Did season pass you by? Never fear. It doesn't have to be spring for homeowners to get itch to clean house. No matter what season it is, homeowners can enjoy that same feeling by shaking dirt down from ceiling and sweeping it out door.

Clean scents, polished floors, spotless window glass, and scrubbed decks - here we come.

Plan Ahead

Before jumping in gather tools, cleaning supplies, buckets, trash bags, boxes, and a few friends to help out. Wear something old so good clothes won't get stained, or bleached.

Decide how much time it will take to clean based on size of your home and how many family members will pitch in.

Tool Time

A week before you plan to start your spring cleaning marathon, review what supplies you have on hand. Do you have:

- Ammonia for wiping away grease

- Foaming cleaners for bathtubs

- Squeegees to make quick work of window washing

- Buckets for mixing concentrated cleaners

- Cleaners made for washing cars and trucks

- Oven cleaner

- Floor cleaners for wood and linoleum

- Stiff-bristled large brooms to sweep away winter dirt

- Angled soft-bristle brooms for indoor use

- Sponges and scrubbing brushes for general use

- Lambswool and ostrich feather dusters to clean in hard-to-reach places

- Laundry detergent booster

- Static free cleaner for electronics

- Oil soaps for wood cabinets

- Cleaners formulated for artificial plants

- Oxygenizing cleaner to remove spots and stains without bleaching fabrics, upholstery or carpets

- Other brushes for specific uses: toilet bowl brush, refrigerator coil brush

- Ladder for reading ceiling fans, tall bookcases and to wash windows

Purchase versatile concentrated cleaners when possible. Benefits include being able to dilute cleaner to different strengths depending on cleaning job involved. They also cost less per use and require less packing making them environmentally-friendly.

Brushes and brooms that are made for a specific purpose make job easier. Toilet bowl brushes scrub under rim with less effort. Cleaning refrigerator coils is as easy as an afterthought when you use a soft brush made for just that job.

I don’t mean a trip to corner shop, “no siree”! I mean a fully-fledged trip into town, pram, milk bottles and spare nappies to boot! Small things are immediately noticeable, like that hard and mean-looking grocer down road! When my wife goes in to his establishment he goes all gooey, in fact he doesn’t notice me at all; just talks to my wife and son and ignores me as if I was invisible man. But walking in to his shop with only my son, an apple to buy before days outing ahead and he became meaner and harder. In fact he noticed me for first time, glared at me as if I had just stolen kid and was on run and said “hope that’s not for little one”! I felt like saying what’s it got to do with you mate but ……………on bus driver who suggested that I sit near front instead of upstairs was nearly out of his seat and taking part of usher before realizing that this was not really in his job description!

Somehow some basic human instinct suggests that ‘man’ is neither capable nor fit to look after a baby! This instinct immediately raises hairs on backs of people’s necks, images of disaster loom in their minds and unseen forces push them forwards to offer help. They do not see a happy and carefree father pushing his laughing baby along in pram, they see a harried father who is at his wits end and who is desperate for help. They see a tormented and unwilling baby, screaming and kicking in desperation, a father who is pulling his hair out and desperately looking around for somebody to just show him what to do.