5 Old-School Cleaning Rules These Grandmas Happily Ignore
Grandmothers are the keepers of all good advice. They especially have lots of guidance when it comes to cleaning like a total pro. Over the years, grandmas have shared all kinds of cleaning tips and tricks and have even taught us how to organize our kitchens.
But, recently, I got to thinking: With their decades of experience, are there any household cleaning rules that grandmothers actually ignore? Turns out, there are! Here are five conventional cleaning rules that grandmothers happily don’t bother following.
1. Don’t feel like you have to iron everything.
“My mother doesn’t iron a thing! Especially bedding — could you imagine? Apparently, that was a thing at one point,” says Christina Roberts, about her mother, Cheryl Guild. Guild feels that “prompt removal from the dryer” and hanging or folding any items prevents unsightly wrinkles — so there’s no need to pull out the iron.
2. Don’t worry about sweeping every day.
“I definitely don’t sweep the kitchen every night,” admits Kathy Button-Hughes, a Florida-based grandmother. Although her daughter runs a robot vacuum daily to deal with dog hair and toddler mess, Button-Hughes skips the nightly sweep in her own home. “I only do it when there’s a spill or I break something,” she says. She keeps both a traditional broom and a Swiffer in her cleaning closet, using whichever one the job calls for.
3. Don’t stress about washing your windows.
Guild remembers her own mother taking the time to regularly wash windows, but a “good deep cleaning” once or twice a year is all you really need, she says.
4. Don’t pre-rinse dishes.
Jane Hart, a grandmother in South Carolina, rarely rinses her dishes before loading up the dishwasher. The key is to use a great dish detergent, and Hart’s pick is Finish Powerball. “It conserves water, too, which is the important thing.”
Read more: Mom Was Wrong: You Don’t Need to Pre-Rinse Dishes for the Dishwasher
5. Don’t bother with heavy-duty floor cleaners.
“I gave my Shark steam-mop to my daughter,” says New York grandma Kathy Newby, who chose to forego the chemicals. Her new steam model just relies on water and heat to clean, and she finds that using the simple stuff gets the job done.
Which cleaning rules do you break? Tell us in the comments below.