My mother-in-law texted yesterday. “What time should we arrive for Thanksgiving?” I’m standing in my living room, looking at dust under the couch that’s probably been there since March. Maybe February. The guest bathroom has soap scum I’ve been pretending not to see for at least three months. And the guest bedroom closet? We don’t…
Just finished a kitchen renovation at my house in Monmouth County and holy hell, the dust. Everywhere. In cabinets I didn’t even know we had. Behind furniture that was supposedly covered. In the air vents. Literally everywhere. Thought I could handle the cleanup myself. Spent three days scrubbing and it still looked like a construction…
Last month our office got a new cleaning service and honestly, I didn’t think it would make much difference. Cleaning is cleaning, right? Boy was I wrong. Within a week, people were commenting on how much better everything felt. Sarah from accounting mentioned she wasn’t getting her usual afternoon headaches. Mike stopped bringing tissues to…
I moved to Point Pleasant four years ago thinking I’d hit the jackpot – beach town living, cute downtown, good schools for the kids. What nobody told me was that keeping a house clean near the ocean is basically impossible. The salt air makes everything gross and sticky, there’s sand literally everywhere even though we’re…
By the time June rolls around, my house looks like it’s been through a war. There’s sand everywhere despite my best efforts to leave it at the beach, my windows are so hazy from salt air I can barely see outside, and everything feels sticky from the humidity. Last year I tried to tackle it…
The first time I hired cleaners, I spent six hours cleaning before they arrived. My husband found me at midnight scrubbing behind the toilet, and asked the question that broke my brain: “Aren’t we paying someone to do that tomorrow?” Yeah. I was cleaning for the cleaners. And I wasn’t alone—turns out half my friends…
Last spring, my neighbor Tom spent nearly $15,000 on new landscaping, exterior paint touch-ups, and decorative lighting to boost his home’s curb appeal before listing it. Meanwhile, I invested exactly $247 in a weekend pressure washer rental and transformed my equally tired-looking ranch home into what looked like a completely refreshed property. When both houses…
We’ve all been there. The calendar flips to March, social media fills with cleaning tips, and suddenly there’s an invisible clock ticking, reminding us it’s time to purge closets and scrub forgotten corners. But who decided spring gets all the cleaning glory? As someone who once attempted to deep clean my entire home in a…
The moment I stepped into Sarah’s LBI beachfront home, I noticed it immediately—that distinct absence of the gritty, salt-laden film that coats nearly everything within a mile of the Atlantic. “How do you manage this?” I asked, running my finger along her windowsill, expecting but not finding the familiar salty grit that had become my…
You know that moment when you’re sprawled on your couch, binge-watching “The Sopranos” reruns, and suddenly notice the dust dancing in the sunbeam like tiny acrobats? That’s your indoor air quality putting on a show, and not the good kind. As a New Jersey family living in the crossroads of suburban bliss and urban hustle,…