Authors: Jeff Campbell
Typical vacuuming is a forward and backward motion. Go forward one full length of the vacuum hose each time. Move sideways one full width of the vacuum head with each backward motion. Keep the canister part of the vacuum to your left as you vacuum the room to your right. Be very careful as you pull the canister, because if an accident
can happen it will. (If you’re using an upright vacuum, move forward one long step and then backward one and a half steps, because your backward steps are shorter.)
If some areas to be vacuumed are well traveled and need extra attention, vacuum more slowly or repeat each push and pull of the vacuum. If an area is little used, speed up and don’t go over it twice.
The Duster has left you signals to save time. An overlapped cushion tells you to vacuum the tops of the cushions only. Just move your beater-bar from the floor to the cushion and vacuum away. This will not harm most fabrics. But don’t use the beater on very loose-fitting fabric and be careful of tassels or loose strings. (Use the Little Vac instead.) A turned-up cushion tells you to vacuum the entire couch. You use the Little Vac to do this, so leave the upturned cushion alone since that will be done later. If your vacuum doesn’t have a motorized beater head, don’t use it to vacuum cushions or furniture. In other words, don’t use a nonmotorized floor attachment, because it will transfer all sorts of fuzz from the floor to the furniture. The signal to vacuum the tops of cushions only is a single cushion left overlapping the one next to it.
The signal to vacuum under a piece of furniture is when it is moved out at an angle from its normal position. The vacuumer puts the furniture back in its original position afterward.
The rule is to move the item as short a distance as possible: tip a chair back, for example, instead of transporting it. If you’re helping by moving furniture as someone else vacuums, lift the furniture straight up, let your partner vacuum the area, and then replace it. If you’re vacuuming on your own, you will have learned not to leave trays, mops, the Little Vac, trash, etc., in your direct path. Move one end of a table an inch or two to vacuum where the legs were, and then replace.
Only if you’re working in a team, it’s a good idea for you
not
to replace chairs and other displaced furniture. Better to carry on vacuuming and let someone else (or you) replace items at the end of cleaning. Vacuuming is often the longest job, and every step possible should be taken to avoid stopping once you’ve started. For example, when you reach a spot where the vacuum head doesn’t fit and an Act of Congress is required to get it to fit—like moving a heavy plant, or a desk, etc.—then this area should already have been cleaned with a whisk broom, feather duster, or dust cloth.
Start at the top and vacuum your way down. If you have a canister vacuum, set it six or eight stairs down from the top. When you’ve vacuumed down to it, move it down six or eight more steps. Use the
whisk broom from your back pocket to clean out edges and corners of the stairs as needed. It’s easy and fast. Whisk several steps and then vacuum several steps and repeat Vacuum with back-and-forth motions of the beater head—not side-to-side. Do be careful as you vacuum backward down the stairs because we don’t want to lose you.
Stand on one end of the throw rug to keep it in place. Don’t use back-and-forth motions. Always vacuum away from where you’re standing, lift up the beater head at the end of a stroke, and start again to the right. (Move forward on a long rug and repeat the process, if necessary, until you reach the other end.) Then come back to the starting point, where you had been standing originally, and do that area from the other direction—again pushing away from you and lifting the vacuum head at the end of a push.
When finished, wrap the cord around the vacuum and the extension cord around the cord caddy.
Unless the Little Vac gets a lot of use (hardwood floors, for example), use it without a 50-foot extension cord. The Little Vac has several attachments. The attachment you choose depends on whether it’s
being used to vacuum the kitchen floor, the hardwood floors, or furniture.
When vacuuming noncarpeted floors, point the vacuum exhaust away from the area you have yet to vacuum so you don’t stir up dust. Also, pay special attention to areas where there are electrical cords on the floor. The cords trap a lot of dust and debris, so slow down and vacuum carefully.
When vacuuming furniture, follow The Clean Team rules: Start on the left side at the top and work your way down and to the right.
How often you do this chore depends on how often you use the oven. It’s a messy and overnight job.
