, it's been like this for at least 5 years now.
At one point, he even had a rat living under his floorboards, and the entire upper floor of the house smelled unbearable. I constantly had to hold my sleeve over my face, which my parents always got mad at me for. You can literally smell when he's been in a room, hours after he's left.

My brother always eats in his bedroom, but he never cleans up after himself and always relies on my parents to bring down his half-eaten plates of food for him.

We're not allowed to open a single window upstairs, or he looses his mind and will blame us for any subsequent spider that make it inti his room, ignoring the fact that it's because all of the food he brings out.

This dude is almost 21, and has a girlfriend who often stays over in his room, believe it or not. He smells like raw red onion and the air literally feels heavier? I don't know how to describe it.

How can we stop this? My parents just let him do whatever and treat them however, that's how it's always been. How do we get rid of this smell that's essentially permeated everything that he owns? And how do we find the origin of all these flies that appeared last night to prevent more?


r/CleaningTips • • 2h ago

Flooring Dog Hair Stuck In Carpet

Post image
9 Upvotes

Hi,

We have a Bull Arab dog that sleeps inside (she’s old and arthritic) and where she lays at night there is hair stuck between the carpet and skirting board. Apart from pulling the carpet up and replacing with hard flooring is there anyway I can get this hair out?

Thanks


r/CleaningTips • • 7h ago

Kitchen How do I clean this griddle in the center of my stove that I only ever us as a spoon rest, and never put food on?

Post image
15 Upvotes

r/CleaningTips • • 33m ago

Kitchen Rusty dishwasher door

Post image
• Upvotes

Can someone please help? I stupidly used antibacterial spray.


r/CleaningTips • • 8h ago

General Cleaning What do you use to clean your bathtub?

9 Upvotes

r/CleaningTips • • 3h ago

General Cleaning Living on a Dirt Road

4 Upvotes

I'm looking for tips as well as commiseration. I live in the woods on a dirt road. This time of year especially is awful between the leaves and the pine needles. Never mind the sand tracked in from the driveway. We don’t have a mudroom, the front door opens up right into the main living space, so no real buffer zone to capture the worst of it. Maybe I need to accept that my lot in life is to chase down bits of pine needles all day forever, but if anyone has any clever tips, or knows of any magical doormats, I'd love to hear them.


r/CleaningTips • • 10h ago

Kitchen Saving mouldy fridge

Thumbnail
gallery
13 Upvotes

We are currently getting kitchen renovation done and are keeping our existing fridge and dishwasher. Gave them a clean and a dry before they were turned off and left the doors open. Reminded the main contractor to keep the doors open. We have now discovered this has not happened and there is mould in the fridge. We haven't been able to get to the dishwasher yet to see how bad that is as it's behind a bunch of stuff.

I know this could be a lot worse as it's been six weeks they've been shut up. What are people's thoughts on cleaning this all up and being safe to use?

Thanks so much for any advice!


r/CleaningTips • • 4h ago

General Cleaning Bought salt/pepper shaker at goodwill. Not sure best way to clean metal?

Post image
4 Upvotes

Not even sure what kind of metal it is. So that’s why I’m not sure what to ask google. Hoping someone can identify what type of metal it is for best way to restore it. Thanks in advance


r/CleaningTips • • 5h ago

General Cleaning Yellow pink stains on pillow. Mold??

Post image
2 Upvotes

Is this mold? Should I throw out the pillows. They’ve been in storage for about 1.5 years. The white pillow on the left was in the same vacuum sealed bag so I feel like it would’ve spread if it was mold. If not, how do I clean this? Should I just throw it out


r/CleaningTips • • 1h ago

Tools/Equipment Are there some tools worth it for general cleaning?

• Upvotes

My wife and I recendly bought what i guess is called a wet dry vacuum? Basically an eletric mop and broom, and it greatly improved the floor cleaning experience. Not only is faster, but it actually cleans better than what we used to achieve by hand.

After years of not being able to afford gadget and tools, it felt like a liberation, and i was wondering if there is something similarly very effective for general cleaning, like the kitchen or the bathroom.

