Why You Must Turn Off the Lights to Deep Clean Your Home
My oven looks clean now, but when I turn off the overhead light it looks like it is covered in tiny strands of dust. Kitchen countertops, which looked clean two seconds ago too, show a splash of crumbs that I must have missed during my last cleaning. Every surface in my house, from my desk to coffee table to piano, reveals its hidden grime as soon as I dim the lights.
What’s going on here? The same thing that currently leads me to believe that my laptop screen is perfectly clean (when we all know that once the screen turns off, all dust and fingerprints will be visible on it). The bright light washes away certain types of dust and grime, which is great for when we want our surfaces to look clean, but it also means that cleaning in bright light can cause you to miss out on some of the smaller particles and stains that cover almost everything in your home.
So the next time you wipe down the kitchen after dinner, try wiping it down again by turning off the lights. (I have one of those microwaves mounted above the oven, with lights built into the base, and that’s the perfect amount of light to show that my kitchen isn’t as clean as I thought.) Since your windows are located in your home, dawn and dusk can also be great times for some serious cleaning.
Or you can just turn on the lights, look around, and decide your home is clean enough.