10 brilliant cleaning hacks, by the authors of Mums Who Clean
These tips and tricks really work!
By Rachael Hallet and Karlie Suttie
Keeping our home clean is something that we all try to do, but it can be a challenge! Busy lifestyles, work and children can all play a part in us feeling overwhelmed and like our homes are out of control.
We created our Mums Who Clean Facebook group to provide a friendly and supportive environment for Australian women to get advice and share tips and hints for cleaning their homes.
This is where the idea for our book began. As our groups grew in size and our posts received more and more comments and questions, we knew we wanted to find ways to help families even more.
We hope that our book helps make cleaning quicker and easier!
10 tried and tested cleaning hacks
1. Lemons
Simple, cheap and effective at cleaning many areas around your home. You may not realise that you can clean scale from your kettle very quickly! Pop 1-2 pieces of sliced or quartered lemon into your kettle and fill with water. Bring to the boil and let cool. Remove the water and lemon from the kettle, wipe with a cloth or bottle brush if necessary. Boil and discard another full kettle to ensure there is no leftover taste.
2. Scalex
The nasty looking scale build up at the bottom of your toilet may feel impossible to remove. It’s not! This product makes it so simple. Just pour 1/3 cup of Scalex into the bowl of your toilet and let that sit over night (or as long as you can manage) and flush. If you have a heavy build up, you might need to brush with a toilet brush or repeat the process.
Want to spend less time cleaning? Of course you do.
3. White vinegar
White vinegar is a great cleaning tool for lots of applications. One of it’s best uses is for removing kids slime from fabrics and carpet. It’s a really easy process. Pour white vinegar onto the slimed area.
Use a blunt tool or small brush to agitate the slime and wipe away with a paper towel or cloth. The vinegar will dissolve the slime in front of your eyes. Make sure you wash the brush and cloth immediately so the slime doesn’t harden on them.
4. Dusting tip
Dusting many pictures and artworks on your walls can be time consuming. Make it easier on yourself by placing a small dob of blue tac on the back of each frame. This means you can quickly dust all your frames without moving them off level.
Karlie and Rachael aka Mums Who Clean, connected on Facebook and bonded over their love of home organisation.
5. Oven racks
You’ll struggle to find someone who likes to clean their oven. The racks are known to be especially troublesome, but not anymore! Remove the racks from your oven and wrap some foil around them (doesn’t need to completely enclose it).
Pop the racks in a large tub or bath of hot water (lay down an old towel to protect your bath first). Throw in 1 dishwasher tablet per rack and soak for a minimum of two hours. Once soaking is complete, unwrap and wipe down each rack and the marks/residue should completely disappear. Dry the racks thoroughly before placing back into the oven.
6. Shower screens
A common cleaning conundrum for Mums Who Clean members! One of the most successful methods to get your shower screen back to sparkling is simple and cheap. Simply pour a 50:50 mix of white vinegar and dish washing liquid into a dish cleaning wand and scrub away.
The handle on the cleaning wand makes the task much easier and the formula cuts through all the soap scum with ease. Pour water over the area to rinse and see your sparkling screen.
7. Carpet cleaner
Dr Beckmanns carpet cleaner is a great, ready to use product with a particularly handy scrubber attached. This makes it a quick ‘grab and go’ option when you see any stains on your carpet or upholstery. It works so quickly that you can spot clean whenever you need to.
For more cleaning hacks and tricks, Mums Who Clean by Rachael Hallet and Karlie Suttie ($29.99, Penguin Random House Australia).
8. Hairspray hack
Hairspray is an unexpected wonder for cleaning inks off many hard surfaces like doors and walls. Just spray the area and wipe away with a cloth!
9. Roll it off
Sticky lint rollers are amazing for removing dust/hair from hard to dust surfaces including fabric bed heads, lamps, curtains and the felt dots on the bottom of your chair legs. Just roll over your surface and it will grab everything!
10. No bad smells here
If you find your toilet room tiles smelling a bit funky, you can use shaving foam to help remove that smell from the grout. Just spread the shaving foam around your tiles and mop with hot water after leaving it for around 10 minutes. The smell will disappear with the shaving foam!
