There’s just something about the holidays that urge you to clean your house until it glistens. Maybe it’s the impending guests, or the fact that you don’t want anything to detract from your perfect holiday meal, or perhaps you want nothing out of place in the thousands of photos that will be snapped in November and December. Even more, ’tis the season for the cold and flu, and banishing grime and germs becomes more important than ever to keep everyone germ-free. All this adds up to the fact that you not only have to clean like you do every day of the year, but pay special attention to those areas that seems to suffer from constant neglect in the house.
So suck it up and get ready to tackle those spots with reckless abandon! Here are 10 spots in your house that you’ve likely neglected to clean…but totally should:
This post was sponsored by Clorox
all images via Shutterstock
10 Places to Clean to Avoid Getting Sick Over the Holidays
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Cutting boards
You probably "rinse" your boards off after you use them, but how often do they really get the deep clean they need? Next time, add a few teaspoons of bleach to water and use it to rinse off your wooden boards and for soaking your plastic boards. You can also run them with half a lemon to get rid of any lingering food smells in-between those cleaning sessions.
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Inside the fridge
The center of your kitchen needs to be ready to host all sorts of holiday goodies, and also presentable for anyone who offers help to dive in and find what they're looking for! Start by emptying the fridge of everything and remove all the shelves for a soak and soapy scrub in the sink. Then use a multi-purpose cleaner to spray and disinfect every inside surface of your refrigerator. Wipe it down, and wipe any containers that go back in after cleaning.
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Vents
You spend a lot more time indoors in the winter, which usually means your air vents are working overtime heating and circulating air! Use a crevice attachment on your vacuum to suck out all of the excess dust hanging around the vent. If your vents are up too high for the vacuum to reach, put down a towel under the vent and use a long-arm duster. And don't forget to clean your bathroom fan vents too!
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Garbage disposal
With all the fun that goes on in the kitchen during the holidays, you'll want to be sure your garbage disposal is pristine and clean to ensure anyone that comes in contact with it isn't spreading germs around! The last thing you want is a bubbling mess coming up from the sink in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner preparation! Sprinkle a generous amount of baking soda down your drain, then follow it with an equally generous amount of vinegar and let it sit. Boil a gallon of water and turn on your disposal ten minutes later to flush with the hot water.
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Guest room pillows
You've got guests arriving and you've put fresh linens on the bed, but have those pillows just been sitting around since last Christmas? As long as they're not foam, you can treat them to their own washing machine bath for a good clean! Run 2 pillows at a time in on the gentle cycle with warm water, and give them an extra rinse and spin if you can. To dry them, run them on low heat and take them out every 10 minutes to fluff them up!
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Humidifier
The air is dry in the winter and you might be running quite a few of these machines at once! Take out the manual for your machine and flip straight to the "how to clean" section for explicit directions on what to do for your machine. Then whip out the vinegar and/or bleach, and get ready for a good soak to remove any mold spores that might have been breeding!
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Top of cabinets
Do you know what's on top of your cabinets, you know, in that dead space between them and the ceiling? I don't want to know, but the mystery needs to be solved at least once a year! Hop on a step ladder with your extended reach duster as well as a vacuum and do what you need to do! Just because you can't see it doesn't mean that there isn't a giant layer of dust and grime.
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Oven
You're going to be popping things in and out of the oven for the next two months, so you can no longer forget about the grease drips that you've left to bake for months on end. Mix a paste out of baking soda and water and coat your entire oven surface with it. Leave it to dry overnight, then use a sponge to wipe it out the next day. You can also put vinegar in a spray bottle to help activate the paste and make your job a bit easier in wiping it out.
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Behind the toilet
Guests, whether they are staying just for dinner or overnight, will need access to your bathroom, which means you want it to sparkle. You might not be grossed out by what slowly accumulates behind your toilet throughout the year, but trust me, they will be. Use bleach wipes to fully wipe down and disinfect the toilet, floor and wall around the toilet. The extra elbow grease will be appreciated by all!
