In the middle of the 19th century, families all across the country would open their doors and windows and clean. This was not just any regular cleaning, it was a deep clean of a person’s home. This would include hand scrubbing the floors, walls, and steps. This cleaning would last for days at a time, making sure that a person’s house was cleaned to its fullest potential. Another thing that stuck out about this cleaning was the time of year it took place, right before or at the start of the spring equinox. This cleaning would go on for years, eventually becoming known as spring cleaning, according to National Clean Up Weeks: A History of Spring Cleaning to Improve Public Health on the Johnson & Johnson website.
The trend of spring cleaning is very popular in the United States. One of the main reasons people do it is because of insects. During the winter months, bugs will crawl into people’s houses and nest there because of the heat. That can leave dirt, grime, and dead insects in the houses. Spring cleaning is one of the ways that a person can get rid of the bugs and their residue. Bug residue can cause illnesses such as malaria, yellow fever, and lyme according to the CDC.
Another main reason that people spring clean is because of habit. Say a woman starts to spring clean in the 1800’s and she taught her children to as well, they might continue to spring clean, even when they have children. They might continue this tradition with their own children someday too. This is how spring cleaning has stayed so abundant in the United States.
Nowadays, spring cleaning is not such a difficult task. Beforehand, people would have to hand scrub everything but now we have objects for that. Many people own a Swiffer, a mop that dispenses the cleaning liquid itself with the press of a button. We even have special rags to clean certain surfaces like windows and screens.
No matter how annoying the task might be, spring cleaning is something that connects a lot of people. There are many groups on Facebook and other social media where people discuss new cleaning products and tips. The tradition of spring cleaning has been around for hundreds of years, hopefully it will stay around for even longer.
