You can spend hours cleaning your house and think it’s immaculate. Yet, infuriatingly, some dirty spots remain under the radar, even when you put lots of energy into cleaning.
How is that possible? Believe it or not, dirt can hide right under your nose and that’s not including the spots you don’t think to check. Have you ever looked behind the fridge? How often do you think about the dust lurking there, hidden from view?
If you want a truly clean home, be sure to check these hidden grime spots and items.
Behind and Above the Fridge
You may be religious about cleaning and organizing your fridge, and that’s an awesome way to keep your kitchen clean. Nevertheless, the battle is only half won if you don’t clean the top of the fridge or the coils behind it.
Grime can quickly accumulate in these areas and even attract pests like mice. You don’t have to clean behind the fridge every week, but it should definitely be on your radar a few times a year.
Hanging Lamps
Whenever I deep clean my dining room, I’m amazed at how much dust and dirt accumulates on the hanging lamp above the table. With an open floor plan, the steam from the kitchen acts like glue for the dust, making it stick a little too well to the lamp.
I’ve taken to doing a quick wipe-down of this hanging lamp (luckily, the only one in my home) every time I dust the dining room. It works! It also needs to be monitored frequently, especially during months when your HVAC system is frequently running.
Ceiling Fans
Much like hanging lamps, ceiling fan blades are a magnet for dust. You’d think dust doesn’t stand a chance — after all, a fan constantly moves. Yet, it seems like there’s some uncanny magic happening up there.
The best way to keep fans clean is to dust them regularly. Once a week is more than enough to keep the blades clean and free of debris that will eventually rain down on you.
Above Kitchen Cabinets
It’s easy to wipe down kitchen cabinets, but when did you last wipe down on top of them? As disgusting as it sounds, the kitchen is the dirtiest room in the home. There’s a lot of grime, grease, and dirt above your cabinets that you likely never consider.
Although it’s a pain to wipe them down every week, try to include the tops of your kitchen cabinets in your cleaning routine, or your kitchen will never be entirely dirt-free.
Toilet Base
You may overlook the toilet base even if you scrub your toilet routinely. Unfortunately, it’s a spot where a lot of unhygienic matter accumulates. Making matters worse, every time you sit down, your clothes touch the base of your toilet.
For a complete cleanup, wipe down the toilet base, including the bolts and the surrounding floor areas. Only then will your toilet be completely sanitized and smelling fresh.
Remote Controls
Remote controls aren’t high on anyone’s cleaning list. They’re not on the radar because they’re just there to flick through channels — just how dirty can they get?
Yet, think about how many times you grab them while having a snack or drop them on the floor. Worse, think about all the family members touching your remote daily and where their hands may have been. Yikes!
Cleaning Rags
Cleaning rags do a tough job. They wipe down grime and dust, wash floors, and clean windows, appliances, and even messes wherever they occur. Their hard work is exactly why they’re one of the dirtiest things in your home.
Sanitize them regularly and wash them after each use. Your best bet to keep your home clean is to have an arsenal of cleaning rags rather than a couple you use everywhere.
Cutting Boards
One rule for preventing cross-contamination in the kitchen is not to use the same cutting boards for meat and vegetables. Using the same cutting board is a great way to transfer bacteria from uncooked meat to your fresh veggies.
Additionally, wood and plastic cutting boards require different cleaning methods. Wood should be hand-washed and dried thoroughly to prevent warping and splitting, while plastic boards can be run through the dishwasher. Besides regularly cleaning them, don’t keep using cutting boards once they get scratched and cut. Bacteria can hide in these spots and contaminate your food.
Your Phone
You may have heard that a smartphone is ten times dirtier than a toilet seat, but is it true? Unfortunately, research confirms it. After all, we take our phones everywhere, including the dirtiest places in our homes and the great outdoors.
Wipe your phone down frequently with an alcohol swab and wash your hands before you handle it. Don’t spray disinfectant on it, though. It can damage the device.
Dish Sponges
Dish sponges are similar to cleaning rags in that they help keep your kitchen and dishes clean, which makes them dirt fighters. Yet, during their courageous battles, they get wet and rub dirt around all the time, so they double as a breeding ground for bacteria.
Your solution? Replace them as they show signs of mildew, which is when they start getting a funky odor. It’s way easier than trying to clean them.
Computer Keyboard
If you play a lot of games on the computer or work from home, your computer keyboard is something you use extensively every day. Combine that with eating your meals or snacks in front of the screen, and you can see why your keyboard can get filthy.
I do all my work from home, so to keep my keyboard and mouse clean, I wipe them down with disinfectant and use a duster spray every other week to eliminate dust and cat hair between the keys.
