Table Of ContentCOPYRIGHT © 2009 by THE CALDREA COMPANY
ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT © WERNER DESIGN WERKS, inc.
TEXT BY NICOLE SFORZA
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
WELLNESS CENTRAL
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP
237 PARK AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10017
VISIT OUR WEB SITE AT www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
Wellness Central is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Wellness
Central name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: March 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-55628-6
Contents
Copyright Page
Meet Thelma
A Clean Outlook
Meet the Meyer Family
What to Clean When
Spring Cleaning
Fall Cleaning
Organizing Your
Use Good-For-You Cleaning Products
Your Cleaning Supply List
A Clean Day Every Day
CHAPTER 1: A CLEAN KITCHEN
CHAPTER 2: A CLEAN BATHROOM
CHAPTER 3: A CLEAN LIVING ROOM
CHAPTER 4: A CLEAN BED ROOM
CHAPTER 5: A CLEAN HOME OFFICE
CHAPTER 6: CLEAN LAUNDRY
CHAPTER 7: CLEAN NOOKS AND CRANNIES
CHAPTER 8: A CLEAN OUTDOORS
Pets, Odors, and Pests
Glossary of Selected Terms
About Mrs. Meyer's. Clean Day
Acknowledgments
ILLUSTRATED and DESIGNED BY Werner Design Werks, Inc.
To my family.
To all the mothers in the world who love and sacrifice for their families.
To God. (Cleanliness is next to godliness, after all!) And to Vern Meyer, my
husband of fifty-four years.
Without Vern, nothing would be possible, least of all this book.
He’s made our house easy to clean, very comfortable, and spacious by building,
rewiring, refinishing, and enlarging it as we grew.
I can’t imagine a better person with whom to build a home.
meet THELMA
Dear friend,
Ever since my daughter Monica started Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day, back
in 2001, people are always asking, “Is Mrs. Meyer a real person?” Well,
I’m here to confirm it once and for all. My name is Thelma Meyer, and
my daughter named her cleaning products after me to honor my good old-
fashioned values. Nothing gives me more of a kick than when I introduce
myself to someone who uses the products. Just recently I was waiting for
a flight with a nice lady who was amazed when I told her who I was.
What an honor!
I’m proud of the products that carry my name. The Mrs. Meyer’s
Clean Day products are powerful against dirt, grime, fingerprints, and the
like. The philosophy is to make straightforward, honest cleaners that smell
good and work like the dickens on dirt. They are also aromatherapeutic,
which is a fancy word for healthy and good. But in my forty-plus years of
cleaning house, I’ve learned that it’s not just what you use to clean, it’s
how you clean, too.
Keeping up a house in a small town in Iowa while raising nine kids
was no picnic, but I’ve discovered handy tricks for making day-to-day
duties easier, monthly jobs seem like a cakewalk, and annual tasks a bit
less grueling. That’s where this book comes in.
So no, I’m not a cleaning superhero, but I really do exist. Grab your
duster and follow me—we’ve got some work to do.
Wishing you a CLEAN and HAPPY
HOME,
Mrs Thelma A. Meya
a CLEAN OUTLOOK
My husband, Vern, and I got married in 1954. We lived in a trailer park in Des
Moines with our twins until I got pregnant with our third child. “Thelma, it’s
time to get a house,” Vern said. So we sold the forty-two-foot trailer and used the
money from that as a down payment for a two-bedroom Cape Cod cottage-style
house in Granger, Iowa.
We paid $12,000 for our new home, located about twenty miles northwest of Des
Moines, in May of 1955. It was one of the first new houses in town.
And did we fill that house up! With nine kids, pets, kids’ friends, and
neighbors all around, I had to stay on top of things, but not drive myself too
crazy. I adopted a “casually clean” policy. I believe in having a clean house, but
I’m not one to have a perfect house. I like neatness and I like to see my home in
an orderly fashion—I don’t appreciate clothes or towels lying around—but I’m
not a meticulous housekeeper either. Every day I’ll do a little something, and
when company comes, like my bridge friends, that’s when I’ll really get to work,
making sure the windows are washed and all the fingerprints removed. But in
general, the house just has to be clean enough and uncluttered. I like to focus on
the big picture—getting the chores done daily so there’s more time to enjoy life.
It’s all in the way you look at it. If you have a poor attitude, life is going to be a
bear. You can look at your house and get overwhelmed and see all of the things
that need tending to. Or you can tackle jobs little by little, whistling while you
work, and know that even if your home doesn’t shine from top to bottom, it’s
good enough for you.
I also believe that when you stay on top of things it’s so much easier in the
long run. Make a plan, and take the time to do chores right the first time. Don’t
stint once you commit to a task. That means throwing a little elbow grease into
mopping up the bathroom floor and polishing the wood furniture. If you do it
well, I promise you that there’s pleasure to be had in that.
There’s always going to be confusion when you’re running a household, but
there will be less of it when you take an organized approach. Figure out what
works for you: Do you hate waking up to a not-too-tidy house? Take a few
minutes before bed each night to do a little cleanup. Rather use that time for
sleep? That’s okay, too. I love freshly made beds, ship-shape surfaces and floors,
and the smell of clean laundry. Some folks find ironing a soothing task. Do
whatever suits your fancy.
In this book, you’ll find tips for cleaning every room in the house and tending
to the garden and patio, too. We’ll go from kitchen to bathroom to office and
every nook and cranny in between. I’ve shared the down-and-dirty tricks that
I’ve been using for years! And since it never hurts to learn something new, I also
asked friends and family to share their cleaning secrets with me. You’ll find
some great ideas in here—ketchup for cleaning copper and denture tablets for
the toilet—that I just learned about, too. There are some sneaky ideas in here,
including ways to get out those inevitable stains and foolproof solutions for
dealing with life’s little annoyances, from loosening a stuck drawer to getting
bubblegum off a carpet. You’ll also find that I have a lot of opinions on
everything from clean curtains to parenting, in My House, My Rules.
My kids will weigh in with memories on what it was like to all live under one
roof. (Boy, did it get crazy now and then.) Sometimes they remember things
differently than I do, that’s for sure. One thing they don’t forget is how much
they pitched in. Throughout this book, I mention how important it is to give your
kids chores; it teaches them how to work hard and it will also make your life a
little easier. My kids had to clean their rooms every Saturday, among other
things. Be firm with your kids and tell it to them straight. Many parents just talk
to their kids constantly—talk, talk, talk—but soon their kids will just stop
listening. One of my favorite mottoes is SYE (save your energy). Don’t ask
young children if they want to clean their room. Just say, “Time to clean your
room now.” This avoids any possibility for disagreement.
I’m going to preach here what I practice: Use the least amount of water and
energy possible. I was taught from an early age to save water. I was born in
1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, so water was hard to come by. My
parents were Kansas farmers and hardly had anything to live on, and I remember
my mom telling me that one winter we lived on nothing but tomato soup. We
never had a lot, so we never consumed a lot. And that way of living was
ingrained in me. Even today, I’ll keep a bag in my purse and pick up litter as I
