If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent a sizeable portion of your adult life floundering.
I’m 24, going on 25. I’ve lived “away from home” since my sophomore year of college. That means I’ve gone through 5, maybe 6 years of figuring out how to take care of my space and myself.
Many people are never taught to keep a house, or were taught to keep a house by people who were never actually taught to keep a house, but picked things up along the way. Some people’s parents took care of all of it, so they never even had to think about it until they moved out.
Some people were fully, or almost fully, taught to keep a house, but failed to retain the minutiae of doing so.
That last one is me.
I have spent the last few years really trying to master art of housekeeping, and let me tell you, the confidence that has given me has been very empowering. It’s become almost like a hobby, believe it or not.
However, I am absolutely not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. There is a good chance that, as you read this, my apartment is an absolute mess. My goal in writing this column is not to be a teacher, but a student sharing my notes, so to speak. And I hope you’ll share your notes with me, too.
Please, please, please, send any cooking, cleaning or gardening tips my way. Not only will I try them out, I will publish your tip along with the results. Send tips to tpennello@timesleader.com, with “Tips from Toni” in the subject line.
My goal is to create a shame-free space for us to learn housekeeping best practices together. Shame can be a barrier to learning and asking questions, but many people don’t have a parent or grandparent to call and ask. So you can also send along your “dumb” questions, anonymously or otherwise, and rest assured that I am in no position to judge you.
Clean that tub
Think about it. What are you cleaning off of the walls of your shower? Well, there’s soap scum, of course. There’s dirt from your body, yes. But there is also grease from your body all over the floors and walls. Fun!
Now, think about this. What is one of the best things in the world for cutting through grease? Dish soap. If it can handle your congealed vegetable oil it can certainly handle some body grease, right?
I modified this tip from Vanesa Amaro, @vaneamaro91 on TikTok. If you’re trying to learn how to clean, I highly recommend you watch her videos.
A great tip for cleaning a shower and tub without using bleach or other harsh chemicals is as follows: one part dish soap, one part white vinegar.
Vanesa put hers in a dish-washing contraption (the kind that holds the detergent inside and has a scrubber attached) for convenience, but I recommend the mixture in a spray bottle. The reason is that, if you use dish soap with a color (say, blue), the concoction clings to the walls of the shower so you can see exactly where you’ve sprayed it. So nifty.
I leave it on for about 10 minutes and then come back with a scrubby sponge and go to town. I could not believe how well it worked.
Do you have a better homemade bathroom cleaner? Do you hate my ideas? I’d love to hear about it. Send it over to tpennello@timesleader.com.
A DIY all-purpose cleaner
Here’s another DIY cleaner. This one is multi-purpose. I use it on my kitchen and coffee tables as well as all of the surfaces in my kitchen.
You may have heard of cleaning with a mixture of water and vinegar, and that has given me good results in the past. However, the best DIY cleaner I’ve used also contained vodka.
Yes, the drinking kind.
Now don’t go out and buy Grey Goose. I bought a handle of Vlad for this (added bonus: some nostalgia from your college days).
The best combination I’ve used so far came from tasteofhome.com. The recipe follows:
• 1 and 1/4 cups water
• 1/4 cup cleaning vinegar
• 1/4 cup vodka
The recipe also calls for 15 drops of lemon essential oil, but I skip that for the sake of my cat. Make sure to always check whether an essential oil is safe for your pet before using it in your home, especially when it comes to cats who will end up ingesting anything their bodies touch when they clean themselves. Better safe than sorry.
The good news is that there is no need to use the essential oils to mask to scent of the vinegar and vodka; that dissipates pretty quickly.
Mix all ingredients together in a spray bottle. If you are reusing a bottle that used to have another cleaner in it, make sure you clean it thoroughly. I don’t recommend using a bottle that used to hold bleach. Bleach and vinegar are a deadly combination, creating toxic chlorine gas. Again, better safe than sorry.
This cleaner even picked up week-old sauce from Chinese takeout stuck to the table. That makes it a 10 out of 10 in my book.
Did you know you’re supposed to clean that?
When I first decided to write this column, I thought that the concept might be completely obsolete. Can’t people just google the answers to their home-making questions?
The answer is yes, of course they can. But there are some things that one would not know to Google in the first place. You can Google how to clean something, but it’s more difficult to track down answers for what you have to clean. Here is a non-exhaustive list of things you may not have thought of.
• Your coffee maker. It can get really gnarly in there. I usually run the brew cycle filled up almost to the top with water and a splash or so of white vinegar. Next, run the cycle with plain water, and repeat until what comes out no longer smells like vinegar. Squeaky clean! Your coffee will taste better too.
• Your baseboards. I try to clean mine about once a month. You might not even notice how dirty they get until they get really dirty, and by then it will have become quite a chore. I run over them with a duster to remove any excess dust, and then spray a cloth or paper towel with some all-purpose cleaner before wiping them down. Be sure not to spray directly on the baseboards to protect the paint and wood. Make sure you get behind furniture at least every once in a while as well (although I admit I’m not the best at remembering to do that).
• Your ceiling fans. Those things get dusty. You can’t really see it either, so you may just be raining dust upon yourself every time you turn it on without knowing. Dust allergy or not, that’s not a vibe. I have an extender on my Swiffer duster so I can reach up there, but a step-ladder will also do the trick if you have not been blessed with height. A Swiffer duster is my favorite because it really holds on to the dust rather than just sweeping it into the air. I do this once a week or biweekly.
• Your doors. This can be a seasonal chore, I think. Think about how often you put your grubby little hands all over the doors in your house. Mine are painted white, and I still didn’t notice how dirty they were until I got a really close look at them. If yours are wood you might not see any grime at all. I spray a cloth or paper towel with all purpose cleaner to tackle those.
I absolutely forgot a lot of things, so please, don’t let me live it down. Send your tips to tpennello@timesleader.com.