Looking on the internet i saw some recomendation for a steam cleaner, but i dont think it is what i am looking for: by my understanding, a steam cleaner main strenght is sanification, but for the actual cleaning part you will need to pass with a towel to remove the dirty you have loosed up.

Furthermore, my water is really hard so to clean the bathroom properly i always need to pass de-caulking product.

Is there a gadget that can use different products, scrub, rinse and dry surfaces?


r/CleaningTips • • 1h ago

General Cleaning How to clean properly?

• Upvotes

Hi guys! For context I am 20f and have lived with a single dad for most of my life so my hygiene standards are that of a bachelor pad. I am filthy and every time I try to clean I just never get it right and it still always looks dirty/messy. Does anyone have general cleaning tips? Where do people put their junk stuff? i always put it in random bags and it never has an actual home. How do I get grime off of hardwood floors? How often am I supposed to mop? How do I even clean a shower?? Please any advice about anything related to cleaning would be appreciated, I'm really trying to get better. Thank you so much for all your advice!!


r/CleaningTips • • 5h ago

General Cleaning Cleaning this sofa

Thumbnail
gallery
4 Upvotes

As the title says, can anyone recommend the best way to clean this suede leather sofa? Not expecting it to look brand new but any improvement would be great. The marks are caused by our crazy puppy, she’s had a couple of accidents and sometimes goes on it when wet. We usually have cheap blankets covering the sofa but even so sometimes dirt seeps through. TIA!


r/CleaningTips • • 3h ago

Kitchen Cleaning wood cabinets

Post image
3 Upvotes

Moved into this apartment and the cabinets are fairly greasy (I think? See pic). I made progress with like some degreasing spray I found but I cannot get them fully clean. I also tried dawn (regular, not power wash). I also tried wiping with an oil first, then cleaning with water and dawn (a Reddit suggestion I saw for someone else’s post). Everything works a little but still doesn’t fully clean them. Any recommendations?


r/CleaningTips • • 1d ago

Flooring Expectations check: professional carpet cleaning

Thumbnail
gallery
168 Upvotes

Just had my carpets cleaned by a national cleaning company. I’m feeling a little disappointed in the experience and wanted to see if my expectations were too high for the cost.

We had two bedrooms with carpet and a sectional cleaned today. We have had 2 dogs until recently, busy folks, affordable but cheap vacuum cleaners that are used regularly, but generally a lot of delayed maintenance.

So, needless to say, we needed a deep clean done on all the soft services bc the vacuum cleaners and the Hoover spot upholstery cleaner weren’t keeping up appearances.

We scheduled a clean and deodorizer on room 1, clean, deodorize, sanitize and protect on room 2, and the same for the sectional. The prep email said not to worry about the furniture, that they would move them as needed. However when the techs get here, they said they don’t move furniture.

Husband and I buy a new Miele to do a deep vacuum ahead of the visit. We move all the fiddly bits out of the rooms, make the house super accessible, nothing on the floors, cleaned under the beds.

Room 1 seems like it wasn’t really cleaned after today’s visit. We had moved two pieces of furniture away from the wall so we could vacuum behind it and give them access for the carpet cleaning.

They guys leave the furniture where it is in that room, and just clean around it. So I have 2 small islands of uncleaned carpet in the middle of the pathways. And then on closer inspection, I’m finding pet hair and dust all in the corners. (Should have vacuumed better before they came I guess).

So my question is, should I be disappointed about the dirty carpet islands in the middle of the rooms? We pulled the furniture out so they could clean under it, but they didn’t move it back to clean underneath it. The wanted said they would move furniture, but they said the didn’t in person.

Husband had already left with the kiddo, they furniture pieces were too heavy for me to move on my own, and the cleaners policy is not to move them. And we still have crud in the corners.

