7 Easy Ways to Clean Your Chicago Home While You Sleep

Between work, family, and trying to enjoy everything Chicago has to offer, keeping your home spotless can feel like a second full-time job. We get it. Sometimes you just need a little help—or some clever tricks—to make life easier. That’s why we’ve adapted some brilliant “clean while you sleep” tips to help busy Chicagoans wake up to a fresher space. And if you ever need a hand, remember that a professional home cleaning is just a click away.

Who says you can’t be productive while you’re catching Z’s? We love finding efficient ways to tackle chores, so your home gets cleaner with almost zero effort on your part. These overnight cleaning hacks are perfect for anyone who wants a fresher space without sacrificing their evening. And if you’d rather leave it to the experts, you can always schedule a cleaning with our team.

1. Give Your Microwave a Steam Clean

We’ve all opened the microwave to find splatters and stuck-on food. Instead of scrubbing, let steam do the work. Squeeze half a lemon into a microwave-safe bowl, fill it ¾ with water, and run it for 3 minutes. When it beeps, do not open the door. Leave it overnight. The lingering steam softens all the grease and grime. In the morning, simply wipe it clean with a damp cloth. It’s a game-changer for quick apartment cleaning maintenance.

2. Refresh Your Mattress with Baking Soda

Here’s a gross fact: the average adult sweats up to two cups per night. Over time, your mattress absorbs a lot. For a simple refresh, strip your bed and sprinkle one to two cups of baking soda over the entire mattress. Let it sit overnight (or longer if you’re away). The baking soda absorbs odors. The next day, vacuum it up thoroughly. Your mattress will feel and smell rejuvenated—no heavy lifting required.

3. Tackle Pet Stains with Enzyme Cleaners

Pet accidents happen. For the best results, blot up the moisture, then apply a pet enzyme cleaner. These cleaners need time—at least 8 hours—to break down proteins and bacteria. For extra effectiveness, cover the treated area with plastic wrap and tape it down to keep it wet overnight. In the morning, clean as usual. You’ll notice a huge difference. For bigger messes or regular upkeep, consider deep cleaning help from a pro.

4. Soak Oven Racks Overnight

Cleaning the oven? Don’t forget the racks. Skip the scrubbing. Fill a bathtub or large basin with very hot water and drop in three dishwasher detergent pods. Once they dissolve, submerge your oven racks and leave them overnight. The detergent breaks down the baked-on gunk. In the morning, just wipe them clean, rinse, and replace. It’s the easiest way to handle a tough job.

5. Descale Your Shower Head with Vinegar

Is your shower head spraying in weird directions? Mineral buildup is likely the culprit. Fill a plastic bag halfway with white vinegar (cleaning vinegar is even better). Secure the bag around the shower head with a rubber band, ensuring the nozzles are submerged. Let it soak overnight. In the morning, remove the bag, brush away any leftover residue, and run the water. You’ll have a perfectly flowing shower again.

6. Brighten Laundry with an Oxygen Bleach Soak

Got dingy towels, smelly gym clothes, or stained socks? Fill a bucket or bathtub with hot water and a scoop of oxygen bleach. Add your items and let them soak overnight. In the morning, launder them as usual. You’ll be amazed at how bright and fresh they come out. It’s minimal effort for maximum impact. For everything else, a reliable cleaning service near me can handle the rest of your laundry and home needs.

7. Deodorize and Clear Sink Drains

A smelly or slow-draining sink is a common headache. Before calling a plumber, try this: pour half a cup of baking soda down the drain and let it sit overnight. In the morning, boil some white vinegar and pour it down, followed by several minutes of hot water. This combo helps break down buildup and neutralize odors. It’s great maintenance, but for persistent issues, a professional is best.

Make Overnight Cleaning Work for You

These seven tricks prove that a cleaner home doesn’t have to cost you your free time. A little prep before bed leads to a much nicer morning. Of course, some tasks are bigger than an overnight soak. When you need a thorough refresh, it might be time to book an appointment with a trusted Chicago cleaning company. We offer fast cleaning services designed for busy locals who want to clean your apartment without the stress.

