The Best Way to Wash Your Walls (The Mexican Way)

#walls #cleaninghacks #themexicanway 📖 Get Bertha's Cleaning Book, every method for the whole house, written down: https://berthacleans.com Look at the wall beside your light switch at the height of your hand, and at the wall behind your stove. Mija, a wall is not one surface, it is two. There are walls that can be washed and walls that cannot, and they look the same until you know what to look for. THE THREE WALLS that dusting cannot save: behind the stove, the hallway at hand height, the bathroom where the hairspray lands. Those get washed once a year, in spring. Every other wall gets dusted (the wrapped broom from my deep cleaning video). READ THE PAINT FIRST: look at the wall at an angle with the window behind you. A soft sheen (satin, semi-gloss) has a hard skin, dirt sits on top, it washes. No shine at all, chalky (flat, matte) has no skin: water and dirt sink in, and scrubbing polishes a shiny patch into it (burnishing) that only paint covers. Wet one finger low behind a door: if the spot goes dark and stays dark, it is flat. THE DRY PASS: broom, fluffy towel, hair tie. Top to bottom, corners first. Every wall, even the ones you will not wash. Take the pictures down, move the sofa, a towel along the baseboard. THE BUCKET: warm water, three or four DROPS of dish soap (soap left on a wall dries into a film). A second bucket of plain water for the rinse. Wring the towel until it stops dripping, then wring it again. Damp, not wet. WASH BOTTOM UP: dust top down, wash bottom up. Straight strokes like painting, one arm-wide section at a time. A drip from the top runs over dirt and dries into brown tracks that are harder to remove than the dirt. A drip from the bottom runs over clean wall and wipes away. Dry each section with a second towel before the next. Rinse the towel every two or three sections, change the water when it goes gray. THE THREE MARKS - Scuffs: a wet tennis ball, little circles - Crayon, pencil, shiny fingerprints: baking soda and a few drops of water on a LIGHT cloth (dark cloths can leave dye), wipe after - Grease behind the stove: a stronger soap mix, then two passes of plain water - Magic eraser: sandpaper in disguise. Scuffs only, on a wall with a shine only, no pressure, stop if the paint comes off on the sponge. Same rule for the damp dishwasher tablet PERMANENT MARKER: plain spray sunscreen, wait a minute, soft toothbrush, damp cloth. It works because of the oils, so wash the spot after with the soapy water and dry it. HONEST WORDS: a flat painted hallway with ten years of hands does not survive scrubbing. It survives repainting. My mother's walls were cal (whitewash) and every spring before Semana Santa she did not wash them, she whitewashed them again. A brown stain that comes back after washing is water coming in: a roof or a pipe, not a cleaning job. THE HABITS: wipe the wall behind the stove the night you fried. Dust every wall each spring. Wash the three walls once a year, bottom up, dry as you go. A tennis ball in the rag drawer. El que mucho abarca, poco aprieta. This weekend, read your walls and tell me in the comments: shine or chalk? Then wash the one behind the stove, bottom up. And tell me your county. I read every one. CHAPTERS 0:00 The wall beside the switch 0:52 A wall is two surfaces 1:48 The three walls dusting cannot save 2:36 Read the paint: shine or chalk 3:57 The dry pass first 4:37 The bucket: drops, not a squeeze 5:27 Wash bottom up (the backwards part) 6:27 One section at a time, dry as you go 7:06 The three marks water will not take 8:15 The magic eraser rule 8:59 Permanent marker: the sunscreen trick 9:41 Honest words: flat paint and cal 10:56 Who profits 11:59 The habits 12:28 Shine or chalk? Tell me #cleaningtips #springcleaning #cleanhome