Editorial Team
Doing household chores may never be your favorite activity. For example, very few people enjoy moving the couch so they can vacuum under it just to put it right back in its proper place. Cleaning and organizing your home is a great way to reduce anxiety and help you stay calm, but it doesn’t have to take all day. Whether you’re just trying to be a good tenant and keep your rental clean, or you need to find a way to easily handle household problems, there are ways you can make cleaning and maintaining your home easier. Here are household hacks that will blow your mind.
Remove Wrinkles With Ice Cubes
Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom or a busy single person, many people dread doing their laundry. We avoid doing laundry because it’s simple enough to take clothes and put them in the washer and dryer, but finding wrinkles, folding, and putting them away means more work for you.
Instead of taking out your ironing board or steamer, consider grabbing ice from your freezer to remove wrinkles in your favorite clothes. All you have to do to reduce and remove wrinkles is put a few ice cubes in your dryer with the wrinkled clothing. As the ice melts, it creates steam that can help relax your clothing to remove wrinkles.
Use Storage Containers
Storage containers can help you keep your belongings organized and out of the way. You can use storage containers in every room of your home, including your bedroom and bathroom. If you have seasonal clothes you only wear a few months out of the year, you can put them in storage containers and put the containers under your bed or in a closet. Next time you need to find your winter coat, you’ll know exactly where to look.
Use Vinegar for Cleaning
White vinegar has more uses than just cleaning your coffee pot, although it’s proven effective at that too. Vinegar can help you clean everything in your kitchen, from cloudy glasses, hard water stains, and even your stovetop.
Tip: When using vinegar to clean glasses when your dishwasher won’t, soak them in diluted vinegar or put vinegar on your regular sponge.
Because vinegar is so great at cleaning hard water stains, you can even use it on your showerhead so you can get the most even water pressure. All you have to do is put white vinegar diluted with water in a bag and tie it to your showerhead with a rubber band. If your showerhead comes off easily, you can place it in a bucket or pot of vinegar as well.
Vinegar is a safe, eco-friendly way to clean everything, including your toilet, so make sure you have it in the house at all times.
Shaving Cream for Foggy Mirrors
There’s nothing that can disrupt your schedule more than having to wait for your mirror to defog after a shower so you can get ready. Instead of waiting or using your hand to wipe the mirror, you can ensure your mirror stays fog-free by using shaving cream on it before your shower. All you need to do is put shaving cream on your mirror and wipe it down with a rag.
Rid Your Home of Odors with Vinegar
There’s no need to spray synthetic deodorizers in your home. If you want to get rid of an odor in your home, including those after-meal odors, you can use vinegar. To remove any odor in your home after the source of the odor has been removed, simmer half water and half vinegar on your stove. This trick works for just about every odor in the book, including pet accidents, salmon dinner smells, and even the smell of smoke.
Remove Wax With Steam
If you’ve ever spilled wax on your carpet or any other fabric, then you know it can be difficult to get out. While you can use an ice cube to help you remove wax from surfaces, wax doesn’t easily come out of the carpet. Instead of ripping up the carpet, you can put a paper bag on top of the wax and go over the bag with a steam iron or steam cleaner. Steam will help lift the wax from the carpet and force it to stick to the bag instead.
Clean Pans With Alka-Seltzer
Some pans never get clean, no matter how hard you scrub. Instead of spending all of your time scrubbing dinner from your favorite pan, grab an Alka-Seltzer tablet and drop it in the pan filled with hot water. After it sits for a few minutes, the stuck-on meal should start to easily wipe up with a regular sponge.
Put Suspenders on a Fitted Sheet
If your fitted sheet doesn’t seem to stay on your bed and keeps you up at night, consider giving it suspenders. These are regular suspenders you can find in almost any clothing store, you clip them on each corner so you can wrap it around your mattress and make it stay put for good. When you need to clean your sheets, all you have to do is take the suspenders off and throw them in the wash.
Prevent Dents in Walls With Tennis Balls
If your door doesn’t have a stopper, then the door handle might be hitting the wall every time you open the door. If you’re sick and tired of putting marks and dents on your walls, consider using tennis balls. All you have to do is cut a slit in a tennis ball and put it around the doorknob. Next time the door swings open, the doorknob will bounce off the wall without leaving a mark.
Remove Pet Fur With a Squeegee
We all love our furry friends, but sometimes they leave fur just about everywhere, including the couch. Instead of using lint rollers or tape, use a squeegee instead. The rubber at the end of the squeegee will help move all of the furs on the couch into one area so you can easily vacuum it up.
Freeze Your Pillowcase
If you’re a hot sleeper, consider putting your pillowcase in the freezer a half hour before you jump into bed. If you have a nightly routine, you can put your pillowcase in the freezer before you begin your routine so it’s ready for you by the time you’re ready to hit the hay.
Paint Your Keys
Painting your keys can help you easily find them, especially if you’re someone with a lot of keys. While some of your keys will be distinguishable in terms and shape and color, others will not be so easy to find. Grab a few different colors of paints and begin painting the keys you use the most, such as your house key. After a few days, you’ll learn which keys are which colors, making them easy to find and less likely to get confused.
Bio: Marné Amoguis holds a B.A. in International Business from UC San Diego. She is a contributing writer at 365businesstips.com where she loves sharing her passion for digital marketing. Outside of writing, she loves traveling, playing music, and hiking.