Cleaning for Spring

After a long, unusually cold winter, it’s finally time to turn off the furnace and pack away the heavy blankets. The few weeks of balmy spring weather before heat and humidity drive people to close the windows and turn on the air conditioning are a perfect time for spring cleaning.

“You should do more than routine vacuuming and dusting,” said Donna Robertson, an employee with House Beautiful.

As a professional house cleaner, she recommended people with seasonal allergies vacuum under furniture, wipe down baseboards and behind doors, dust the tops of shelves, clean the insides of their windows and carefully examine their bathrooms for signs of mildew or mold.

“Don’t put it off for a better weekend,” Robertson said. “You have to get the ball rolling, or else it snowballs.”

She recommended breaking the problem down one room at a time, then breaking the room down one section at a time. “Pick a room and go top to bottom, right to left. Don’t look back. Don’t look at the other rooms,” she said.

If the prospect of a good spring cleaning is too daunting, she recommended hiring a cleaning service or maid for a one-time visit to take care of the spring cleaning, after which, regular household maintenance is much easier.

Spring cleaning is also an excellent time to take burned out compact flourescent bulbs (they include mercury and shouldn’t be thrown in your regular trash) and burned out rechargeable batteries to your local Lowe’s, where they can be safely recycle them.

For people in search of a much more thorough list, Martha Stewart offers a three-page spring cleaning guide, which includes details like hand cleaning all pewter or silver, resealing grout and dry cleaning all window treatments and curtains.

Nicole Carpenter, marketing specialist with Whole Foods, agreed that there are good health benefits to spring cleaning--especially for people with allergies, asthma or chemical sensitivities.

She urged people to remember to open windows and doors while cleaning.  

“When the dust is in the air, the best thing to do is get as much of it out (of your home) as possible. We recommend green products, so you’re not breathing in anything bad when you’ve stirred up all that dust.”

Everywhere from Whole Foods to offers cleaning products marketed as green. However, for those who are truly environmentally conscious or chemically allergic, it is very easy to save money and get a house clean enough for a military inspection using vinegar, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and borax--all available at for less than $7.

There are economical, environmentally friendly, allergy free recipes to clean everything from toilet bowls to ovens to drains. There are even all natural toy cleaning recipes for parents who worry about babies putting everything they can find into their mouth.

The natural products take more time to mix and more elbow grease to use, but can be a real benefit who are already suffering from spring allergies, while they try to accomplish spring cleaning.