There’s nothing I love more than finding a way to get some cleaning done when I am sleeping. And in this video, I’m going to share with you seven different ways that you can clean things around your house while you are fast asleep. This is a very loweffort task that you are going to be embarking upon and your house will be cleaner and better off for it. And if you’re new here, welcome to Clean My Space. My name is Melissa Maker. I’m an accidental cleaning expert, which means I hate cleaning, but I love finding the most efficient and effective ways to get the job done right the first time. So, if you haven’t done so, make sure that you subscribe to the Clean MySpace channel. Also, we are very close to the 10 days of holiday gifts from Makers Clean, my sister company, where we sell premium quality microfiber cleaning tools and more. So, if you want to get in on that, make sure that you are subscribed to the Makers Clean Insider newsletter. I’ve got a link for that down below. and give this video a thumbs up for the OGs here on YouTube. I’ve been sitting here since 2012 dropping cleaning tips. First up, give your microwave a steam clean treatment. You know how when you open your dishwasher after it’s been running or even the next morning, you kind of see all this moisture sitting in there and it’s just lingering? Well, we are going to use that moisture to our benefit and we’re going to do it in the microwave. So, here’s what you need to do. Get yourself a microwave safe mug or bowl. In it, you’re going to squeeze half a lemon into it. You can drop the whole half of the lemon in there as well. Once it’s done, then you’re going to fill it about 3/4 the way with water. And you’re going to run your microwave for 3 minutes or so. You just want to make sure that things are getting nice and steamy in there. Now, at the end, when the microwave beeps, you’re going to be tempted to open it. Don’t do that. Leave it overnight because all of that moisture is just going to linger, making all of the grease and grime and gunk soft and easy to wipe away. Now, if it sits there all night, even more leg work is being done for you. So, the next morning when you open it up, it’s going to be damp. It’s going to be moist, but it’s going to be so much easier to clean. You can use a microfiber cloth and a little bit of dish soap and water to clean it. You can use a magic eraser, some paper towel if it’s really greasy and you want to get rid of some initial stuff. You be the judge. But that’s tip number one. Trivia question. Want to be grossed out for a second? How much sweat do you think the average adult gives off every night while they are sleeping? If you guessed anywhere between one to two cups of sweat, you would be correct and grossed out. Think about all of the things that your mattress absorbs during a given night, a week, a month, a year. A lot. And that’s why it’s important to have sheets and mattress protectors and all of the things. But even still, you want to give your mattress a little bit of a refresh every now and then. And this is something that can happen overnight. Now, you’re not going to be sleeping on the mattress while this happens. This would be done, you know, before you go away on a trip, but strip off your sheets, sprinkle on one to two cups of baking soda. You’re going to let that sit. Baking soda helps to absorb odors and it will just give your mattress the refresh that you wish it could have. Once you’re back, whether it’s the next day or the next week, get a vacuum with a clean vacuum head attachment and then vacuum up all of the baking soda. You have to do this a couple times because baking soda is fine and it’s going to leave a lot of residue behind. But I promise you, once this is done, your mattress will feel rejuvenated and fresh and it will feel really good. You know what loves working the overnight shift? Enzyme cleaners. They need time to do their work and break down the proteins and other odor-causing bacteria that has been deposited on the area that they are trying to clean. Case in point, pet stains. Let’s say your lovely pet decides to pee or defecate or throw up on your favorite carpet or rug or pillow. Well, all you need to do at this point is blot up as much of the moisture as you can and then treat the area with a pet enzyme cleaner. This needs to sit for at least 8 hours to really do its job. And if you want it to stay wet, you can actually cover the area in plastic wrap and then put some tape around it. So that will retain the moisture in the area, allowing the enzyme to do its work. Because fun fact, enzymes can’t work unless the area is wet. In the morning, you’re going to clean this area as usual, and you will notice that your results