How to clean

THE HELL
HECK
out of your house!
A detailed guide on how to clean your home

Written by: Designed by:

u/lowkeydeadinside u/PFtattoo
professional cleaner bored

Alright y’all so it seems like a ton of you would love to know how to clean your house
and keep it clean.

I’m a professional cleaner, and this is what I do in clients homes and in my own home. I will
mostly focus on kitchen and bathrooms, since those are the areas that inherently need the
most work.

I’m going to explain how to deep clean these areas and the rest of your home, and then I will
include shortcuts you can take and tips for staying on top of it as well as guidelines on when
you should do a deep clean, and when you can take shortcuts.

Disclaimer:
Do not mix vinegar or any ammonia based product with bleach!!!

To be on the safe side, I avoid using bleach as much as possible.

There are really very few times when it is appropriate to use anyways

How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022
BATHROOM
First things first, I’ll start with the bathroom.
You don’t need to clean your whole house in one go, but if you decide to, I’d recommend starting
in your bathroom since that’s an area that needs a lot of focus, but won’t take a ton of time and
energy and will hopefully leave you feeling motivated to continue.

Here’s what you’ll need to clean your bathroom:

1 or 2 rags toilet bowl cleaner

paper towels vinegar or bleach product

sponge some sort of all purpose cleaner

(alternatively, just use Dawn dish soap. But my favorite
a toilet brush
brand of all purpose are Method and Mrs. Meyer’s, both
glass cleaner (or vinegar) available at Target)
dawn dish soap

The first thing I do is clean the mirror.

I do this first because you need a clean rag for glass, and then I can usually use the same rag to
finish up everything else in the bathroom.

You’ll want to move anything that blocks your mirror out of the way. Then spray your glass cleaner
on the mirror, and wipe it off. You want to wipe somehow uniformly, so if there are streaks they’re
easier to get rid of.

Then turn the rag over to the dry side, and wipe again. This should remove any excess glass
cleaner, dust, and streaks. If you have glass shower doors, do those next and do the same
process.

How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022
Next, I go on to the toilet.
First, pour some toilet cleaner in the bowl. You don’t need a ton, just squirt around the edges of the
toilet and let it drip down to the rest of the bowl.

Then take your vinegar or bleach and spray it all over your toilet.

AGAIN:
If you are using VINEGAR, make sure your toilet bowl
cleaner DOESN’T HAVE BLEACH in it!

Lift the lid and seat, spray both sides of these. Then simply wipe away with your paper towels.
Check the bottom of the toilet as well, lots of dust and gross stuff will collect at the base and this
needs to be cleaned every now and then. Just use your vinegar and paper towels here as well.
Then take your toilet brush, scrub the inside, and flush. Wipe away any dribbles from the brush.

I do the shower next.

You’ll want to remove everything from the shower/bath shelves.

Squirt some dawn dish soap on the floor of the shower and the shelves. Get them a bit wet (I have
a red solo cup I use for this), get your sponge wet, and go to town. If this is the first time you’ve
cleaned your shower in a long time, be sure to scrub the walls.

Then I take a cup and fill it with water and rinse it out. It usually takes a few cup fulls. Wipe off the
shelves so when you put your products back on they aren’t just sitting in water and collecting mold
before you even shower.

The last step is the sink and counters.

Remove everything off the counter, then go to town with your all purpose spray. Be sure to spray
inside the sink.

Next, take your sponge and just scrub away. Focus on the sink and the knobs the most. Then
simply take your rag, wipe it all up, and rinse out the sink with that cup you used for the shower. Put
everything back, and voilà, you’re done!

How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022
Now here are ways you can make this easier. If you’re only cleaning your bathroom once a month,
you’ll want to complete all these steps.

Here are things you can do to save time:

You do not have to clean your shower walls every time, just the floor.

You can skip cleaning the shelves until they start to bother you, or you can remove the
stuff from the shelves and simply wipe them down with all purpose before you scrub the
shower floor.

You don’t need to remove everything from your counters every time, just enough to clean
in and around the sink.
I would however recommend removing it all at least every couple of months, since these items will collect a
lot of dust and it will encourage you to organize your bathroom counter.

