What Are Some Tips and Tricks Professional Cleaners Use?

---

*Some links in this post are affiliate links — if you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.*

---

When you clean for a living, you stop buying into the marketing pretty fast. Our team has run through enough products over the years to know what actually works, and most of it has been in your pantry the whole time. Here are five tips and tricks the team swears by at home, all of them cheap and most of them under five dollars.

---

1. Cleaning vinegar on windows (undiluted)

Regular white vinegar sits at about 5% acidity. Cleaning vinegar runs 6 to 8%, which sounds minor until you’re standing in front of a smudgy window. Use it undiluted in a spray bottle with a microfibre cloth, wipe horizontally on one side and vertically on the other. If you see a streak when you’re done, you’ll know exactly which side it’s on.

It costs about two dollars at most grocery stores and outperforms most name-brand glass cleaners, especially on hard water spots near sinks. Double Strength Vinegar

---

2. Baking soda and blue Dawn for hard water buildup

Mix baking soda with a small squeeze of blue Dawn (the original, not a different scent) until you have a thick paste. Apply it to faucets, fixtures, or anywhere with hard water buildup, let it sit for ten minutes, then scrub with an old toothbrush and rinse. The baking soda acts as a mild abrasive while the Dawn cuts through the mineral deposits underneath.

(There’s a reason they use blue Dawn to clean oil-soaked wildlife after spills. The surfactant formula is genuinely different from other dish soaps.)

This works on grout lines, bathroom caulking, and the base of taps where buildup tends to collect and never fully gets cleaned. Blue Dawn, Baking Soda 1kg

---

3. Spray your shower after every use

Fill a spray bottle with cleaning vinegar and add about a tablespoon of blue Dawn. After every shower, while the walls are still warm, spray everything down and leave it. Don’t rinse.

The vinegar handles mineral buildup and the Dawn handles soap scum. Done consistently, this eliminates the need to ever deep-scrub a shower. It takes ten seconds. Mold and mildew need moisture and soap residue to grow, so removing the food source is the whole game.

---

4. Rubbing alcohol for mirrors

Mix equal parts isopropyl alcohol (70% works fine) and distilled water in a spray bottle. Use it with a microfibre cloth on mirrors, chrome fixtures, or any glass surface. It evaporates fast, cuts through toothpaste splatter and hairspray, and leaves no residue. It also disinfects while it cleans.

Distilled water matters here. Tap water has minerals in it that leave spots on glass, which defeats the whole point.

A bottle of rubbing alcohol costs about two dollars and makes a lot of cleaning solution.

---

5. A simmer pot over air fresheners

Air fresheners mask odors, but using a simmer pot changes the way your home smells, and it’s an inexpensive way to freshen the air. Bonus: simmer pots can be modified for allergies or different scents.

Fill a small pot with water, add whatever you have on hand: citrus peels, cinnamon sticks, a few cloves, a sprig of rosemary or other fresh herbs. Bring it to a low boil and drop it to a simmer. The steam carries the scent through the whole house. Top up the water as it evaporates and keep an eye on it so it doesn’t run dry. Apples, cranberries, and other fruits work as well!

After a deep clean, this is the finishing touch that makes a home smell genuinely fresh instead of like a synthetic plug-in. It’s also why walking into a house where someone has been cooking or baking always feels more welcoming than walking into one that smells like an air freshener. Your home should smell like it’s lived in, not like a hotel lobby.

---

These are the kinds of things our team picks up from doing this work every day. None of it is complicated and none of it costs much.

If you’d rather skip all of it and just come home to a clean house, that’s what we’re here for. Book online at monctonclean.com in about a minute, no phone call needed.