You know the grot that gets trapped in Velcro and stops it from working (particularly annoying on kids’ shoes)?

Use a nit comb (you know you have one lurking in the medicine cabinet!) to tease out all the fluff and bits of thread – simple and very effective.

Take a pumice stone and rub away at the roughened surface until there is little of the stone left and instead lots of slurry on the bottom of the bath.

When you rinse it down, the base of the bath will look lovely and clean again (and no scratches either).

Lemon juice and salt work very well on brass.

Either mix to a paste (one part juice to three parts salt) and apply with a clean cotton cloth, or rub the surfaces with half a lemon dipped in salt (wear rubber gloves if you have any cuts on your fingers!).

The brass will shine instantly; rinse off and buff dry with a soft cloth.

When your exfoliating gloves come to the end of their life, instead of throwing away, recycle them by wearing over rubber gloves and getting to work on stubborn marks in the kitchen or bathroom.

Spring cleaning comes from the days when coal fires were the norm and by the end of the winter every surface in the house was covered with a layer of coal dust.

Nowadays it’s more about a deep clean and general freshen-up as the sun starts shining.

1. If it all seems too daunting, start in a small room such as the bathroom or boxroom. When you’ve mastered that, you’ll feel spurred on to tackle the rest of the house.

2. Declutter! Throw away as much as you can. Start in the bedroom and get rid of all the clothes you’ve not worn since this time last year.

If in doubt, chuck it out is my motto.

Take anything in good nick to a charity shop or offer to a friend. Otherwise stick in the recycling bin.

3. Get those curtains down and take to the dry cleaners – the place will feel so much fresher. If this is beyond your budget, at least go over them with the upholstery tool of the vacuum cleaner.

4. Clean the windows and let the sun shine in. Invest in a couple of microfibre cloths specially for glass. Wash the dirt off with warm water plus a drop of washing up liquid using a cotton cloth then dry with the cloth. Your windows will be streak-free.

5. Now the glass is see-through, the dreck inside will be that more visible. Get the ladders out, climb to the places you don’t normally reach and prepare to be horrified. For general dustiness, use warm soapy water wrung out in a clean terry cloth – old towels ripped up are ideal. Damp dusting is far more effective than dry – the dust sticks to the cloth rather than flies around the room to land on a different surface.

6. While you’re up there, take down the lampshades for cleaning.

You’ll need to change your water and cloths often (you can’t clean with a dirty cloth). Wipe down doors, walls, skirting boards, dado rails, banisters.

7. In the kitchen the dust at high level will be welded on with a layer of grease; the best thing to cut through it easily is a solution of warm water and washing soda – depending on how thick the grease, up to a cup per 500ml warm water. It’s cheap and works like magic.

8. Clean the carpets, either professionally (far better result) or with a hired or bought machine. For upholstery, sprinkle with bicarbonate of soda, leave overnight and vacuum off the next day.

9. Gather up any ornaments, wash in warm soapy water then rinse. Line the bowl or sink with a tea towel to protect anything fragile.

10. Duvets and pillows are easy to ignore but if I tell you that we each lose about a pint of sweat a night, you get my drift. Follow wash instructions on the label (double duvets you’ll need to take to the launderette).  

11. Pull out the fridge! While you’re at it vacuum the cooling elements with the upholstery attachment, then wipe with a soft cloth wrung out in warm soapy water. This’ll help it run more efficiently and cheaply.

12. Blitz kitchen storecupboards and throw any out-of-date flour or nuts (they’ll be rancid). Food moths always seem to find their way into old dry ingredients and once you’re infested, it’s hard to get rid. Wipe shelves with a clean cloth wrung out in warm soapy water, getting right into the corners, and buff dry.

13. Limescale on the shower glass? No need for harsh products. Remove the worst on glass shower enclosures with a DIY scraper for paint splatters then ‘wallpaper’ the glass with sheets of vinegar-drenched kitchen roll. Leave a few hours then remove paper and rinse down. Buff dry with a microfibre glass cloth. For chrome taps, envelop with vinegary kitchen paper, cover with a plastic bag and secure with a rubber band. Leave overnight and in the morning the scale will flake off. In the sink/enamel bath: take a dampened pumice stone and rub, rub, rub (it won’t scratch the surface).

14. Undo the bathroom seat to reveal the horror beneath and go for it – with a wipe or disposable cloth this time!

15. Don’t waste your time on mucky teenagers’ rooms. Guess what, they might even notice the improvements in the rest of the house and have a think, even if they take no action.

Get ready for summer, and the disease-spreading flies and other annoying bugs that come with it, with a pop-up food cover, which folds away flat when not in use – from hardware shops.

While I was staying with my sister in law recently, she made some toast for her daughter.

After buttering it and before putting on the jam, she cleaned the knife by inserting it sideways into the toast’s doughy interior.

An ingenious way of keeping the jam in the pot butter-free!

If your wardrobe is positioned against an outside wall, the clothes inside can be vulnerable to damp and mould, particularly in colder months.

One simple way to counter this is to insert a few hanging wardrobe dehumidifiers on the rail.

Most trainers, running shoes and football boots are fine to go into the washing machine, but if there’s mud on, don’t just chuck them in, hoping for the best.

Yes they will emerge clean but any mud stuck to them won’t just go down the drain – it often sits in the bottom of the rubber opening. I discovered quite a wodge of it in mine!

So next time wait till the mud dries and brush off as much as you can before you stick the shoes in the machine.

If they’ve not been done for a while, it’s a good idea to wash down the frames and sills before you do the glass.

If they’re especially bad, use a dustpan and brush to get the worst off before wiping down with a damp cloth.

Clean the glass from top to bottom to avoid drips and don’t clean in direct sunlight as you will always end up with streaks!

When you’re drying (a microfibre cloth is my top choice), wipe up and down on one side, back and fore on the other – that way you can tell which side any streaks are on.