1. Pesach cleaning is a major point of contention in many households. For example, you want to clean as much as possible, but you have someone in your way saying that half of what you’re cleaning isn’t necessary for Pesach anyway. You know this. But you’re getting rid of germs, and who really takes their house apart again after Pesach to go back for the germs? So the best way to get rid of this person is with whatever spray bottle you’re currently holding. It doesn’t really matter what’s in it. Just spray the person, silently wipe him off and move on.
2. For most of us, it doesn’t really feel like cleaning unless we’re spraying something. But a big problem with cleaning products is that you can spend hours cleaning, and people will walk in and go, “Eew! It smells like cleaning products!” As if that’s worse than what was there before. You want people to come in and say, “Mm. Smells like nothing.” Except that nothing smells like nothing.
3. One smell that people like, even more than nothing, is baking cookies. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to bake cookies while you’re self-cleaning the oven.
4. No matter what you do, your house has a unique smell. It’s not just everyone else’s house that has one. The problem is that you’ll never know your house’s smell. It’s like bad breath. You have to brush the best you can and hope you got rid of it, because not only will everyone else notice it, they won’t even say anything. They’ll just come by less often. Or, every time they do come, they’ll bring cookies.
5. Baking soda is great for absorbing odors. It’s a mysterious substance. Is it a food? Is it a cleaning product? Is it a laundry detergent? It gets rid of smells, but we put it in cookies. Which makes us wonder: How good would cookies smell if we didn’t use baking soda?
6. Most experts recommend that you forget about all those store-bought cleaning substances and make some of your own, using trial and error. And science.
7. A lot of cleanser recipes call for something called “essential oil,” which I don’t even know what that is, and I’m 36. It can’t be that essential.
8. Most cleansers, according to what I’ve read, involve mixing things with vinegar. This is great if you have a ton of vinegar in the house and you don’t use vinegar on Pesach. Why not just spray a mist of it all over your house instead?
9. Vinegar is great for cleaning. You almost never see dirty vinegar.
10. Vinegar also eats odors. So if you want to eat maximum odors, mix vinegar and baking soda. Your house won’t be able to take it.
11. If you have crayon marks on a wall for whatever unforeseen reason, such as that you let kids into your home, you can remove it with mayonnaise. “But how do you remove the mayonnaise residue from the wall?” you ask. You don’t have to. It’s not like someone’s going to slip on your wall.
12. Have a lot of bread that you need to get rid of for some reason? Use it to clean pencil marks and fingerprints off your walls. You might be able to wipe up the mayonnaise while you’re at it.
13. If your hands are filthy from all that cleaning, rub oatmeal on them. I’m not sure which flavor works best. Or how many packets to use.
14. If your coffee grinder smells, run Cheerios through it. Cheerios are odor eaters, apparently. So I would say to sprinkle them liberally on your carpets. Your kids have already started helping.
15. If your garbage can stinks, soak a piece of bread in vinegar and put it at the bottom of the can. I don’t know how to clean a Pesachdikke garbage can. Pesach vinegar and sponge cake? I don’t know.
16. A mixture of flour, salt and white vinegar can polish copper. Though I think if you’re polishing pennies before Pesach, you’ve gone off the deep end.
17. You can clean wood furniture by smearing it with flat beer. So if you were in someone’s house on Purim and you accidentally spilled beer all over their dining room, I think they owe you an apology.
18. You can use beer to get coffee or tea stains out of a rug. The only downside, that we can see, is that your house will smell like beer.
19. I don’t know how much of this article is actually useful. I think at this point we’re just smearing chometz around your house. It’s a good thing we’re having you do this a couple of weeks in advance.
20. But maybe you should follow this advice anyway. That way, when people say that you’re cleaning things that don’t need to be cleaned for Pesach, you can say, “I’m not doing it to clean for Pesach. I’m doing it to use up chometz.”
By Mordechai Schmutter
Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia, The Jewish Press and Aish.com, among others. He also has four books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].
