The Lost Art of Spring Cleaning

It's finally spring. The birds are chirping, and the sun is shining light on all the dust and grime from the winter. Author Jan Dougherty joins Easy Does Host Ereka Vetrini to school us on the lost art of housecleaning.

Related: 7 spring cleaning mistakes to avoid

According to Dougherty, we don't all just dread spring cleaning, we dread cleaning in general. She adds that she believes it's because "most people have never really been taught how to clean."

Related: Moms' best spring cleaning advice

Dougherty suggests using a caddy that contains critical tools that you need to do your job. "This way you can take them with you through the house as you clean." She says that the most important item is the detail brush, which is great for getting into all the nooks and crannies.

"The next most important thing is if you have kind of any hard water stains, you can use the pumice stone," she adds. She says that this is great to use in the toilet. And she also suggests keeping a scrubbie in the caddy. "It's abrasive but it won't harm anything."

Once you have your cleaning tools set and a plan to get your home clean, you can then work on keeping your home clean. Dougherty recommends using Bounty DuraTowels. "You can use [a Bounty DuraTowel] several times and you can rinse it and it will stand up to the abuse."

For a game plan to cleaning your home, Dougherty has created a concept called "The Path." She says, "The first thing you want to do is empty the room. You work back to front and you want to clean a slice at a time. Do the top, middle, bottom. Move to the next slice. Slice to slice to slice all the way around the room."

The top of your spring cleaning list should be the cleaning of things that you don't normally clean every week or month during the year, says Dougherty. "Some of those items would be lampshades. Doorknobs. Door jams. Telephones. Light switches." In addition, she says, "Take your pictures off the wall - the back is really as dirty as the front."

You can also clean things in your dishwasher, Dougherty notes. "Pull the knobs off your range. Take the screen filter under your microwave, your microwave dish, in the dishwasher. Run it at night while you're sleeping. When you wake up the next morning, half of your kitchen is clean."

For more cleaning tips from Jan, check out her book The Lost Art of Housecleaning, available in paperback and on Kindle at Amazon.com.

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