7 Expert Cleaning Tips You Need to Be Using

Get Bertha's Cleaning Book, every method for the whole house, written down: https://berthacleans.com Tomorrow morning, crouch down until your eye is level with your kitchen counter, with the window light coming across it. The crumbs under the microwave, the gray swirls from the cloth, the sticky ring. That is the counter you cleaned last night. It is not because you did not scrub hard enough, mija. Nobody ever taught you the order. The cleaning companies train every new girl in seven rules on her first day and charge you $150 a visit for the difference. Every one of them was in my mother's kitchen fifty years ago, with no name at all. FIRST: carry everything to the middle of the room before you touch a surface, so you are not walking back and forth across the house. THE SEVEN: 1. TOP TO BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT (de arriba para abajo). Start with the highest thing in the room, finish on the floor, and go around in one direction like reading a page. Everything in a house falls down 2. DRY BEFORE WET (sacudir). Take the crumbs, hair and dust off dry first. Wet dust turns to paste and glues itself down 3. DWELL TIME (déjalo que trabaje). Spray and walk away. Every cleaner needs time wet on the surface, and anything that disinfects says how long on the label, usually 5 to 10 minutes 4. GENTLEST FIRST (primero el agua). Warm water, then a drop of dish soap, then vinegar or baking soda, and only then the strong bottle, on one spot 5. THE S PATTERN AND THE FOLDED CLOTH. Wipe in long rows like plowing a field, never circles, so the dirt only moves one way. Fold the cloth in four for eight clean faces and turn it when it goes gray 6. THE NIGHTLY RESET (la cocina no se acuesta sucia). Ten minutes before bed: dishes, counter wiped in the S, things lined up square with the edge, trash out if full 7. THE EYE LEVEL TEST (de ladito). Crouch until your eye is level with the surface and look toward the window. Every crumb stands up like a mountain Not one of the seven is a product. Every one is an order. TWO WARNINGS: letting a cleaner sit does not mean letting it dry, re-mist it if it starts to dry. And never mix strong products to make them stronger, not bleach with vinegar, not bleach with anything ammonia. WHO PROFITS: the commercial where she sprays, wipes once, and it shines, because a product wiped too fast seems weak and sells the stronger bottle. The order is the cleaner, and the order is free. Tomorrow: crouch at the counter and look, clean it once with the seven, and crouch again. Tell me in the comments which of the seven your mother drilled into you, what she called it in her own words, and your county. I read every one.