Every spring, my mother cleaned everything: walls, ceilings, windows, floors, window coverings, furniture and linens. And when that was done, she would pack up all of our winter clothes, flannel sheets and heavy bedding into trunks, and unpack the cotton sheets, shorts, ankle socks and pop-tops. Cupboards, closets and drawers were emptied, scrubbed, and then re-stocked.
My spring cleaning chore list is considerably shorter: I wash the windows.
Okay, I'm exaggerating. But not much.
Of course, times have changed. And apparently I have changed with them. According to the Pottery Barn's Spring Cleaning: History and Origin, the spring cleaning tradition was brought to North America by European settlers. And with good reason: homes were heated by wood fires, and during the long, cold winters, the wood smoke would permeate the entire household. Come spring, and at last the linens and carpets could be cleaned and aired outside, and walls and windows could be scrubbed clean.
Today's world is quite a bit different. Most North American homes are heated by electricity or natural gas, and we have windows and doors that minimize the amount of dust that enters our homes. Most of us also have ready access throughout the year to automatic washing machines and dryers, eliminating our dependence on clotheslines and warm sunny weather to keep our clothes and linens clean. In addition, once upon a time most women were actually home all day to do all that labour-intensive stuff that needed doing.
So in fact, for many people the spring cleaning rituals of our mothers and grandmothers may be redundant today. It may all depend on your lifestyle. Do you have children? Do you have pets? Do you use a fireplace? Does anyone in your household smoke? Unless you fall into those categories, major spring cleaning may be unnecessary. Instead, you may only need to include those jobs that will actually make your home a more pleasant, healthier environment. Wash the windows, clean your window coverings (all they may need is a good shake, or vacuum), have your furnace cleaned and serviced. Take a look at your walls – do they all really need to be washed from top to bottom?
And it may also depend on where you live. Lots of people don't even have access to a clothesline, so they can't air their linens outdoors. And although some parts of North America are in an unrelenting deep-freeze for months at a time, where I live it's a different story. It's not uncommon to experience a few warm, sunny days in early January. Throw open the windows, clean the carpets and upholstery; celebrate the Chinook with a cleaning mini-blitz. (And if you have pets and/or children, you may not want to wait until spring before you clean that carpet. Believe me, I know.)
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