Fifteen Things I Learned While Cleaning My New House

1. Four hands are better than two. Ten hands are even better.
2. A steam cleaner is an indispensable tool.
3. Two steam cleaners are even better because when you run out of water, you don’t have to stop what you are doing and wait for it to reheat.
4. Use your offspring for their intended purpose: as “go-fers.”
5. Soap scum is the enemy and should be treated as such from day one. Otherwise, after about seven years it will be so firmly entrenched in your glass shower that Soft Scrub, Lime-a-way, Kaboom, Scrub Free, Tilex and the steam cleaner barely even make a dent
6. You should clean the floor under your kitchen drawers from time to time lest you sell the house and the new owners find two bibs, 16 assorted ziplock bags, half a dozen randomly sized pieces of tin foil, several plastic packages left over from who knows what, a corn skewer, a refrigerator magnet, two inches of dust, and the instructions for your Pampered Chef garlic press.
7. A conveniently sized stool to sit on will prevent the hours of back pain that occur while cleaning the oven, lower cabinets, etc.
8. A metal scraper is super handy for prying off the dried blobs of who-in-the-heck-knows that appear in assorted places around the house.
9. Keep a couple of bandaids handy for when your two-year-old falls and gouges his hand on the exposed carpet tack strip. Keeping up on his shots is also advisable to that you don’t waste precious cleaning time having a panic attack about tetanus.
10. In your rush to pack before moving, don’t accidentally grab the instruction manual for the oven (which you are leaving) instead of the refrigerator (which you are taking) just because they have the same brand name on the cover. Knowing how the self-clean feature of the oven works won’t help when your ice maker is on the fritz and the new owners may be at a loss when it comes to removing the oven door.
11. Rubber gloves. Can’t clean without them. And buy the good ones so you don’t have to stop every two minutes to dry your hands off and get new gloves.
12. Take a sabbatical from saving the planet and use paper towels. Using 2 . . . or three . . . or five rolls will save you the trouble of having to wash a bunch of incredibly nasty rags when you are finally done.
13. There can never be too much 409. Or Clorox.
14. Clean the cabinets right next to the range before you start the self-clean cycle. Otherwise, you will be a sweat bomb as your contortions while reaching the back of the cabinets result in your ear being pressed against the oven door.
15. Be sure to thank your totally awesome mother-in-law for working by your side and cutting the total cleaning time down by days.