Do you want to haul out your fridge every time you clean under it? I'm not strong or motivated enough to do all that. Frankly, I'm lazy enough to avoid even moving shelving or furniture unless I absolutely have to. This trick from TikTok allows you to clean under larger pieces—and while you'll still have to yank them out at some point, you can extend the amount of time between your feats of manual labor.
Grab a sponge and a spatula
I saw this video on the Washy Wash account a few days ago. In just 14 seconds, it shows how you can easily clean under heavy furniture and appliances with only a sponge and a spatula.
I don't use regular sponges very often (because I am such a fan of reusable silicone ones), so I didn't have a grimy old sponge to sacrifice to the experiment. What I did have, of course, was a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Ultra Foamy, which I have talked and talked about and will never abandon. I used this particular Magic Eraser a lot last week, so it was looking pretty busted and I felt fine destroying it in the name of science. I referred back to the video and found that I was supposed to cut a hole in the edge of the sponge and shove a spatula in there. My regular spatulas are pretty wide and I felt like they'd eventually burst the whole sponge open, making it unusable, so I used a thin icing spatula instead. One benefit of using a melamine sponge like the Magic Eraser over a harder sponge is that it was extremely easy to cut a hole in the side. I think there would have been more resistance with, say, a standard cellulose sponge.
The next part was easy: After stuffing my spatula in the hole, I wet the sponge and dragged it around under my fridge, using the handle of the spatula to push and pull the Magic Eraser.
Things to keep in mind with this trick
Obviously, you can only push the sponge in as far as your handle can reach (and, in cases where you're dealing with appliances like the fridge, only until some large, low-hanging component gets in your way). This isn't a substitute for pulling out the appliance or furniture and really cleaning under there. Rather, it's something you can do in between bigger cleanings to address the dirt and grime that gets stuck under the overhang of your larger pieces. The good news is there's plenty of dirt near the outer edges of appliances, since that's where it ends up when it gets kicked and swept.
If you're using a regular sponge, use a soap-and-water mixture or your favorite cleaning solution to address the dirt, but no matter what you use, make sure to go back in with a different sponge using only water, rinsing away any sticky residue. My Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Ultra Foamy comes with soap pods inside, so I had to use a plain rag wrapped around my spatula to rinse when I was finished. It worked fine!
Overall, this is a simple way to extend the time in between larger cleanings under your big appliances. When I do it again in the future, I'm going to try to use a longer tool, like a yardstick, to really get in there.
