Spring Cleaning the Easy Way

This time of year, if you’re like me, as soon as you see and feel the first warm rays of sunshine, the urge to clean the house, top to bottom, hits. You want to make everything fresh and clean again. You want to open all the windows and let the stale winter air out, exchanging it for clean, fresh air. In my opinion, nothing says spring like a clean house and open windows.

Following are tips for using three staple products most of us always have on hand – baking soda, lemons or lemon juice, and plain white vinegar – to clean a variety of things, as well as a few simple recipes for homemade cleaners that have a permanent place in my cleaning cabinet.

Baking Soda

While some people use baking soda just for baking, it does so much more. For starters, it has odor-absorbing properties, which makes it a great deodorizer for the refrigerator, carpets, laundry, and more. It’s also mildly abrasive, so it does a fantastic job of cleaning and removing tough stains from floors, countertops, sinks, etc.

STAIN REMOVER & ODOR ELIMINATOR

• Eliminate stains from coffee and tea mugs by filling mugs with 1 part baking soda and 2 parts water, letting it sit overnight, and scrubbing and rinsing in the morning.

• To keep garbage disposals fresh and free