House Cleaning - Microwave Oven

Cathy Green: Hello! My name is Cathy Green and today we're talking about how to professionally clean a home. I'm the owner of UpperCrust Maids and in this particular segment what we're going to do is talk about how to clean a microwave oven. Personally, I always thought with a sink full of soapy water. There are different ways to clean a microwave oven, but this is how I like to clean it.

So what I do is, I make sure if the water is still warm and whatever dishwashing liquid that the homeowner has, I simply use that. I also have some degreaser, in case I'll need it. I just want to let it run for a few seconds. That should be plenty. I then walk over to the microwave oven. Eyeball it, see how much grease is on it and fingerprint. So this oven has quite a few fingerprints on it on the outside of it, so what I'm going to do is, I'm now going to look in the inside and I see that the homeowner has left a little bit of a food or a paper towel that she had food on. What you want to look for is the plate. This plate is actually not dirty because she had the paper towel on it. So what I am going to do is immerse this in water and give it a bath. Whatever washing agents that the homeowner has, I simply use that. So I am using her rag, I am using her dishwashing liquid, and as you can see, I'm giving the plate a nice little bath.

Okay, so you just sort of shake it off, and again, I will use the cloth that are already in the homeowner's home, because like a bathroom, a kitchen is a place of hygiene. So I don't like to use outside cleaning agents in people's kitchen, I like to use what the homeowner already has. So I'm going to use her cloth to dry off the plate and now let it dry. I'm going to set it aside because now I need to go into the microwave oven and start to clean it. So the second thing you want to do is remove the tray. I want to fit inside of the sink, so to give it a quick bath here. It's not dirty, so I don't have to do much. I want to use her cleaning agents and I'm going to dry the rack off. It shouldn't take too long and now it's ready. However, what I'm going to do is set it aside, and then I'm going to actually clean the inside of the microwave. Now, what I would do is look at the top of the microwave and all around the periphery of it. This is actually pretty clean microwave, so I would simply take her rag, again. When it comes to kitchen, I like to use what the homeowner has in their own homes. So, I will use her rag so to wipe it out. I must pretend that this was a dirty microwave. If it was dirty, I would wet a little scrubby and I would just go around the parts that had like kept on food and I will use the scrubby to get it off. But since this is actually a clean microwave, we don't need to do that. I would simply start putting things back. So, the plate is ready to be put back and microwaves are tricky, we have to kind of circle this until it falls, until it falls into place. Then I would take her rack, she had it on the top shelf, I'll take her rack and put that back. That's in place. I will then make sure that the top of the microwave is cleaned. I would make sure -- now in this area up here I would actually probably use a little bit of a degreaser. Then I would just wipe it back and forth, back and forth and I would let that sit for a minute because it's still working. These are sort of greasy. So I would then close it. So the front of her microwave is actually pretty clean, so I would just use a vinegar water solution. You could also use a general window cleaner and I will wipe it. I want to get over here, you want to make sure that the handle has been wiped. Some people use all-purpose cleaner. I wouldn't use too much, especially when it's sort of clean. You don't have to do too much to it, just need to make sure that you get the residue. Then I would go back up to the top and look again at where we have this degreaser drying. I just want to get all the glue and make sure you get all this soap out of here, all of its sides.

Now that you know how to appropriately clean a microwave oven, I'm going to teach you how to clean carpeted steps.