I had a unique opportunity this past week. I got to work side by side with three cleaning ladies for a couple of days. I was cleaning the windows and doing touch up paint, so I had a good opportunity to do my own thing, but still enjoy a peek into their process. As our family didn’t bring in the dirt or accumulate the dust, I didn’t have to feel ownership of any of that element and was just able to soak in their wisdom.
It was delightful! Tammy, our head cleaning lady, had a clear love of clean homes and shared tips as we went along. The ladies were doing a full move-out clean, in preparation for us to sell the home. They said they have never done a full clean while there were people in the home, but I think they enjoyed sharing their wisdom as much as I enjoyed receiving it! Here’s what I noticed:
Top to Bottom
I was raised with this process as well, but it was fun to see it done on a massive scale. The home had accumulated large amounts of dust. Those ladies were thorough. Dust the ceilings and upper walls. Then scrub all of the surfaces. Do the floor and baseboards last, top floor down, mopping your way out.
The Mop
These ladies swear by this mop. It requires very little water, so it’s perfect for wood flooring. They vacuumed everything about 10 times as they went along, so it’s not like they were dealing with dirt in their mopping water. For a messier family with children, you would need to add a heavier spot scrubbing before the final mop out.
The Polish
These ladies did a fabulous job and the house definitely felt clean by the time they finished, but there were still spots they missed. Scrubbing each spot as I came across it helped me really get that new home feel back into my 30-year-old home so it was ready for the market. Maybe our buyers didn’t notice the lack of backsplash spots, but they could feel it. A completely clean home sparkles. The cleaning ladies suggested that I use my norwex cloth just before each showing to give the appliances that brand new feeling it needed for a quick sale.
The Norwex cloth
As I mentioned before, I was cleaning windows. The cleaning ladies didn’t do the windows, and if you ask me, that’s the biggest difference between a clean home and a home that feels immaculate. Living in Germany taught me that everyday housekeepers can keep up on keeping their windows sparkly, though I admit that I am still working on getting my windows up to German standards. My Germanized American friend taught me that German homemakers clean their windows weekly. Weekly!
Cleaning lady Tammy swears by these purple Norwex cloths made for shining windows. With this home, the grime had built up a little. With interior windows, I could get away with scrubbing with the Norwex cloth and then do a final polish with a paper towel. There was so much dust it left a layer the Norwex cloth required too much work to remove streak-free, but a quick wipe with a lightly damp paper towel made the process quick and easy.. The exterior, uncovered windows definitely needed a rag wipedown, the Norwex cloth, and then a quick paper towel shine.
Microfiber Rolls
On this note, my husband has been using these cloths in the garage for all of his oily messes and he recently got me into them in the house as well. I’m trying out these and love them so far. It’s hard to keep washcloths smelling good, so we’re giving these a try. Reviews say they wash up to 50 times, so we plan to wash them daily and see how long they last. I also purchased some violet-colored dye to lightly dye my old hand and bath towels a light lavender. After our towels start to show signs of wear, I use them as rags. With the dye, they will be set aside as rags and they won’t get mixed up in the laundry and put back on the shelf with the new, white hand and bath towels.
Love
The ingrediente segreto to a clean home, like any homemaking art, is love. A love for cleaning comes inborn in a rare percentage of the population, but most of us have to learn it. It is completely possible to learn to love cleaning. I read somewhere once that most of the time we don’t love cleaning because we don’t feel like we know what we’re doing. So perhaps a little time can be invested into picking a method–any method to begin with, then evolving it as we go along and become more proficient at the practice. Then we just ask the Lord to change our hearts and give us that love for it! I’ve had to do this so many times and God gives me the heart I need.
Spending the week with these lovely cleaning ladies and seeing the difference their work made in our old home renewed my love for cleaning and my determination to make our current home as lovely, sparkly, temple clean as I can make it.