significantly improve. If you’re planning on cleaning the inside of your oven, please remember your oven racks need their own little makeover service. And this is something that you can do the easy way or the hard way. I’m going to show you the easy way. Get a basin or a bathtub. You’re going to throw in three dishwasher detergent pods. You’re going to let these dissolve. They need really hot water to dissolve. You’re going to add in your oven racks and let that sit overnight. Then all of the chemistry in those dishwasher detergent packs are going to attack and break down all of the gunk that is sitting on those oven racks. The next morning, you’re going to glove up, get a sponge, and quite simply wipe away all of that gunk. You are not going to have to do the scrubbing. All of the heavy lifting has been done overnight. Then just rinse and replace. When you step into the shower and you turn on that shower head, your expectation is that all of the water comes out of the jets or nozzles perfectly. But if you start noticing that your water is spraying in different directions and some of the nozzles are clogged with like white or orange crusty stuff, that means that you need to descale your shower head so you can get right back to where you want to be. Now, this job sounds complex, but it’s actually quite easy and something that can be done overnight. Just take a thick plastic bag, like a Ziploc bag. You’re going to fill it about halfway with white vinegar. Now, if you can get your hands on cleaning vinegar, which is a higher percentage of acidic acid, even better. Once you fill that bag, then you’re simply going to dip the shower head into that bag, use an elastic band to tie it off, and let it soak overnight. The next morning, you are going to want to take a beautiful shower. But before you do that, just remove the bag, dump out the vinegar, and you might need to use a little cleaning toothbrush to quite simply brush away any of that crusty buildup. Then blast that water, and enjoy that shower. It’s going to be so good. If you have dingy towels, smelly dishcloths, socks that are just eternally dirty on the bottom no matter how often you launder them, or gym clothes that you just can’t quite get the stink out of, this is something you can try. Fill a bucket with hot water and a scoop of oxygen bleach. Then you’re going to add your items and let them sit overnight. Just just bathe, just chill overnight. Now, if you have a lot of items, you might want to do this in a bathtub, and you’re going to have to increase the amount of scoops of oxygen bleach that you put in there. You be the judge. Once this is done in the morning, you can take everything out, laundry as usual, and I promise you, the results will be so good. You are going to take a picture and send it to your friends. It’s easy work that’s done overnight with little to no extra effort on your behalf. If you notice there is a wretched smell emanating from your sink or that it’s running a little bit slow, before you call a plumber, let me save you a bit of money and try this instead. Put a half a cup of baking soda down the drain. Let it sit overnight. It’s going to help to deodorize. It’s going to do its thing. You don’t have to add any water. The next morning, you’re going to boil up some white vinegar. Then you’re going to pour it down the drain. Then you’re going to run hot water for two, three, four minutes. This is going to help flush everything down the drain, get rid of odors, and get rid of buildup. Now, this is not going to solve all plumbing issues, but this is something that you can even do as maintenance to help your sink not smell, and also to help it run nice and smooth. However, if you’re still having issues, that’s when you call in the plumber. So, now you have seven new ways that you can get some lazy cleaning done around the house while you sleep. And that brings me to this week’s comment question, which is, what do you wear to sleep? Are you a full headtotoe pajama person? Do you sleep with nothing on? Do you wear cute pajamas? Do you wear really old, ratty tatty pajamas? Embarrassingly enough, I fall into the last category. My pajamas are so embarrassing, but it is what it is. is they’re really comfortable and they do the trick. But I’d love to know what you wear to sleep in the comments down below. If you want to find cleaning product and tool recommendations that are expertbacked, you need to subscribe to our newsletter, which is called The Dirty Dish. I’ve got a link to that down below as well. And you know what else grows overnight? Mold. And if you don’t want mold growing in your home, you can check out this video right over here. Thanks so much for watching and we’ll see you next time.