11 Cleaning Hacks Professional Housekeepers Swear By

Keep your place cleaner than ever with these easy tricks.
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Originally written by Jillian Kramer for Glamour.com.

The next best thing to having a housekeeper, we think, is having her top hacks to keeping your house in tip-top shape. That's why we turned to three cleaners—plus several professional organizers and renovators to boot—for insider ideas that will keep your house clean with minimal effort.

1. Use salt to soak up wine spills. Spilling red wine isn't a death knell for your area rug—nor does it have to be a distraction to your Netflix binging. In fact, says HomeZada cofounder Elizabeth Dodson, there's no need to spend hours scrubbing red wine at all. Instead, she says, you can simply sprinkle salt on the spill and go back toFriends reruns as it sucks the stain right out of your rug. "It is amazing as you watch the red wine be absorbed into the salt," Dodson says. "You let it sit for a few hours, then you vacuum up the salt and wipe away the excess. Abracadabra—it's magic!"

2. Skip folding your unmentionables. Certified house cleaning technician and owner of Unclutter Donna Smallin Kuper admits she loves how folded underwear looks in a drawer. "I used to fold and re-fold them," she says, "until I realized that life is too short to fold underwear." You can skip this step and save yourself valuable time too. We promise you'll still be able to find your favorite pink pair when you need it.

3. Line your refrigerator shelves with parchment paper. Go Cleaners London housekeeper Harriet Jones speaks serious truth: "Sometimes a steel door can be the gate to hell," she says, describing what can happen inside your fridge when something like, say, soy sauce drips out of the jar. But you can save time cleaning spills or sticky leftovers, she says, by simply lining your shelves with parchment paper. "When—things get messy, simply replace the liners with new ones," Jones says.

4. Stop scrubbing the toilet. You don't need dentures yet—but if you want to toss your toilet brush in favor of going scrub-free, you'll need to invest in denture cleansing tablets, such as the fizzing ones made by Polident. "Just drop one in and let it do the job, then flush" says president of Molly Maid Meg Roberts, who promises a single tablet will get rid of toilet bowl stains and rust.

5. Store cleaning supplies in every room. It may seem indulgent—or even a waste of money—to have more than one Windex lying around. But Samantha Pregenzer, owner of Simply Organized, says that keeping a fully-stocked cleaning caddy in each room of your home is clutch. "I find it helpful to have cleaning caddies in each zone of the home—one for the bathroom, one for the kitchen, one for the living room," she says. "That way, you have all the products you may need where you will need them," without wasting the time to hunt them down.

6. Let your socks do the cleaning. Solutions by Sonya owner Sonya Joseph says microfiber socks may be the key to her clean floors. "I wear them whenever I'm walking around the house," she says, because they capture dirt and dust from her floors and don't let them go. Joseph also says she owns several so that she can swap dirty pairs for clean ones whenever needed. "I might only wear them for a couple hours, but all the dust in the house sticks to my socks and I just toss them in the laundry," she explains. "And my floors feel clean and tidy all week long."

7. Take off your shoes at the front door. You may not want to be one of those people who makes guests remove their shoes before walking on your carpet, but the simple fact is that shoes track in dirt—dirt that you'll have to clean up later. So place a mat or tray inside your front door to prompt people to go shoe-free, says certified professional organizer Amy Trager, and you'll cut down on your vacuuming time. "If you don't like bare feet, keep slippers by the doors so you can swap footwear when you walk in the door," she suggests.

8. Lemon isn't just for flavor. No one wants to spend hours soaking a greasy pan. And with a little lemon, says Kuper, you don't have to. "Use the remnants of a cut lemon to clean a pan with greasy, cooked-on grunge," she says, such as a pan you just used to fry bacon. "After the pan cools," Kuper says, "take a cut lemon and rub it all over the pan. In minutes, the acid in the lemon will have softened the grime so that you can just wipe it away and then wash as usual." Use the other half of the lemon to freshen your water or garnish a meal.

9. Put your morning tea to good use. If you start every morning with a cup of black tea, don't enjoy it to the last sip. Instead, says Jones, save the last tablespoon or two to clean your bathroom mirror. "Black tea and the tannin acid in it are your best friends when it comes to cleaning your bathroom mirror," she says. "Brew a pot and use a clean cloth to wipe it over mirror and you are done."

10. Never cut yourself on blender blades again. Washing a dirty blender is the worst. But Dodson promises you'll never risk cutting your fingers on its blades again with this cleaning tip. "Put a little soap and water into your blender and with the lid on, turn the blender on," she says. "You will see the blender clean in front of your eyes. Now rinse and let your blender pieces dry. No cuts!"

11. Beat dust with books. If dusting shelves isn't on your daily to-do list, then buying books might have to be. Trager suggests positioning your favorite novels on the very edge of your shelves. "Not only does it look great," she says, "but this style doesn't allow dust to accumulate on the shelves in front of the books. It settles behind the books, but no one ever sees that. Less dusting!"

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