Spring cleaning: five jobs you can do with our Steam Cleaner

I’m not the biggest fan of using chemicals to clean the house as I have sensitive skin and worry about what I’m putting into the environment. You only have to look on the back of a bleach bottle to see that it’s toxic to aquatic life for example.

That’s why I absolutely love the steam cleaner as an alternative, as it can clean pretty much every surface and all it needs is tap water. This doesn’t mean it’s any less effective either - the steam kills up to 99.99% of typical household bacteria, and viruses such as coronavirus or influenza which have obviously been a big concern of late.

I recently borrowed a steam cleaner to do a deep Spring clean of my home which gave me an opportunity to tackle some areas of the house that don’t see a duster or cloth very often.

By borrowing a steam cleaner from Library of Things, you’ll get everything you need to tackle a variety of jobs. This includes hand and floor tools, microfibre cloths, detail brushes and even a clothes steaming attachment.

Top tips before you start:

• Vacuum and/or clear anything you’re planning to steam clean first - this’ll make the job a lot quicker, easier and more effective.
• The steam cleaner is great at banishing bacteria and leaving surfaces shiny, but not so great at removing stains. If you’ve got some hefty stains you want to shift, I’d recommend borrowing the carpet cleaner as well.
• You’ll probably find yourself switching between different accessories as you clean; be sure to switch the trigger gun into the locked position before you do this to avoid burning yourself on the steam.

Freshen up your blinds or curtains

Often a neglected area, blinds and curtains can collect a lot of dust and could do with a freshen up from time to time.

Our kitchen blind was covered in spider mites as well that had eaten their way through a plant on the windowsill. The hand tool with the microfibre cloth is the perfect size for getting in between blinds and picking up the dust, or even easier was shutting the blind and running the hand tool over it.

Refresh soft furnishings around the house and in the car

With bags, bums and feet constantly in and off car seats and sofas, they’re bound to get a bit grubby.

The interior of my car was in desperate need of a clean - especially as a bunch of flowers I’d taken round to my Mum had leaked some residue onto the passenger seat leaving a hardened patch there.

After vacuuming, I used the steam cleaner on the seats, footwells and even the windows and doors for a little refresh with the hand tool and microfibre cloth. I also ran it over the footstool in our living room to lift any dirt and odour.

Blast the dust off your houseplants

This is one of my favourite underrated uses for the steam cleaner! If you haven’t thought about giving your houseplants a clean, you should - did you know dust on the leaves can block sunlight and prevents them from photosynthesising?!

If like me you’re a houseplant lover, it’s great for removing dust build-up quickly and saves the need to go every leaf with a damp cloth.

You don’t need any of the steam cleaner attachments to do this; simply remove any attachments from the trigger gun and use it on its lowest setting.

Get into those nooks and crannies

The power of the steam is great for blasting dirt out from hard to reach areas that you’d usually spent hours scrubbing away at with something like an old toothbrush.

With the detail brush provided, I was really impressed with the grime it removed from around the bathroom sinkhole and tap, as well as the area around the hob in the kitchen. It’s also really handy for the grouting between your tiles. You’ll probably have to go over the surfaces around these areas afterwards with the hand tool and microfibre cloth, as the dirt tends to projectile spray!

Just be careful in areas where you have sealant applied, as the heat from the steam can cause this to lift.

I did tackle the inside of the oven door too - but this does require a little more time and elbow grease to get off the stuff that’s been baked on.

Banish the muddy footprints from your floors

This one might seem a little more obvious, but cleaning floors with the steam cleaner is so effortless I had to include it.

To reach the floors, I used the two included extension poles with the floor tool and cloth on the end. It makes quick work of lifting up whatever’s on the floor, which was especially useful around the front and back doors of the house where there’s lots of muddy and dusty footprints.

Overall, the steam cleaner made every cleaning job so much simpler. You can add and takeaway the extension poles to extend the length of the handle which makes it easier to reach places like windowsills, or far corners of kitchen surfaces.

Are you surprised by any of the uses for the steam cleaner? Let us know if you'll be using it to tackle your own Spring cleaning!

Reserve the Steam Cleaner from your local Library of Things