Best home cleaning hacks:from vinegar to ketchup, the everyday items that double up as cleaning products – Homes and Property

With time on our hands and the spectre of the pandemic at our shoulders, if ever there was a moment to give our homes a thorough clean, it is now.

Keeping your home scrupulously clean will help stop the spread of coronavirus - and it could also protect your mental health. A study by cleaning company Molly Maid found that 70 per cent of us feel less stressed if our home is spick-and-span.

With only a limited number of shops open it can be tricky to rush out and buy an armful of specialist cleaning products. But there are some brilliant hacks you can try that use store cupboard basics, from ketchup to silver foil...

Cleaning mucky grouting is a soul-destroying task made easier by Tim and Melanie Smiley who caused a Facebook sensation last year with their (almost) effort-free method.

When Mrs Smiley asked her husband to tackle the stains he did it his way, attaching an electric toothbrush head to a drill and then using the makeshift tool, dipped in grout cleaner, with spectacular effects.

No grout cleaner to hand? Make your own by mixing seven cups of water with half a cup of baking soda, a third of a cup of lemon juice and a quarter of a cup of vinegar.

Now summer is finally here, sparklingly clean windows can make a real difference to your rooms.

Professional window cleaners tend to wash windows down using a weak solution of washing-up liquid, but unless you are a pro with a squeegee the results can be very smeary.

The solution? According to Extreme Couponing and Bargaining, on Facebook, the trick is to use a solution of fabric softener and water instead, then wipe dry with a lint free duster this also works on mirrors, and smells lovely, too.

Housework guru MrsHinch, aka SophieHinchcliffe, offers tips and tricks using basic store cupboard items(Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Instagram queen of clean, Mrs Hinch, carved a niche as a housework guru with three million follows. She suggests freshening up your bed by filling a sieve with bicarbonate of soda and sprinkling it over the mattress. Wait an hour and vacuum it up.

"It's an odour eliminator so any odours that may be lingering in the mattress, it just soaks them up and absorbs them, explained Mrs Hinch, aka Sophie Hinchcliffe, from Essex. It works really, really well.

Meanwhile, most pillows can go in the washing machine (check labels first). Put a couple of tennis balls in the dryer to help plump them up as they dry.

Condiments can make great makeshift cleaning products. Ketchup will eat away at burned-on stains on stainless steel pots and pans, thanks to the acetic acid it contains.

Simply spread the sauce on the surface and let it sit for half an hour before scrubbing it off.

Mayonnaise has a multitude of uses beyond a dip for your chips. Its oily texture will fix watermarks on wood furniture. Simply dab on, let it sit for an hour, then clean off and buff. Different finishes react differently, so always try a small test patch first.

Forget spending ages polishing up blackened silver like a Downton Abbey housemaid. Karyn Siegel-Maier, author of The Naturally Clean Home: 150 Super-Easy Herbal Formulas for Green Cleaning, suggests placing tarnished silver items in a container filled with water, and adding in some strips of tinfoil.

Let it soak for an hour, rinse and dry, and the tarnish will have vanished this method also works on jewellery.

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Best home cleaning hacks:from vinegar to ketchup, the everyday items that double up as cleaning products - Homes and Property