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Bathroom spring cleaning is something that a lot of us overlook. I say “us” because I’m guilty of it, too. After all, we generally clean our bathrooms once a week anyway. Why would we ever think it needed a spring cleaning? There are no appliances to pull out to clean behind or under. There’s probably no carpet on the floor. There just isn’t very much to cause us to say, “Time to do a deep clean on this bathroom.”
But actually, bathroom spring cleaning is a thing and it should be a thing for all of us. Although we probably clean the bathroom more than any other part of our home, there are still areas that often go missed throughout the year that can use a touch-up when we begin spring cleaning the rest of the home. Because most of us don’t think of these, I have a little guide here that will help you really get the bathroom clean for the year.
Bathroom Spring Cleaning Guide
Whether you have a small bathroom or one of those on-suite bathrooms that are the size of someone else’s bedroom, they all have the same things in common. They all have areas that get overlooked throughout the year. Let’s dive into what we tend to overlook and how we can get them clean and ready for another year.
Bathroom Closet
If your bathroom has a closet, it could almost certainly do with some reorganizing and a little bit of extra TLC. I don’t know about you, but my bathroom closet is full of towels that started out neatly and in their proper place, but now it looks like some sort of wild animal is living in there. There are towels everywhere. None of them are folded the same way, and they’re all smashed on top of one another.
When you start your bathroom spring cleaning, start here. Pull out all your towels and anything else in the closet. Take a damp, soapy rag or sponge and give everything a good once over. You’ll be surprised at the dust and hair that you might find in there. Take this opportunity to reorganize the closet if it needs it, and then put everything back in your freshly cleaned closet nice and neat.
Bathroom Counter Cabinet
Approach cleaning and organizing the cabinet space under your bathroom sink in the same way you did your bathroom closet. Pull everything out. Give the cabinet interior and good once over with a soapy sponge, and then reorganize and replace everything back underneath it.
Sink
There’s really only one extra step to take when deep cleaning the sink. That’s cleaning the drain. This is most easily done after you’ve pulled everything out from under your cabinet to organize it. You’ll see a pipe coming down from your sink that connects to another piece that’s shaped like a U. This is the trap. Most likely, it’s connected by a twisting nut that you can loosen by hand. Get a small bucket and keep it nearby, then unscrew the nuts on the trap and pull it off. Put the trap in the bucket. Be careful. It will have water in it.
Thoroughly rinse out the trap with water and then give it a good soak in the sink with a combination of water, some dish detergent, and a little bleach. Let it sit for about 10 minutes to loosen up any grime. Then, simply rinse it out thoroughly and reattach it to the pipe. The trap ends up collecting a ton of gross stuff, so it’s a good idea to clean it out when you do your bathroom spring cleaning.
Shower
Of course, you probably clean your shower about once a week, but when you do your spring cleaning, you can really get in there and do a deep clean. Get into every nook and cranny of the grout if you have a tiled shower. If you have light-colored grout, a cleaner with bleach will work wonders. You might also consider getting a cleaner designed for heavy-duty bathroom cleaning if your tile is looking dull. Hit the fixtures with a cleaner designed for metal surfaces to give them a nice shine.
Finally, after everything has completely dried, reseal your shower grout. You may not know this but grout should be sealed once a year. Bathroom spring cleaning is the perfect time to apply a sealant to your shower grout.
Toilet
Ah, the toilet. It’s everyone’s favorite part of the bathroom to clean. Roll up your sleeves and get some gloves, because when I talk about deep cleaning in just a second, I really mean deep cleaning. Turn off your toilet’s water supply and then flush it so that the bowl is almost empty. Then, take your cleaner of choice and squeeze it all around under the rim of the toilet as you normally would, and let the whole thing sit for about ten minutes. Take your toilet brush and clean the bowl as you normally would. Now, here’s where the gloves come in.
You may not realize it, but you miss a lot with that brush. Spring cleaning the bathroom is where we get into all the nooks and crannies that the brush can’t reach. Put on your gloves and wash underneath the lip of your toilet with a sponge. Remember flushing with the water turned off? Here’s why we did that. Take the sponge and squish it down into the toilet outlet as much as possible, hitting every side. There’s a bunch of grunge in there that the brush misses. Don’t be squeamish. Just get in there and scrub.
When you’re done, throw out the glove, rinse out the sponge, turn on the toilet water, and give it a couple of flushes. You’ll have an ultra-clean toilet that’s been deep cleaned and is ready for another year.
Medicine Cabinet
This is an extremely important part of bathroom spring cleaning that most of us never think about. It’s important to clean out your medicine cabinet regularly or AT LEAST once a year. Keeping your medication in the medicine cabinet is an excellent way of keeping little hands out of things that they shouldn’t be in, however, if you have older children, it’s important to keep an eye on things.
Prescription drug abuse is a real thing and it happens all across the country. In addition, a lot of us are guilty of deciding to self-medicate with antibiotics and the like that are leftover from other issues. So keeping your medicine cabinet organized and knowing what’s in there is important. Part of that organization is cleaning it out periodically. Most people’s medicine cabinets – mine included – are filled with medications that have expired. There’s no need to keep them.
Take all of your medicines out of your medicine cabinet. Separate medications that you’re currently taking from older medications. The rule of thumb is that if you don’t need prescription medication, you should throw it out. Here’s something important to remember, however. You shouldn’t just flush your medications down the toilet or throw them out in the trash.
Flushing and throwing away can contaminate the ecosystem.
The safe way to dispose of medications is through a program designed specifically for medication disposal. San Francisco Safe Medicine Disposal Program allows us to properly dispose of unwanted, unused, or expired drugs safely. They offer both take-back kiosks as well as providing prepaid mail-back envelopes. You can deposit both over-the-counter and prescription medications at their kiosks. Be aware, however, that you cannot deposit any sort of sharps.
To safely deposit your medication, simply visit a San Francisco Safe Medicine kiosk and deposit your unwanted and outdated medications. It’s easy to do, and it’s completely free.
Bathroom Spring Cleaning Should Include Your Medicine Cabinet
Most of us have so many medications stuffed into our medicine cabinets that we don’t even know what some of them are. It’s important to regularly clean out the medicine cabinet, and doing while bathroom spring cleaning is a perfect time. Remember to dispose of your medications properly by using the San Francisco Safe Medicine Disposal Program to ensure proper disposal that doesn’t harm the environment or allow other people to potentially acquire discarded medications.
