11 Kitchen Cleaning Hacks That Can Save Your Day

The kitchen is the most germ-filled room the whole house, in every house. Those germs can provoke a variety of illnesses, starting, but not ending with the flu and the common cold. So thorough cleaning is crucial for your health and the health of your family.

We at Bright Side are eager to make your life easier with every article and we are pleased to show our new collection of hacks for flawless kitchens.

Clean those greasy stove vents.

To see the place in your kitchen that collects the most grease — look up. Vents above your stove can be the filthiest. To scrub them clean follow this process:

• Take out the vents.
• Boil water in a large stainless steel pot.
• Add about a 1/4 cup of baking soda at a time until it brings the boiling water to a fizz — be careful, don’t add too much at a time!
• Let your vents boil in this mixture.
• If you have a smaller pot, you’ll need to flip the vent over several times — let them sit for about 60 seconds each time.
• Watch the grease come off.

After this process your vents will look brand new!

Make kitchen tiles look brand new.

Large or small — any type of tiles harbor a lot of dirt. Let’s apply some chemistry lessons to them!

• Sprinkle baking soda over the tiles.
• Use a spray bottle filled with cleaning vinegar (or a 1/4 cup of bleach) and spray it over the baking soda.
• Let it fizzle for a few minutes.
• Scrub the dirt away.
• Don’t wait too long though — after a while, the dirt will settle back in.

Renew ruined pans.

Making your pots and pans look like they are brand new is a pretty easy job, if you know this trick.

• Pour a thin layer of water in the pan.
• Add a couple of splashes of vinegar.
• Place it on the stove at medium to high heat and bring the water to a boil.
• Take the pan off the stovetop and add a handful of baking soda gradually — that way the solution won’t fizz over.
• Pour the solution out of the pan and start scrubbing.
• If needed, you can scrub the stubborn stains with a little bit of soda paste (soda plus water, making a paste consistency).

Clean your kitchen sponge.

Sponges can transfer a ton of bacteria from one plate to another, so you should clean them at least once every couple of days. There is a certain way you can do it:

1. To soften the sponge and make the dirt and oils unstick from it and kill the bacteria — microwave the sponge with a glass of water for a few minutes on high.
2. Put in the dishwasher on a long cycle with other dishes? This will kill the nasty smell.

You’ll get the cleanest sponge you’ve ever had, aside from buying new one, of course.

Clean the spots from a not-so-stainless steel sink.

Sinks collect a bunch of nasty things and there are ways to clean up stains from your stainless (ha!) steel sink. The following 4 things will help you with this:

• Magic Eraser
• Baking soda paste (diluted with water or small amount of vinegar)
• Dawn dish soap and peroxide (mix carefully)
• Vinegar and dish soap

Of course, you can try to use stainless steel sponges, but in the case that you don’t have them, or don’t want to buy them—we’re sure that you have some of these ingredients in your cabinet.

Get off baked-on grease.

Baking dishes are the usual victims of “un-scrubbable” spots. To make them look fresh and new:

• Cover the part that needs cleaning with a dish soap and baking soda mixture.
• Pour hot water over it and let it sit for 15 minutes.
• Take a piece of aluminum foil and crumble it up.
• Scrub the dish with the aluminum ball.

Make an easy tool to clean in between countertops.

The easiest way to clean those hard to reach places is to take a wet towel and wrap it around a butter knife. Add cleaning solution onto the dirty spots and scrub out the dirt from the cavity.

Polish up stove burners by barely touching them.

This is a trick that will not involve scrubbing.

• Take a Ziploc bag and fill it up with 1/4 cup of ammonia.
• Put your stove burner inside and lock the bag.
• Do not use more ammonia than needed — the fumes are what do the trick, not the solution.
• Leave overnight.
• Wipe off the gunk with a sponge or a wet towel.

Make the kitchen faucet shine again.

Cleaning faucets will be much easier and faster if you do the following:

• Get a Ziploc bag or a small plastic bag.
• Add a magical solution of vinegar and soda, enough to cover the faucet.
• Put the bag over the faucet.
• Secure the bag with a rubber band.

Wait for about an hour before you take the bag off. Wipe off the rest of the solution and scrub off the stubborn rust with an old toothbrush.

Be smarter than the dustpan.

This handy little trick will help you out with dusty floors. Instead of using the dustpan after sweeping the surface, use a wet paper towel or a baby wipe — collect the dust on it and pick it up, wiping the dust, that didn’t get on with the other side of the towel.

Cleaning out the fridge

To kill the unpleasant smell in your refrigerator — either wash it with a trusty combination of baking soda and vinegar, or:

• Put potato peels in the fridge.
• Take halves of an orange or a lemon and stick a good amount of cloves in it and place it on the shelf.
• If you are a fan of vanilla — take a cotton ball soaked in vanilla extract and place it in the fridge in a small bowl.
• One of the lesser-known things you can use is activated carbon. Place it on the top shelf (or every shelf) to reduce smells.

Do you have your own hacks that you love to use around the kitchen? Be sure to share some good housekeeping secrets in the comment section below!