The first thing to notice when contemplating cleaning the oven is whether it is a self-cleaning species. If it is, follow the manufacturer’s directions, not ours, and be thankful.
As long as your oven interior is a smooth baked-enamel finish (95 percent chance), you will find this chore yucky but manageable. If you have an oven whose interior feels like fine sandpaper, you have a problem, since the oven cleaner is very difficult to remove after the cleaning process. Give up.
Spray your oven the night before you are going to clean it. You’ll need oven cleaner and rubber gloves. Before spraying the oven, remove the racks, placing them on top of the stove
the same way you took them out
(so you don’t waste time later trying to figure out which is the top and how they go back in). Also remove anything else that should be removed, such as heating coils that pull out or unplug. Even if your whole interior oven comes apart for removal and cleaning, leave it together and clean it our way instead.
Put old cleaning cloths, paper towels, or newspapers on the floor to catch any drips and overspray. Spray the interior of the oven and the door as well. Often, the racks don’t need cleaning. Skip them whenever you can, as they are difficult and time-consuming. If you are
not
cleaning them, leave them on top of the stove until you are done with the oven. If you are cleaning the racks, replace them after you have sprayed the inside of the oven and
then
spray them too. Spray the oven thoroughly: A little too much is better than not enough. If you overdo it, however, oven cleaner will drip onto the floor and make even more of a mess. Avoid the interior light and thermostat when spraying. Be sure to spray the door but not the door edges.
If you are going to clean the broiler too (wow!), then spray it now also. Just spray the broiler tray itself. Don’t spray the holder grooves or underneath the broiler. Those areas don’t have the cooked-on stuff and can be cleaned with Red Juice and your green pad. (Faster and eminently less messy.)
Put the racks back in if you haven’t already, close the door, put away the oven cleaner, and go to bed. Don’t heat the oven. Sweet dreams, for tomorrow you’ll be up to your elbows in gook.
Next day—if you are also doing the weekly cleaning of the kitchen—clean the oven before you start the regular cleaning sequence.
Don’t heat the oven.
Set the trash can by the stove for now, and place a roll of paper towels or old, disposable rags (ones that are no longer good enough to use as regular cleaning cloths) next to it. Also, take the
scraper from your apron and put it on the cloths in front of the stove. You’ll be using it repeatedly, and your gloves will be covered with oven cleaner. This way you’ll keep the oven cleaner off your apron.
Start by
putting on the gloves!
First clean the inside of the oven door with your green pad. Use your razor on the glass door. Wipe the oven cleaner from the door. Then spray the same area with Red Juice and wipe it clean and dry. Clean the racks next, starting with the highest one. Use the green pad. Pull it out into the locked position to make cleaning easier. As you finish a rack, pull it out and set it in the sink. Rinse well with tap water. Be careful not to scratch the sink. (Use a cloth or two to put under the edges of the rack when rinsing.) After all the oven cleaner is removed, just let the racks drain and dry in the sink while you return to clean the next one down. As you clean them, pay special attention to the leading edges (the ones that you see when the rack is in the oven).
After the racks, clean the inside of the oven starting with the inside top. Systematically agitate with your green pad over the entire top of the oven until all the baked-on residue is loose. But don’t remove it yet. Move on to the right side, then the rear, and then the left side before you finish with the bottom. On areas where there are baked-on “lumps” (usually the bottom only), use your scraper first (remember, it’s on the floor in front of the oven). The idea is to knock off most of what you’re removing with the scraper first and then get what little remains with the green pad. Saves a lot of time.
Here the concept of “seeing through” the mess of what you’re cleaning has particular meaning. Even if the oven were clean, you couldn’t see through the oven cleaner. And unless you’re much more compulsive than we are, your oven is not clean. You can quickly learn the difference between how your green pad feels when the oven surface is clean and how it feels on a dirty surface that needs additional scrubbing.
This “see-through” process is also especially important here because removing the oven cleaner is a big chore. If you’ve missed crud and have to respray and reclean, you may be tempted to give up cooking rather than go through it again.
