The vintage cleaning hacks that still work today

Kya deLongchamps shares the cleaning hacks from Victorian times onwards that still keep homes sparkling

A wartime London householder cleaning her grate in 1941.

Cleaning habits have altered a lot since the days of Sunlight Soap. Before plunging into sepia-tinted hacks to sparkle up your manor, there’s a long, leery list of nostalgic practises that are at best potentially destructive, and at worst downright lethal. 

Lay off ancestral oddities including naphtha (crude oil), pulverised stone, sulphuric acid, caustic soda or bovine gallstones to freshen things up. Weird, archaic, stinking and corrosive, they are best left on the shelf in favour of other classic, non-toxic choices — milk, beeswax, bread soda, lemon juice and (where appropriate) white vinegar. 

There are highly educated conservators who know what they are doing. Let’s stick to our limited skill set shall we?

One disastrous ritual of old, often thrown up by an online search of old household manuals, is leaving an old rug out overnight or dragging it face down over fresh snow. Never, never, never.

Don’t rub those raw Rooster potatoes over oil paintings or leave them in direct sunshine to brighten the surface — it could ruin your artwork.

Yes, urine was a staple from medieval times for sanitising clothes and getting fatty marks out of wool — but, do I have to say it? Not on the carpet, please.

A drop of safer, saner sense — almost dry tea leaves or moistened bran can clean carpeting and rugs. Slosh a pot of sodden tea grounds over the snowy Berber and in any variety of fainting colour — you’re in serious trouble. 

Dust was worked from the centre to the edge of carpeting with a “whisk brush” and taken up with a pan, but obviously, we can snake out the vacuum. Cleaning carpets with a brush or beater bar is inevitably damaging, so if you have some lovely old dears, keep it to a minimum — try something gentler and more meditative like the original Ewbank (Addis and Beldray sweepers from €19, Argos).

Don’t use fresh-cut grass for any but the richest pattern in a cheap carpet. Inert kitchen goods like bread heels and dough can be deployed to take out stains and grot (mashed up white bread putty is still fantastic for getting stains off paint and wallpaper). Like they say, first, do no harm.

Simpler times

In Victorian times, protection was used due to the heavy cleaning required by the choking biomass of multiple fires. The household round was divided into the daily, weekly and monthly chores with military regularity. Rooms that were not used every day were shrouded in sheets once clean. Favourite rooms were completely cleared for a deep spring clean bar the heaviest furniture, and put back together piece by piece when the skirting was dry and the floors waxed. You washed and dusted the ornaments elsewhere, and brought the whole lot back in again. Simple but time-consuming.

There were plenty of other perennial projects, for example changing out the window dressings in winter and spring. The simple act of carrying a damp rag and a dry cotton cloth or chamois from room to room was all that was needed to keep most homes sparkling — and that still stands. 

L3. “Spring is the usual period for house-cleaning and removing the dust and dirt which, notwithstanding all precautions, will accumulate during the winter months from dust, smoke, gas, etc. - Isabella Beeton, author of the iconic Book of Household Management - 1861

Deployed commercial sprays don’t just go over the furniture, they go into your lungs. Try turning over a microfibre cloth and wiping off surfaces while wandering around listening to a podcast or talking on the phone through a headset for just 10 minutes a day.

After a really good going over, below downstairs would have stunk of phenol and carbolic — regarded as the chief weapon against germs in and out of the bath. For an Edwardian housewife, this said clean. 

With all doors closed in unused rooms, fine homes had what were termed “druggerts” all over the place — heavy protective cloth covers that were set under tables and over good carpets to shield them from stains, sparks from the fire, light damage and wear caused by foot traffic. Lesser carpeting or pieces of carpet (rarely ever dumped) were layered up over precious pieces like Wiltons.

Carpets

Three to four times a year, rugs were given a good battering in the garden with a rod or wicker beater over a wall or double line, and carpeting remains the single most filthy thing in most modern homes. 

Don’t bend any old rug acutely over a single washing line. It could damage the backing or weakening weave. Roll it rather than folding it. Picking the carpet up, is a crucial tip from the 1800s, as the dirt underneath the piece can grind on the threads and lead to balding out. 

Do a thorough clean, before putting it down on a liner to add extra thermal insulation from an unsealed floor. Great householders with important heritage carpets went as far as to lay their carpeting over straw to protect it from grinding on the timber — they were sometimes “buttoned” to the floor, but never put directly down on planks.

Stubborn surfaces

I tried an interesting period hack on my cheap gilded frames (leave the antique cabbage beauties alone). You just boil a bit of leftover onion and using a barely damp paintbrush, wipe over my gold-painted picture frames. Bit of a whiff, but they certainly brighten up. 

For windows, try a solution of boiled tea leaves or grounds (you could just dump what’s left in the pot through a strainer) and slosh in a little white vinegar or alcohol to a bucket of warm water. Apply it sparingly with a cloth and rub off with old newspaper to lift any fly spots. For mirrors, just use a huff of breath and a chamois leather. 

Scrubbing with baking soda (an alkaline, fat-disruptor) and wipes with neat or diluted white vinegar (a disinfecting acid) can cover most of the cleaning and stain removal in a weekly clean. Make up a variety of eco-friendly paste to suit more surfaces. For a filthy pan? Try crushed eggshells and lemon juice applied with stout rubber gloves — a centuries old pantry punisher.

Natural-born cleaners

Back underfoot, milk is often touted for shining up stone, brick and quarry stone floors as it contains casein proteins and fat. It might have been used extensively in Dickens’ time, but check with your supplier as a highly absorbent, open-grained stone might stain badly. If you have some off-cuts, experiment first.

Many naturally inclined cleaners slosh a little milk (sour or fresh) into the final rinse water, even for ceramic flooring. Sour milk and a touch of buttermilk can also be safely applied onto and even left soaking on a cloth over dirty silverware. Let it cure overnight and polish off the next day.

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As period ingredients, beeswax is still fantastic for raw wood. Have a soft bristle shoe brush on hand. It takes some practice, enormous patience and it’s vital you don’t leave a floor dangerously slippery. Be prepared to genuflect for a few hours to really work the wax over the undulating landscape of gorgeous honed planks. 

Beer is most likely to stain lighter timber — steer clear, but reserve a little stale ale to moisten your black-leading for the fireplace surround. If you want to go to a 19th-century furniture polish, look up a recipe for boiled linseed oil and brown vinegar — useless for sealed surfaces or laminate mind you. The Victorians favoured cold tea for mahogany, which was said to enrich that flaming colour. Always, patch test somewhere out of sight.