Toothbrush Holders
Toothbrushes help keep our teeth clean and healthy, but they also routinely get covered in bacteria from our mouths. All that bacteria lands on — you guessed it — their holders, making them an unexpected source of dirt in the bathroom.
Wipe toothbrush holders with a disinfectant wipe and wash them regularly in hot, soapy water to minimize bacterial growth.
Pet Toys
We don’t tend to think about pet toys as sources of dirt. After all, many of us who have pets routinely stroke and kiss our friends. Nevertheless, their toys roll on the floor or play with them outside, where there’s no shortage of allergens and germs.
Worse, our pets pick their toys in their mouths, covering them in bacteria. Routinely wash and disinfect pet toys to keep your pets healthy and your floors clean.
Your Washer and Dryer
Although washers and dryers clean our clothes, they don’t remain spotless in the process. Things like mold, mildew, dust, lint, and laundry soap scum proliferate in the washing machine and the dryer and can make them smell bad and become hotbeds for germs and bacteria.
Use vinegar to sanitize the washer, clean the lint trap on the dryer, and wipe down both appliances regularly to keep them in optimal function. Also, keep the lid of your washer open if possible, to allow it to dry out between uses.
Kitchen Towel
Kitchen towels are only second to kitchen sponges when it comes to dirt and germs. Think about how often you use them to wipe spills, dry your hands, and handle hot pots and pans.
In a room that’s already dirty, the kitchen towel takes the crown. To lessen its impact on your kitchen’s cleanliness, soak and wash your kitchen towel in hot, soapy water, and don’t use the same towel for more than a day or two.
Gym Bags
Gym bags hold dirty, sweaty workout clothes and sit at our feet in the car and on the gym floor. Besides, we touch them when we empty our clothes at the gym.
We should clean and disinfect our gym bags after each use or at least every week to keep bacteria at bay. It goes without saying that our workout clothes shouldn’t sit in the gym bag after we get home from a gym session — wash them immediately.
Light Switches
I usually use a magic eraser to keep my light switches clean. Before I discovered how versatile this item is around the house, I used to rub them with a vinegar-based solution that didn’t take care of all the stains.
It was also easy to forget about your light switches. After all, they’re abundant and don’t catch the eye, despite touching them multiple times daily with with grimy, unwashed hands.
Toss Pillows
Toss (or throw) pillows make our living rooms look more lived-in and stylish. Yet, if we don’t wash or dry clean them regularly, they also gather a lot of dirt and dust.
Worse, they tend to show it. Older toss pillows become discolored if we don’t clean them regularly. If you curl up on the couch with a toss pillow or lay your head on it while watching TV, you need to clean it regularly.
Shower Heads
Shower heads are easy to wipe down when you clean the bathtub. There’s a catch, however. The top of the shower head, which doesn’t come into contact with water, can accumulate a layer of dust, especially if you have a bathroom fan.
The good news is it only takes an extra wipe to clean this shower area, and it’s easy to do whenever you clean the bathroom.
Faucets
Faucets and aerators get covered in mineral deposits and dirt from splashing soapy water when we wash our hands or dishes. They can also experience limestone buildup.
To tackle the latter problem, soak them in vinegar. Regularly wipe them with dish soap and warm water to avoid them looking dirty and unkempt. They will recover their shine and make your bathroom and kitchen look sparkly clean.
Bathtubs
Bathtubs are where we go to keep ourselves clean, but they become one of the dirtiest spots in our bathrooms — a home for everything from soap scum to rust and grime.
The bad news is that the longer you wait to clean a bathtub, the more elbow grease you’ll need to return to its normal state. Spray your bathtub with a cleaner, let it sit, and use a brush to handle all the grime and dirt at least once a month. You should disinfect it weekly using a safe cleaner you can just wash off with the shower head.
Walls Around Your Toilet
While we’re on the topic of bathrooms, you should also pay close attention to the walls around your toilet. They can get dirtier than your toilet seat or bottom, and we neglect them when cleaning the bathroom.
Wipe the walls down with disinfectant regularly to keep the entire area around your toilet germ-free.
Kitchen Range Hood Filter
Although we don’t think about it much, our kitchen range hood is a great ally in our quest to keep the kitchen clean. It also freshens the air, sucking up cooking odors and keeping the house smelling clean.
The filter inside the hood has to deal with a lot of grease and dust, so it’s commonly filthy. Regularly clean your filter with hot, soapy water to keep it clean and prevent fire hazards.
Bath Fan Grill
Every time we turn the bath fan on, it sucks in dust from all over the house. It’s even worse if your bathroom is close to the front door like mine. While most of this dust should go away while the fan operates, some gets stuck in the grill.
That’s why you should take it off regularly and wipe it down or soak it in hot, soapy water before rinsing and replacing it. You don’t need any more sources of dust in the bathroom.