Cleaning the Dirtiest Areas in my House

I don't consider myself a perfectionist when it comes to cleaning. I know how to do all of the cleaning things properly. I just don't want to spend all of my time doing it, so I don't get all of the jobs done all the time. And, you know, over the course of weeks or months it's okay, but over the course of years it definitely starts to show. And over the past little while I have noticed things around this house that really just need to be attended to now. So in this video we're going to go around the house and find some of the dirtiest areas here that have been neglected, admittedly, and we are going to clean them today. So get your barf bucket, roll up your sleeves, and let's clean some dirty places. And just a quick reminder if you haven't done so already to subscribe to the Clean My Space channel and give this video a thumbs up if you are just fine with 7 out of 10 clean. Windowsills seem easy enough to clean when they're exposed like this one over here. You kind of just wipe and move on with your life. But the ones behind screens are a totally different story. I was recently standing at the sink and I peered out the window and then slightly looked down and something was going on that I have never quite seen before in my almost 15 years of professional cleaning experience. I don't know if it's mold, I don't know if it's fur, I don't know if it's dust, if it's a new species, but there's something growing in my windowsill and it needs to be tackled. Now I've avoided this for a long time but I'm going to glove up, I'm going to mask up, and I'm going to clean it. Well, I didn't glove up. I realized I was a little overzealous there. But I am mixing equal parts borax and vinegar which is a really great cleaner to get rid of molds and mildew. I'm mixing it with a cleaning toothbrush and I'm only mixing up as much as I will need for this particular task. The rest of it is getting dumped. Once that's done I'm just going to quickly dry brush to loosen anything that I don't want to be getting wet and I'll brush it outside. Now following that I'll apply the product with the cleaning toothbrush and give it a good thorough brushing. I was grateful to see that this didn't really leave any residual staining and it was pretty easy to clean off. Following that I used a paper towel to remove it and I'm finishing up with a treatment spray. This is going to prevent regrowth. You kind of spray it on and let it dry. So even though it was a gross job it didn't take very long and I'm glad that I tackled the mystery fur. Prior to moving into this house Chad and I each had our own bathrooms and for me it was bliss. But when we moved into this house it wasn't going to work and we had to not only share a bathroom but share a sink which I know most people in the world do and it is totally fine. That said it is ripe for playing the blame game. Namely who clogged the bathroom sink. I don't think it was me. I know you're looking at me and you're like you have long hair it's probably you. But really I had no problems in our old house so I can only point a finger at this side of the bathroom which happens to be Chad's side. So on that note I'm very happy to clean a lot of things in our house but I am actually going to call him in to clean the bathroom sink out because this is a really not only a dirty job but it's actually a bit of a gut-wrenching job and it's something he's done and he's used to and he's capable of. So I will talk you through what he's doing but he will actually be doing the work. So the first thing to do is to remove the drain cover and oh gosh you can just see that crusty grime in there. So he's using a paper towel to sort of swirl it around and pick out as much as he can. Yeah you really got to get in there Chad. Yeah. One more go around. That's good. Now we have this plastic drain cleaning tool and you can see to his right he's got a plastic bag that way he can just quickly dump whatever he pulls out right in there. The idea is those little hooks will grab on to things that you know shouldn't be in the sink and you can quickly and easily remove them and pop them into the bag. You obviously want to be gentle so that you don't get a bunch of splatters. Then following that he's using paper towels to give the drain cover a good wipe. You can see we're not using microfiber here it's just yeah you just want to use a disposable product for this type of job. Now following that you can screw the drain cover back on and see how it runs. If it's running well great and if it's not you can actually use a drain cleaning product. There are tons of great eco-friendly options on the market. I don't cozy up to my dishwasher for nothing. I have a story to tell you. A year ago our dishwasher broke during COVID and we had to replace it. Our old dishwasher did not have a cleanable filter and our dishes tended to come out pretty clean. We got this dishwasher and it does have a removable filter. Chad and I have always argued about should you pre-rinse your dishes before you load them or not. I think you should give them a little bit. You should kind of scrape them clean and like get any big stuff off so that way when you park your dishes in the dishwasher there's no residual food sitting at the bottom and Chad's just like nope the package on the dishwasher detergent says to throw in your dirty dishes so that's what I'm doing. Over time I've noticed that our dishes aren't coming out as clean and I know what that means. It means we've got to clean the filter and now that we have a removable one I gotta pony up to the dishwasher get comfortable and give it a clean. So here's what to do. You want to make sure that your dishwasher is empty obviously this is going to make the job a lot easier for you and if you want to you can remove the bottom rack of the dishwasher just for easier access. You need to look around and you might want to check your owner's manual for this just to give you the quickest method to make this happen but you should find some sort of a dial and what you can do is turn it generally counterclockwise and then you can remove the filter you'll take it up to your sink and tap it out there's going to be a lot of stuff trapped there both you know large kind of bulkier things pieces of corn remnants of that salsa trust me you're going to see it all so dump that into the sink but then there's going to be like this kind of mesh this pulp that you have to scrub off so I'll give it a scrub with a cleaning toothbrush you can also use a nylon toothbrush a nylon a nylon scrub brush give it a scrub give it a rinse you don't need to dry it because hello it's going back in the dishwasher and then just put it in now if you notice there's any other remnants at the bottom of the dishwasher outside of the filter this is a great time to give that a wipe down as well you can also use the dishwasher cleaning tablet those are easy to find and they do help I've had these garbage cans for many years they used to be in my old bathroom and then when we moved into this house they became our garbage can what I like about them is one is garbage and one is recycling the thing is any bathroom or kitchen garbage or recycling can gets dirty especially if you don't put a plastic liner in but even if you do they need to be cleaned out these they need a cleaning the easiest way to do this is to use a paste of borax and water so I'll mix equal parts together then I'm going to apply it generously on the inside I'll give it a minute or two and then scrub it and rinse and dry the reason I like borax is a pretty powerful cleaner but it's still relatively gentle it's a step up from baking soda but I'm not bringing out the big guns that's why I went for borax it's a pretty easy thing to do and it does make a big difference I think the last time I did this honestly I don't remember and that's why I'm doing it now in practice I know that you're supposed to change your furnace filter two to four times a year and I can't remember the last time we changed ours so that's why when we were doing this video today I put that task on our list the easiest thing about this job is just pulling out the filter and popping the new one back in the hardest thing about this job is remembering to have clean ones on hand so if I'm saying this to you and it's resonating just go online place an order for some filters and set a calendar item to change them that is something that Chad and I have talked about as of filming today and we will be doing it on a quarterly basis going forward indoor air quality is very important and that's why we've got to stay on top of this so now I've shown you some of the dirtiest places in my home have I shown you all the dirtiest places in my home of course not because even I don't want to look at those places I will deal with them later today we just dealt with what I felt mentally capable of dealing with and that brings me to this week's comment question which is what are the dirtiest places or what is the dirtiest place in your home right now let me know in the comments and let me know if watching this video has motivated or inspired you to tackle one or more of them if washing machine was one of the items on your dirtiest in my home list here is a video all about how to clean your washing machine so go and check that out I'll also let you know that if you want to shop any makers clean products we've got all of them listed for you right down below this video player screen so you can go check that out if you haven't done so already subscribe to the clean my space channel thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time