How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022
KITCHEN K
N
W
Next is the kitchen which requires a bit more work, but there are a lot of ways to speed up -
-
the process or stay on top of things to make it easier.
-
-
-
What you will need: -
-
3 or 4 rags all purpose cleaner
B
a sponge vinegar
A
a microfiber cloth (if you have stainless steel) stainless steel polish w
Dawn dish soap g
a

N
s
Before anything else, wash and put away your dishes. a
This will make things easier later on. e
i
After you’ve done that, go on to the microwave (I do this first because I forget if I wait). Take a h
bowl, fill it with one part water, one part vinegar and place it in the microwave for 3 to 5 minutes.
N
Alternatively, remove the plate and spinnny part of your microwave, spray the hell out of it with s
vinegar, and microwave for 30 seconds. This is dangerous, but convenient. d

I
Then, wipe out your microwave and clean the plate with dawn dish soap. Dry and put away. Last
*
but not least, get some dish soap on your sponge and scrub the outside of the microwave, focusing t
on the handle and the buttons. Wipe it off and you’re done. y
d
s
Next I move on to the stove.
If you have a gas stove , this will be the most time consuming part. If it’s electric, it’ll be super easy. W
Take all of the removable pieces off your stove and place them in the sink. This includes the knobs o
of your stove. Now, I like to wash all these pieces before I touch the stove itself, but it’s up to you. d
h
You can wash all of these pieces with dawn dish soap. Set them on the counter or leave them in
the sink to dry. L
o
Now we go on to the stove. Check the hood, this only needs to be done every few months but if it y
needs doing you’ll want to do that first. Simply scrub with dish soap, and wipe it off. For the rest of
E
the stove/oven, you’re going to continue using dawn dish soap with a sponge. You’ll want to scrub f
o

N
How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022
e
a
w
the hell out of the stove top, scrub the display, and scrub the front of the stove focusing especially
on the stove top, handle for the oven, and where the knobs go on your stove since lots of grime
builds up under there.

Then, just wipe it all off and put your stove back together.

Next, you’ll move on to appliances.

Now, if you have stainless steel appliances this is going to take longer than it would if you don’t.
If you don’t have stainless steel, simply scrub the handle and buttons of your dishwasher, and if
the front of it is really bad give that a wipe down too. Again, using dawn dish soap. For your fridge,
scrub the handles and the side of the door since these are often covered in fingerprints and food
and spot clean any other gross spots on your fridge.

If you have stainless steel, you’ll do those same things, but you’ll want to make sure to wash the
whole thing down. Stainless steel, like wood, has a grain. You want to scrub with the grain to avoid
scratching, and also when you are wiping off the soap you want to be sure to go with the grain.
Again, focus most on the handles and the sides of the door/doors to the fridge.

For your dishwasher it’ll be the same.

After you’ve done this, take your stainless steel polish and a microfiber rag. You need less polish
than you think, and you can always use more. Spray your appliance from about a foot away. If the
grain of your stainless steel goes left to right, you can likely just spray a line down the middle and
that will be perfect. If it goes up and down, spray in kind of an “s” formation. This is in my opinion
the easiest way to get enough polish and have it spread out in a way that you won’t need to add
more. Again, go with the grain.

We’re almost done! Next is the sink.

Remove everything from your sink, as well as anything around your sink like soap or sponges.
Squirt some dish soap on the bottom of the sink, get your sponge nice and wet, and go to town.

The areas to focus on most are the drain/drain plugs, and the part where the sink meets the
counter as a lot of dirt gets stuck in this lip. Then with all the excess soap on your sponge, scrub
down the handle and the tap and the area about 3-6 inches around your sink. Wipe down the
handle and tap and the counter.

Rinse out your sink, either using the tap if it extends, or using a cup like we did in the bathroom.

How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022
Last but not least: Counters.
Do this in sections. Move everything off one section of the counter. Spray that area with all purpose
spray then scrub with your sponge, wipe with a rag, and put everything back. Do this all over your
kitchen. I like to save the biggest counter space for last, there’s usually the least stuff to move here
and it’s a satisfying way to finish.

AGAIN:
You can just put dish soap on your sponge if that’s easier
for you and you can cut out all purpose all together.

