Spring cleaning hacks tried & tested, from coffee to hairdryers

Which quirky spring cleaning tips really work? We tried them out so you don't have to.

Spring is finally here and it’s that time of year when you start noticing the cobwebs around your home and how your smelly fridge and smoky oven need cleaning again.

But if you don’t fancy using harsh chemicals to clean your home, just how effective are less conventional spring cleaning methods?

You’re probably familiar with the cleaning powers of bicarbonate of soda and vinegar, but we tested out some of the more unusual suggestions.

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Coffee grounds

Coffee grounds are usually something that ends up in the food recycling bin, but some people claim they are also a useful cleaning agent because they are abrasive.

Visiting a local coffee shop recently, I was intrigued by a sign asking customers to help themselves to grounds and listing ten possible uses for them around the home. These included deodorising your fridge and cleaning pots and pans, among other things, so I decided to put them to the test.

Deodorising your fridge

I dried out some coffee grounds at home and put a small pot of them in our fridge to see if they would really absorb old food smells as was claimed.

A piece of haddock had accidentally been left in our fridge during the week and slowly matured to a good stink, so the grounds had their work cut-out.

After a few hours I returned to give the fridge a good sniff, not really expecting it to have worked, and was surprised to find that the fridge was surprisingly smell-free. If you’re not a coffee drinker you can also place a cut lemon or onion in your fridge for a similar effect.  

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Cleaning pots

Next, I tried cleaning an oven tray which can be a particularly stubborn subject.

I put some of the coffee grounds on a sponge and cleaned it with a bit of warm water and washing-up liquid. I have to say that I was initially dubious it would make any difference but, surprisingly enough, it actually did quite a good job of clearing the grease and gunge that had accumulated on it.

In fact, I would consider using coffee grounds to do this again, especially when I have run out of scouring pads. After all, coffee grounds are usually plentiful in our house!

Unblocking the sink

It’s also claimed that coffee grounds can be used to unblock your sink so I was keen to test this out, especially as our kitchen sink often gets blocked with food.

I put a few teaspoons of grounds down the sink and then flushed with hot water, as was suggested online. The water seemed to go through a bit faster after the treatment.

However, overall it would worry me that regularly sticking coffee grounds down the U-bend would probably lead to a build-up of food and make matters worse, so I think I will stick to chemical sink unblockers for these purposes.

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Hairdryer on crayon

We have a three year-old Banksy who is a dab hand with a crayon and, left to his own devices for a few minutes recently, quickly redecorated one of the walls in the lounge. 

Although it’s possible these etchings could become valuable in the future, I was keen to remove them.

My friend told me she’d heard it was possible to remove crayon from the wall by using a hairdryer on it and a damp cloth, so I thought I’d give it a try.

I have to say that I was really sceptical about this and wasn’t surprised when at first go, it didn’t work.

But then it dawned on me that my hairdryer was on the cool setting so I put it up to its hottest setting. I was really shocked when the crayon really did start coming off onto the damp cloth. This technique really works on a painted wall.

Don’t forget your dishwasher

Finally, if you have one, you probably spend a lot of time loading it with dishes and cutlery, but it might not have occurred to you that you can use your dishwasher to wash other things too, such as children’s toys and even make-up brushes.

When it got encrusted with food, we took our plastic Ikea high chair to bits and put it through the dishwasher.

I was a bit worried at first but it came up amazingly well and so do my son’s plastic toys.

Have you got any unusual spring cleaning tips? Please add them to the comments below.