Do You Really Need to “Spring Clean” Your Home? Here’s What Experts Had to Say

I live in the Northeast, and I am so over winter. The good news is that I have been using all this time indoors to quickly clean and declutter my home, and now I am looking forward to it being warmer. I’ve even promised myself that I would learn to love spring cleaning this year if it meant I would be able to open a window or a door without getting frostbite! 

I’ve always found the concept of spring cleaning to be overwhelming. I tried bargaining with myself this year: If I clean and tidy up more often, the dust and dirt won’t have time to stick around, so there might not be a need to spring clean after all! A good plan in theory, but there really is something to be said for a deeper clean of your space as the seasons change. 

To get some inspiration for tackling this task, I spoke to a few pro cleaners about the long-standing history of spring cleaning. Turns out there are some really good reasons for this to be the season to do it. Even better? I discovered some new ways to make it easier this year. 

Spring cleaning was an essential time-honored tradition in which people would thoroughly clean their homes in the springtime after a cold winter. Back when everyone used a fireplace to keep warm in the winter months, spring cleaning was a necessity to get all the soot out, says Robin Murphy, president of Maid Brigade in White Plains, New York. Even with today’s more advanced HVAC systems, getting the dust out is better for our breathing, she adds.

It makes sense that spring would be a fitting time to want to get your home tidy. “It’s the time when people feel like cleaning,” says Logan Taylor, president and founder of The Dazzle Cleaning Company. “They want to freshen their homes.”

Aside from the return of warmer weather — at least I hope so — spring cleaning can also spring from preparation for hosting the religious holidays that take place this time of year, Murphy says. For example, those who celebrate the Iranian or Persian New Year take part in a tradition known as Khane Tekani, which is literally translated to “shaking the house.”

But if you’re not religious or you just so happen to live where it’s warm year-round, you don’t get a pass on a proper house cleaning. “Spring cleaning isn’t as vital as it used to be, but a deep clean is still important for getting to things we don’t clean regularly,” Murphy says.

You can’t discuss cleaning your home without doing some decluttering first. While decluttering does add a layer of work to the mix, the upside is that there’s less to dust and organize. 

“It’s easier to clean a space that’s been decluttered because everything has a home,” says Rosa Picosa, an official cleaning spokesperson for Fabuloso. If you don’t get rid of stuff, it’s just going to reappear elsewhere, she adds. 

Still, you might want to slow your roll when it comes to getting rid of stuff after the winter just because you’re tired of looking at it. Before you toss anything, Taylor recommends confirming if you’ve used it or not. “If you are sick of your coat because you used it all winter, then don’t get rid of it. You’re going to use it all winter again next winter,” he shares. But if you have two coats that you haven’t used, consider donating them. 

For a seasonal deep clean, the cleaning pros I spoke to suggest tackling these spots that you don’t hit often (or ever) during regular cleanings:

• Fronts of cabinets and drawers
• Baseboards and moldings
• Picture frames and wall decor
• Light switches
• Vents
• Ceiling fans
• Under appliances, especially the refrigerator and oven
• Windows and window treatments
• Vacuum your mattress

Monica Taher, chief operating officer of Avanti Green Eco Cleaning, does not recommend tackling your whole house or apartment at once. Instead, she suggests going room by room, working from inside the house toward the main entrance.

Sometimes a fresh start for spring — or anytime — doesn’t even involve cleaning. “If you are looking for a change, move the order of your furniture. Move sofas, lamps, and tables around,” Taher advises. “Give your home a new look. These types of changes are good for mental health.” However, she does suggest that you dust, vacuum, and mop underneath all the furniture you’ve just moved.

I grew up in a household that was pretty much always neat as a pin, thanks to my mother’s methodical tidying and cleaning habits. Spring cleaning did indeed take place when the weather was fine, but I remember it as a whirlwind two-day affair. When it was done, it was done.

Now, I think it would take me two days to fully declutter and organize my house, let alone attack every nook and cranny like my mom did. But that’s not stopping me from trying new hacks to break down the behemoth task into doable pieces — even if it means taking a couple of weeks instead of days.

Turns out even the pros understand cleaning overwhelm. “A lot of people, including myself at times, think that cleaning has to be all or nothing, like I have to finish this room or I have to finish this house in this allotted amount of time,” Picosa says. Not so, even though I do love setting a timer to get through daily or weekly cleaning chores faster. 

Instead, Picosa recommends zone cleaning, a habit you might have seen from other cleaning experts online. “You split your house up into zones or sections, and you work in each section for 15 to 20 minutes a day throughout the year,” Picosa explains. If that sounds like continuous cleaning, you’d be right. But it works. “The point is, ideally, you will not have to do traditional spring cleaning because you’re on a rotation,” she adds.

“Cleaning never ends,” Murphy says. “You can say, ‘Okay, today I’m doing the bathrooms, tomorrow the primary bedroom, then a deep cleaning of the kitchen.’ But nothing is ever clean all at the same time.”

If you do decide on a full-out attack on your home, don’t beat yourself up if the going is slow. “It does not have to get clean overnight, because our houses don’t get dirty overnight — unless you threw a rager,” Picosa says. “But typically, it takes a while. So if you’re trying something new, give yourself grace.”