Spring cleaning is trendier, but there are plenty of cleaning tasks for every season. Here are a few chores to check off your list for summer.
A cleaning must-have
For almost every category below, vinegar is a star player. It’s a reliable household cleaner that we recommend keeping stocked in your pantry. A few things to keep in mind:
- Never mix vinegar with bleach.
- 5% is usually enough for general cleaning.
- If you use higher acidity percentages, dilute more.
- Vinegar is a natural cleaner, but it’s acidic and can still be harsh on some surfaces (like natural stone).
While not as breezy as springtime, you’re probably still spending time outdoors, and with good reason — there are plenty of health benefits. So, give your outdoor spaces a clean slate.
To keep it simple, use your garden hose and diluted vinegar, letting the solution sit on decks and pavers for 10 minutes or so before rinsing. It helps clean away mold, mildew, and moss that may have built up from colder, damper weather.
This works on most outdoor surfaces, including decks and pavers, but skip the vinegar when it comes to natural stone. Stick with water or look for a pH-balanced natural stone cleaner at your hardware store.
When it comes to the siding or stucco on your home, power washing (no cleaning agents necessary) can make your house look like it got a fresh coat of paint.
Helpful tools
You may be gathering more to grill with friends and neighbors, or you may not want to run your oven indoors, adding extra heat to your home. Either way, deep clean your grill if it’s been a while. You can clean the grates by soaking them in a 2:1 ratio of vinegar and baking soda overnight.
But perhaps more importantly, your metal wire grill brush has to go. Pitch it. Safer alternatives are available and relatively cheap.
Doctors — especially emergency doctors — are increasingly warning against metal grill brushes. The American College of Surgeons details an example case from 2023 that required emergency surgery.
And a 2016 research review found that between 2002 and 2014, nearly 1,700 people got injured from those little bristles getting into their food and, therefore, their mouths, intestines, and, yes, bowels. Researchers also reported that these types of injuries tend to spike in summer months when grilling is more frequent. A pediatric emergency room doctor detailed an interesting but scary case that even affected a child’s ear.
The consensus: This type of injury may not be as common as others, but given it’s totally preventable (and more common than you might think), it’s a good idea to ditch the wire grill brush.
The replacements
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) units are likely keeping you nice and cool as everything else heats up, but this also means pollutants, allergens, and dust can gather indoors. It helps to have the pros come out and clean your HVAC unit. They can tackle the coils, fans, and inner workings to help make sure it’s clean and running efficiently.
But as one easy DIY defense, make sure you swap out all your air filters for new ones. Consider doing this every month in the summer when your central air is running more often. Opt for a minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) 13 filter, which also traps viruses, bacteria, mold, smog, and smoke in addition to the dust, dander, and pollen that lower MERV-rated filters protect against.
Spend an afternoon dusting ceiling fans and fridge vents to reduce the dust buildup indoors. If you want to go the extra mile and are ready to invest in a pricey item, an air purifier is also very helpful for making sure you‘re breathing in healthy air.
Helpful tools
If you didn’t catch it in your spring cleaning, clean out window and door tracks that likely have crumbs and other dusty buildup that could attract bugs or allow them to get too comfortable. (The handy tool below might also work really well on baseboards.)
Because summer is buggy, dab your window seals and tracks with peppermint oil to help deter new visitors.
And if it’s been a while since you’ve dusted your blinds, now is a good time to eliminate extra dust indoors.
Streaky clean tipVinegar is also a great streak-free glass cleaner. But it works better on the outside of the windows once you’ve hosed off extra dirt and grime.
Helpful tools
As pool towels — and bath towels for that matter — get a musty smell, prevent and remedy this by washing towels in extra hot water with vinegar and sprinkling baking soda in the drum.
(But never mix bleach with vinegar because it creates a toxic chemical reaction.)
You can clean sweat stains with a 1:1 combo of dish soap and hydrogen peroxide. Mix the ingredients in a spray bottle of your choice and spritz the affected area.
Last but not least, trash. Outdoor trash cans get particularly stinky as they bake in the summer heat. It’s a good time to hose them out with (use vinegar or dish soap as needed) and utilize a baking soda deodorizer.
| Wipe down baseboards | Summer activities have likely tracked in extra dirt and dust in these easily ignored crevices. |
| Keep disinfecting high touch areas | Think doorknobs, light switches, cabinet and fridge handles, remotes — in addition to countertops and tables (If you want to upgrade your disinfectant, try Force of Nature). |
| Vacuum and dust more often | More foot traffic in and out means more allergens and coming indoors, too. Upping your vacuum frequency can help, even if you tackle small sections here and there. |
| Dust out-of-sight surfaces | Think of spaces like like the top of your refrigerator, the tops of cabinets, inside cabinets you don’t use often, higher pantry shelves, and around door frames. |
| Oven deep clean | You may be grilling outside more and using your oven less, so consider doing a deep clean before cooler months and holidays hit. |
| Patio furniture | If you have an air compressor, it’s great for blasting out dust and dirt in the fabric since these items may be getting more use. |
| Cobweb control | Look up, and use a long vertical duster to grab any cobwebs and clear out areas where the ceiling meets the wall. |