Every few months or so, you’ll also want to wipe down the front of your cabinets/drawers along with
dusting the tops of cabinets. This is something you’ll want to do before moving onto counters since
you’ll likely get a lot of crap falling onto them. But this really only needs doing a couple times a
year, and it’s one of those things you really only need to do if you care enough to do it.

Now here are some shortcuts, and once you’ve properly cleaned your kitchen, you
can probably do it with these shortcuts once a week or every two weeks and your kitchen will stay
in great shape.

The biggest shortcut is the microwave. If you aren’t super messy in your microwave, the most you’ll
usually need to do is spray the inside with all purpose and wipe it out, and wash the plate.

You can totally get by just wiping the handles of all your appliances (fridge, front of the oven,
dishwasher, outside of microwave) and just using stainless steel polish on the rest (or spot
cleaning if that doesn’t apply) if you do this every couple of weeks.

You also don’t need to remove everything off your counters every time, but do so every few times
you clean because dust will collect.

The only things I don’t recommend taking shortcuts on are the stove and the sink.
The sink simply doesn’t take very long to clean and you’ll be happy you took the time to do it. The
stove simply gets used for a lot and gets really gross really fast, so you want to thoroughly scrub it
every time. Depending on how much you use it, you may not need to scrub the rest of the pieces
each time though.

How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022
THE REST OF THE HOUSE
Now on to the rest of the house. The main focus here is clutter, trash, dust, and
floors (which you also want to do in the bathroom and kitchen).

You can go room by room, or task by task. Either way, the order of the tasks remains about the
same.

First things first, pick up your floors. Pick up laundry, garbage, stuff you knocked
off your desk that you haven’t gotten around to picking up.

Next, gather trash. Check coffee tables, dressers, desks, bedside tables, anywhere you might put
garbage and forget about it. This is also a good time to look at these surfaces and figure out if there
is anything you can put into a cabinet or drawer or anything you don’t need anymore and can toss.
If you want to do this step first, you can get your laundry going while you’re cleaning elsewhere
which is very helpful.

The next step is dusting, and how thorough you need to be depends on a few factors:
whether you have pets, how many people are in your household, how long it’s been since you
deep cleaned, and honestly how much you care. If it’s been a while, or you’ve never dusted the
things I am about to list, I strongly recommend doing each of these things because you will be
amazed how much dust collects in the places you don’t think about.

First, you will want a rag and you will want to get it pretty damp with all purpose.

Then start with the high places. This will be tops of doors, tops of windows, picture frames, etc.

Move on to light switches, outlets, and vents.

After that’s done you’ll want to get all your base boards.

Now all of this stuff needs to be done rarely, like every six months
unless you really want to maintain a dust free household.

How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022
Then you’ll want to do the rest of the dusting that should be done more
regularly. You’ll probably need another rag for this if you did the deeper dusting as well.

Here you’ll dust bookshelves, bed side tables, desks, coffee tables, lamps, picture frames, window
sills and anything else you can think of that gets dusty. You may also want to take your damp rag
and wipe down doors on and near the handle, as this part often gets covered in finger prints. This
is also a good time to clean the interior of your windows if you feel like it, just using glass cleaner
and doing it the same way we did in the bathroom.

After all this, you have one step left to a clean home!
Sweep/vacuum your floors, and if you own a mop (would recommend) mop your floors. For wood
floors, you can use most all purposes or Pinesol or what I use is Murphy’s oil soap. For all other
floors, dawn dish soap or all purpose. If you’re really tired of cleaning at this point, you can legit
spray your floors with all purpose (not too much), take a damp mop, and go to town and call it
good.

So here we are! I hope this isn’t too hard to understand and helps break things up into
manageable chunks. Please let me know if there is any way I can structure this post better or if you
have any questions at all about any of this. And remember, you do not have to do all of this every
time you clean, or even ever if you don’t want to.

You can adjust this to make it more manageable to you, you can decide what to skip every now
and then, it’s your home we’re talking about. It’s up to you and what feels right for you.

I hope I included enough details about what you can skip to make staying on top of these things
easier and about how often you should do all these steps (but again, it’s entirely up to you!).

Good luck and happy cleaning!

How to clean the heck out of your house! by u/lowkeydeadinside | r/ADHDWomen | 2022