Twenty useful cleaning tips for an Indian home, from the people who do it for a living

Short, practical, and learned the hard way. Each one is something a cleaning team on TheHire has said to a customer more than once. Save this; most of it costs nothing.

Safety

1. Bleach stays away from three things: acid toilet cleaner, ammonia glass cleaner and vinegar. Each pair makes a gas. Do the bathroom in one order every time: degreaser, rinse, acid, rinse, bleach last, window open, and flush between products.
2. Gloves for acids and degreasers. Toilet cleaner is hydrochloric acid; chimney degreaser is caustic. Neither hurts at once; both show up on your hands the next day. Nitrile gloves are ₹100 to ₹200 and last months.
3. Nothing acidic on marble, Kota or granite. Not toilet cleaner, not descaler, not lime juice. Acid etches stone and the dull patch is permanent. A pH-neutral cleaner is the only thing that goes on a stone floor.
4. Lock the medicines and the jewellery before any team arrives. Not because of this team; because it is the habit that makes every team safe to have in the house. Every team on TheHire is ID and phone verified, and you should still ask to see the ID at the door.
5. Switch the geyser off before cleaning the bathroom. You will be spraying water near the switch and the unit. A wet geyser switch is an electrician's call.

Money

6. Book items, not adjectives. "Two bathrooms deep, kitchen with chimney, both sofas, four fans" gets a quote you can compare. "Deep clean" means something different to every team, and the discount from the fifth item only applies to a list.
7. One deep clean after the monsoon beats two in the wrong months. ₹5 per sq ft in late September removes a year's mould and grey grout. A regular clean at ₹3 per sq ft in between is enough.
8. A squeegee saves a descale. ₹100 to ₹250 for the squeegee; ₹500 per bathroom for the acid job it prevents, every six months, for as long as you live there.
9. Fans weekly with a duster never need the professional. ₹150 to ₹400 for a long-handled duster; ₹80 per fan for the team to do what the dust was allowed to become.
10. Buy concentrate. A floor cleaner that dilutes a capful to a bucket is cheaper per bucket than a ready-to-use bottle at a third the price, and using more than the label says leaves a film that attracts dust.
11. Keep the before photos and the invoice. A move-out clean receipt at ₹6 per sq ft is accepted against a deposit deduction by most landlords, and the photos settle any argument.

Daily life

12. Change the mop water every room. Dirty water by the second room is why the floor looks grey by evening. A spin mop at ₹700 to ₹1,500 wrings drier and the floor dries faster, which is what stops the streaks.
13. Dry before wet, top before bottom. Sweep or vacuum before any water, and do fans, shelves and walls before the floor. Mopping first means mopping twice.
14. Pour a jug of water into the guest bathroom drain every week. A dry trap lets the sewer smell straight in, and the smell gets blamed on the cleaning.
15. Pull the wardrobe two inches off the outside wall before the rains. The wall sweats in the monsoon and the back of the wardrobe is where the mould starts. Silica gel or camphor on each shelf, and the doors open an hour on dry mornings.
16. Exhaust fan on for twenty minutes after every shower. The cheapest mould prevention there is, and the one most households never do. A bathroom that gets this needs the ₹700 deep clean once a year, not every quarter.
17. Find the fabric tag before anyone shampoos the sofa. W is water-safe, S is dry foam only, X is vacuum only. The ₹180 per seat job is the same price either way; the wrong method leaves rings that do not come out.

The kitchen, where the grease is

18. Degreaser needs dwell time. Spray the tiles behind the hob, wait five minutes, then wipe. Wiping at once moves the grease around. The ₹1,500 kitchen job is mostly chemistry waiting, not scrubbing.
19. Chimney filters out and soaked twice a year. Very hot water and a strong degreaser for an hour; or ₹1,200 for the team to do it in a caustic bath you do not want in a flat with children. A chimney that drips oil has filters that are solid, and the motor is probably fine.
20. Steel wool with the grain on the sink, and nowhere else. On glossy tiles, glass and chrome it leaves scratches that hold dirt forever. A non-scratch pad at ₹30 to ₹60 does everything else.
21. The cupboard under the sink is the dampest in the house. Empty and air it once a month. It is where the cockroaches are, and if there are many, the pest-control guides explain the treatment; a cleaning team will tell you they saw them rather than spray something.
22. The fridge inside once a quarter, shelves out and washed, the door seal wiped with a mild bleach solution and dried. ₹500 if you would rather the team did it with the deep clean; it is the part of the kitchen most often skipped.

Three more for people who own the house

23. Tank clean twice a year at ₹1,200, in May before the rains and again after if the water turned brown. Everything the family drinks and bathes in starts there, and the purifier filter lasts twice as long on a clean tank.
24. Balcony wash before the first downpour at ₹500, with the drain cleared. The black film is algae; a blocked drain in the first storm is water under the hall door.
25. A post-renovation clean, not a painter's helper with a wet cloth. Cement splatter smeared into grout costs more to remove later than the ₹8 per sq ft rate costs now.

Related tips you might want next

The cockroaches under the sink, the mosquitoes in the balcony drain and the termites in the wardrobe are the pest-control trade's, and its guides pick up the pre-monsoon week from here. The marble floor that tip number three came too late for is the floor polisher's. And the curtains and sofa covers that a steam will not save go to the laundry, whose guides cover what can go in a machine and what cannot.