Spring Clean Your House in 5 Minutes with Ms. Cellaneous

Welcome to the “Spring Clean Your House in 5 Minutes” series! Through this series, I will give you lots of ideas to try out in the month of April of things you can do to get to those pesky jobs that need to get done that you never get around to! These jobs should take you about 5 minutes each.

When you have completed a Clean Your House task, come back here and leave a comment for a chance to win a prize. To EASILY get back here, click the picture of the “Little Sweeper” on the top right sidebar. Read through the FAQ’s after the list of ideas to understand what this is all about. Here are all the chores:

1. Clean a ceiling fan.
2. Wash the dust and grime off the top of the lightbulb fixture along your bathroom mirror.
3. Move items off your kitchen counter and wipe down the counter and wall behind those items.
4. Remove the grate from the front of the fridge and clean that area out, including drip pan.
5. Organize one shelf in the pantry.
6. Pull out one major appliance and sweep/mop/(whatever) under it and return the appliance to the proper place.
7. Grab the edge attachment to your vacuum and get busy cleaning nooks, crannies and edges wherever needed for 5 minutes.
8. Clean out the drawer under the stove.
9. Take your broom with you as you check ceilings inside, or on the porch for cobwebs.
10. Wash baseboards for 5 minutes
11. Use a “magic eraser” type product or wash rag and clean a door frame from top to bottom
12. Do 5 minutes worth of filing papers
13. Get a grocery sack and fill it with as much as you can in 5 minutes to donate to charity.
14. Clean out unnecessary computer files for 5 minutes.
15. Dust/wipe/scrub/polish/whatever the chandelier.
16. Clear off the top of the washer and dryer and give it a wipe down.
17. Clean out from under the couch. Also, try cleaning in the couch-remove the cushions if you can, reach your hand in and see if you can find spare change, a missing sock, cheerios, etc.
18. Wipe down your home phone thoroughly, handset and holder.
19. Clean out one cupboard.
20. Purge your purse! Dump it out, only put back in needed items!
21. Remove a light fixture, dump out bugs and dirt, wipe off, put back.
22. Clean anything you can find that is above your eye level for 5 minutes. (ie top of fridge, top of bookcases, top of picture frames, etc.)
23. Vacuum/wipe out some air conditioning/heater vents. While you are at it, check if your AC filter needs changing.
24. Wipe down a few cupboard doors and handles.
25. Get the gunk out of window tracks.
26. Clean several lightswitch plates and outlets.
27. Wash the toothbrush holder.
28. Vacuum a piece of furniture.
29. Wash stuffed animals—check labels for how. Some can be thrown in a pillow case and put in the washing machine, others must be washed by hand with a damp rag.
30. Air out throw rugs or curtains.
31. Check dryer exhaust tube for built up lint and stuff.
32. Clean some blinds.
33. Dust your smoke alarms and check the batteries.
34. Shake out your door mats.
35. Clean out the garbage can and then put a dryer sheet in before replacing the garbage bag.
36. Spot clean walls.
37. Quickly inventory the fridge and get rid of all things moldy, gross, old and disgusting.
38. Wash your bath mats.
39. Clean out the “hair care” section of the bathroom—clean hair out of brushes, get rid of bobby pins that don’t stay shut, toss broken barettes, etc.
40. Wash some kitchen chairs/benches.
41. Remove and clean the blade from your electric can opener.
42. Clean knick-knacks.
43. Clean silk plants.
44. Clear out a few old videos and books to create more room on your shelves.
45. Throw away non-working pens, sharpen pencils.
46. Clean out a nightstand or end table.
47. Clean out the food trap in your dishwasher.
48. Reapply sealer to grout lines. Just use a paintbrush and do a small area.
49. Update your first aid kit. Get rid of band-aid wrappers and empty salve containers. Restock it, or at least make a list of what you need to get.
50. Flip and rotate a mattress.


It is fair game to assign a child to do the task as long as you check to make sure it is a job well done. If it qualifies as a job well done, come leave a comment to get entered for the chance to win. (Maybe you will even consider sharing the prize with your child.)

Why are you putting this on your blog? I thought of doing this mostly so that I can make myself do some of these things. By putting it on my blog, I give myself some accountability. Besides that, I thought someone else might want to join me in doing this. :)

What am I supposed to do?
**Read over the ideas.
**Decide to do one now.
**Do it.
**Report back here and leave a comment (or email me at blog@completelee.com) letting me know “I did it!” {You can tell me exactly what you did, or how much fun you had doing it if you want, or simply let me know, “Did #2”.}
** Repeat the process!

What about prizes? If you follow those steps, I will willingly lavish praise upon you as well as enter you in to a drawing to win one of these items: {If you win, you choose the item you want.}

~~My “Storyoni” game (The hilarious imagination game that our family hates to quit playing.)~~My “Out of the Mouths of Babes” book (digital version only)
~~One dozen cookies or one loaf of bread (continental U.S. only)
~~$5.00 worth of digital publications (See what you might want here)

{If you have a prize you would like to donate to the cause, let me know!}

What about things I have more than one of? Does that count as one task or two? Most people have more than one shelf in the pantry, more than 5 minutes worth of paper to file, more than 1 light fixture, etc. So, if it makes sense for you to do one of the ideas more than once, do it!

How many times can I be entered in to the drawing? For this series, you can be entered an unlimited amount of times. My goal is to do at least one thing from the list each day. If you really, really, really, really want to win a prize, you can also refer your friends and family members to this contest. If you can get them to leave a comment on my blog stating your name (or blog name) as the person who referred them, you will be entered in again 5 more times!

Why 5 minutes? I am busy! I don’t have time for more stuff, but 5 minutes out of my day seems do-able. I'm thinking that anyone that wants to can find 5 minutes to put towards this.

Any questions? Please ask away!

Go on! I dare you to join me in this quest for cleanliness! :)

This blog has more cleaning ideas.
This blog does a "Talk about Tuesday" carnival which is kind of a show and tell project carnival.