Men Only Need 5 Things to Clean a House

September 12, 2010, By Timothy Sexton 1 comment

Men are not the cleanest animals in the world. Perhaps the reason that men are so resistant to cleaning up is because they are intimidated by sheer volume. So many things to clean. So many things to clean them with. However, you can impress everyone with your mad cleaning skills using this simple tool kit, which contains less than a dozen items.

Vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner is an indispensable tool for keeping the house clean, even if you don't have a single fiber of carpeting. Extensions and accessories allow you to keep the drapes clean, suck items out from beneath cushions, and even keep your power bill down by keeping your ducts free of blockage.

A sturdy bucket. Buckets are useful for holding the cleaning solutions and water for rinsing. The bucket is also one-half of the Abbott and Costello of housekeeping. The other half is the mop. Make sure that your bucket has a handle that won't dig painfully into your palm, isn't too large to carry from one room to the next when full, and isn't made of metal, which will corrode. Here's another tip: Break with tradition and buy a square-shaped bucket. Those round buckets are just too easy to tip over.

Rags. Rags and sponges will come in handy for cleaning everything from walls to the inside of a toilet. Forget all about getting that flat stomach back and focus instead on learning to love sticking your hand into the toilet bowl if you really want to stoke the lusty fires of love.

(If you stopped reading at the above paragraph, well, that's your fault. If you had read this paragraph, you would have learned that rubber gloves are absolutely essential for making an effective cleaning tool kit. Not only do rubber gloves protect you from the ick quotient, they also protect your skin from abrasive cleansing agents.)

Brushes. A nylon-bristled brush can be used to clean upholstery, concrete and nonceramic tubs. A soft-bristled brush can handle the ceramic tubs, toilets and sinks. A wire brush should only be used for things such as grills or when your cleaning job requires the removal of paint.

Baking soda. Don't be tempted by advertising into thinking that you must have every kind of cleansing agent on the market. For a surprising number of items, you can get by with baking soda. An extremely shortened list of things you can do with baking soda: polish the silver, clean up pet vomit, remove shoe marks from hardwood floors, get those crayon marks off the wall before anyone realizes you let the kids draw on the wall, clean away grime from wallpaper and use as a mild abrasive to clean kitchen and bathroom surfaces.

Remember that a clean house is a healthy house. Even more importantly, a clean house could be a ticket to the love train.