Even after you’ve used the scraper to remove lumps, be prepared to grab for it quickly when you encounter something that your green pad doesn’t easily remove.
As you may well have noticed, your green pad became a slimy, gooey, even yucky mess about half a second after you started this delightful chore. Resist the impulse to go to the sink and rinse the pad out. It will return to a slimy mess half a second after you return. It actually works just as well dirty for a long time. And, of course, the whole procedure is much faster if you don’t make several trips to the sink to rinse.
When the pad is full of gunk and oven cleaner, it is harder to hold because it gets slippery. Try to overcome this by folding the pad in half or gripping it differently or squeezing it out onto the oven bottom—anything
to avoid having to rinse it. When you just can’t grip it any longer, go rinse it. Also if the oven is very dirty (especially when you’re cleaning the bottom), your pad will lose its effectiveness when it gets thoroughly clogged with debris. When that happens, it’s also time to go rinse. (Sounds like something your dentist would say.)
After you have gone over the entire oven this way, rinse out the green pad and scraper and put them in your apron. Start wiping the inside of the oven using paper towels or old rags. Wipe it out just the reverse of the way you just scrubbed it. Start with the bottom, then the left side, the rear, the right side, and finally the top. Wipe the entire oven out once, rather thoroughly—discarding the towels or rags into the trash can next to you. Now spray the entire inside of the oven with Red Juice and wipe clean and dry to get rid of any residual oven cleaner.
If the broiler was previously sprayed, now is the time to finish it. (Don’t you really want to do this some other day?) Clean it in the sink with your green pad. Use your scraper if necessary … and it usually is. Protect the sink by putting cloths under the broiler. Rinse it clean, wipe it, and replace it.
Fold up the cloths (or paper towels), pick up the newspapers and discard into the trash, take a deep breath, and start cleaning the kitchen. It’s a good idea to turn the oven to 400° for fifteen minutes while you start cleaning the kitchen. This cooks any oven cleaner you may have missed to a nice visible white powder that you can easily see to
remove after the oven cools off. Also, if the oven is going to stink or smoke a bit, it’s a good idea to get that little episode over with now instead of when you have company over for dinner.
You have cleaned an oven! Amazing how much better it looks—and you get all the credit! You may be tempted to go outside and stop strangers to bring them in and show them your clean oven. Resist: they may track in dirt.
This is not weekly cleaning. However, if you are going to clean the refrigerator when you do your regular cleaning of the kitchen, do it first—before anything else. If the freezer is to be cleaned, it should have been turned off earlier so that it is defrosted and ready to clean. You can help yourself further with this chore by choosing a time to clean it when it’s as empty of food as it gets (according to your weekly shopping schedule). Also, before starting, throw out anything that deserves it.
The freezer is easy to clean once the ice is loose. Put any loose ice and ice-cube trays in the sink and proceed to clean. If possible, don’t remove anything else. Rather, move items toward the right, spray the left with Red Juice, and wipe. (If a little Red Juice gets on the frozen-food containers, it won’t hurt a thing.) Now move items from the right to the left and repeat. You may have to do that in three moves or more. If the freezer is completely full, remove only as much as you have to. When you move items to make room for cleaning, move them onto the top shelf of the refrigerator.
Inside the refrigerator itself, start with the top shelf. These interior shelves don’t usually need to be emptied. Items on the shelves should
not be removed—just moved to the right. Then clean the racks with Red Juice and white pad, followed by a cleaning cloth to wipe dry. If the shelves are too full to move things to the side, then remove only enough so you can move the rest from side to side. When you remove items from a shelf, set them on a convenient countertop or on the floor just in front of the refrigerator in the order they were removed. After cleaning, replace the items in reverse order.
Do the next lower shelf and the next until you are finished. Drawers and bins should be removed from the refrigerator because you need to clean them inside and out. Don’t forget that nasty area under the bottom drawers. Crud and water both accumulate here.