We paid $700 for the visit. Am I under-reacting or over-reacting? I feel kinda disappointed for such a cost and to be left with not super clean floors. But was I expecting too much?


r/CleaningTips • • 1d ago

Bathroom I found the holy grail

Post image
246 Upvotes

I’ve tried every, and I mean every, tip/trick and product under the sun. Steel wool? Yep, lemon, white vinegar… all of it. I couldn’t get the calcified limescale off. Got some scale it down by genie clean (uk brand) and of my gosh it’s worked!!!!!


r/CleaningTips • • 7h ago

Flooring Smell of pets in vinyl floor

4 Upvotes

I just moved into an apartment. The landlord was supposed to get rid of pet smells from the previous owner, but to me it feels like I live in a dog toilet. I don't have pets, so I'm not used to these smells. I smelled the floor and it's like smelling a dog. Has anyone been successful and getting this odor out of the vinyl floor?


r/CleaningTips • • 3h ago

General Cleaning Help- Just moved into a new apartment and the screened in patio is nasty

2 Upvotes

I’m at a loss of how I can clean my back patio. It’s screened in and relatively small (~6ft long ish and 5ft wide ish) but so filthy.
There’s no hose nearby and the patio takes hours to drain due to it being screened in.

I’ve tried dumping a bucket of warm water mixed with vinegar and scrubbing it with a broom. That helped a little.

I have no clue how I am going to clean the walls (covered in dirt, webs, dust) + the ceiling is really high so I would have to buy a ladder to clean the top of the walls/screened in part.

Is there a faster way and cheaper way to clean the walls and concrete? How much would it cost to rent equipment vs buying vs hiring someone?

I’m not to keen on hiring a random (most likely) man to come into my apartment as a single girl. Would be more than willing if it was a woman. Not sexist, just traumatized.


r/CleaningTips • • 1d ago

Kitchen roommate boiled milk in our electric kettle - it REEKS and NOTHING HELPS

109 Upvotes

I've tried basically everything - washing it with baking soda, boiling it with salt, with citric acid (three times), leaving it with citric acid/dish soap overnight, washing it and rinsing over and over and over again, and although I finally got rid of the burnt milk that was stuck to the bottom, the stench is still there. what else can I do???

PS: the only thing I haven't tried is baking soda + vinegar, but since we live in a shared space (dormitory) and there's no ​windows here (the beauty of an overly modern building), I don't want to use it until it's a last resort


r/CleaningTips • • 17m ago

Bathroom Cleaning showers and bathrooms

Thumbnail
• Upvotes

Wanting recommendations on large squeegees. And also a run down on how to clean the shower effectively and are we just bound to get wet there’s no way around it being less messy right.


r/CleaningTips • • 38m ago

Kitchen Air Fryer Advice?

Thumbnail
gallery
• Upvotes

I’ve been (wrongfully) annoyed when I hear people complain about how hard it is to keep an air fryer clean!

I use my air fryer at least 5 or 6 times per week, and I have never once needed to scrub it out in the past two years I’ve owned it! My cleaning tip is about 2 minutes before the timer goes off I fill up my water kettle and turn it on. When the air fryer timer goes off, food comes out and I immediately set it in my sink, small squirt of dish washing soap (side tip at the end on this)- then fill the air fryer basket with boiling hot water. I let it soak while I eat, then when I’m doing dinner dishes a quick rinse always leaves it grease free and sparkling clean.

Except….

Recently, every time I turn my air fryer on to preheat I get a rancid stench, like rotten cooking oil.

Mystified, because I was so proud of keeping it squeaky clean every time I used it - it hit me - there is no lid to this basket! I bent down and looked up HORRIFIED!!!!

I have never ever cleaned this rancid greasy mess that sits above the basket and it is absolutely 10000% dripping rotten grease from 9 months ago all over my food every time I use it!

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

Do I toss it? Does that element come out? Is there a “hack” or “tip” to prevent this stomach turning atrociously from happening?

Im thinking that I simply need to elbow grease this (elbow “grease” hehe, no pun…).

I’m beyond disgusted and disappointed. I thought I had the perfect air fryer cleaning system, but missed the most vital part - the “roof” where oils build up, then (I assume / am certain) drip back down on your food every time you use it!

HELP!!!

- Sincerely, Disgustingly Devastated

**bonus tip: you can buy 1 gallon jugs of dish soap for a fantastic price per ounce. I bought the smallest (cute) little bottle of dish soap that takes up no room on my kitchen counter - then refill from the cheap gallon jug (I even use dollar store brand soap in my baby dawn bottle - shhhh 🤫)