Inside Edition joined lifestyle expert Erika Katz as she spent an afternoon with Gabriella Ribiero, going through the busy mother's house and giving her tips about what she should be cleaning more and what she needs to start cleaning less.
When is the last time those pillows got put in the washing machine? Never? That's no good.
"You really want to wash these pillows at least once every four months," lifestyle expert Erika Katz explains, noting how sweat and makeup can often get on pillows.
Inside Edition joined Katz as she spent an afternoon with Gabriella Ribiero, going through the busy mother's house and giving her tips about what she should be cleaning more and what she needs to start cleaning less.
And while pillows are one household item that almost everyone is not cleaning enough, it is certainly not the only one.
Ribiero learned this when she informed Katz she washed her duvet cover once every four months.
"Wrong," Katz says. "I want you to wash the cover at least once a month. Twice a month if you have a dog that likes to sleep on the bed, because dogs can bring all sorts of things from the outside."
The bedroom deep-clean continues as Katz shifts her focus to what lies beneath the sheets and duvet — the mattress.
"Look at what we found when we took up those sheets," a shocked Ribiero says. "This is unbelievable. There's grass on my mattress."
Katz explains that this sort of thing is not that uncommon, and there is an easy way to clean the mattress.
"You're just gonna vacuum it up," Katz says, using a handheld device to quickly clean off the mattress.
Moving on to the bathroom, Katz strongly encourages people to hang their bathmat after a shower.
"You used it this morning, it's all wet, and you want it to dry," Katz points out. "And so when it's on the ground, it doesn't dry."
The good news is that the dirtiest item in the house is also the easiest to clean.
Kitchen sponges can be tossed in the microwave for 60 seconds while still wet.
"You want to be really careful because it can be very hot," Katz says.
In Ribiero's case, she got to see firsthand as the filthy sponge transformed into a "nice" and "clean" one that looked good as new.
