Deep cleaning forgotten areas in your kitchen

• Zapata's Cleaning Services specializes in deep cleaning the forgotten areas in the kitchen.
• These include dishwasher filters, the back of a refrigerator, and vent hood filters.
• Leaving some areas uncleaned, like the back of the fridge, poses a serious fire and health risk.

Following is a transcript of the video.

My name is Kellsie Zapata, and I am a team member at Zapata's Cleaning Services. Today, we'll be showing you how we deep clean a kitchen, especially the areas that are commonly missed.

A lot of places that are missed are places that are just not seen. So, for example, you don't see behind your refrigerator, you don't see behind your oven, you don't see where your hood filter goes. It's something that's commonly missed. And if items like these are not cleaned properly, they're not going to last very long and you're going to get a lot of dirt, debris, and buildup.

Most kitchens will have the filters. They're always going to be above the stove. This was a outdoor hood vent filter. So I think maybe it being outside made it much more worse, because of the weather.

So, once we have our gloves on, we take all the pieces down carefully, and then we spray it down with our favorite degreaser, which is Dawn Powerwash. The worse the buildup, the more I'll let it soak. So these, we let it soak for about a good 30 minutes. We turned the hot water on, let it run for a few seconds, and then we rinsed it all off.

One of their jobs is to capture the grease while you're cooking, and that grease can build up and turn into thick layers of grease. And that's why you want to clean them regularly, at least once a month, maybe even more if you cook a lot, so that all that grease can get cut down and the filter can continue to do its job properly.

We had to get a scrub brush to kind of get some of the pieces, but for the most part, the Dawn was able to lift all of that. This is an older-looking one. They all look differently, but they all do the same job. Their job is to circulate the air and catch the grease, which is why you see those brown marks. That's all grease buildup. So your filter should not look like that. If it does look like that, you need to clean it. And it's important to remember that not cleaning those hood filters is also a smoke hazard, because that steam and smoke is going to stay in that filter.

Down here in Georgia, we deal with a lot of hard water. So a lot of that buildup, besides the grease that you see, a lot of those white marks are just hard-water buildup. We put our gloves on. We did not want to touch anything in there. And we put our mask on because the smell was very foul. We pulled out all the filter pieces. We did soak it in hot water and vinegar to try to loosen as much of that food debris off. So, vinegar is acidic, so it will eat away at things. It's a really good natural cleaner. It worked, but there was still stuff caked on there. We went in with the Dawn Powerwash, let it sit for about 20 minutes, and then it looked brand new afterwards.

Then we tackled the dishwasher. I poured vinegar all on the bottom of the dishwasher to mask the smell. They were there for six months. There was food, just food, pieces of chicken that were just stuck in the inside of it. So there's no way that they were rinsing the dishes.

Then, when I realized how thick the grease was, we had to bring out our Dupray steamer. And once we brought our steamer out, it made the cleaning so quick and easy. The grease was lifting, the hard-water marks were lifting. The steamer will sanitize, degrease, and disinfect, all with water.

So, once everything was clean, to an extent, we put all the filter pieces back, we locked them into place, we put the racks back in, and then we got an Affresh dishwashing tablet and we put it where the detergent pods go in, and then we ran a normal, high-heat cycle.

So, with a normal dishwasher, first thing we do is we always take out the filter, scrub it with some hot water and some vinegar to get any food debris off, rinse it with water, put it back into place, and then I'll get some vinegar and spray the harder-to-reach areas, like where the sealant part is. I'll spray that with the vinegar, scrub it with a grout brush, and I'll put everything back and I'll use an Affresh tablet. Or if I don't have those on me that day, I will pour some vinegar into a dishwasher-safe cup, put it on the top rack, and run a hot, normal cycle. The vinegar will lift any soap scum, grime, or any other sticky residue.

So, after your vinegar cycle, pull out the rack, take out that cup of vinegar, and then we'll pour baking soda on the bottom of the dishwasher, close it back up, and run another hot, normal cycle. And the baking soda will really help deodorize and take out any weird smells in there. It's important to use these two products separately. You don't want to use them together, 'cause if you use them together, they turn into salt. You want to clean this appliance at least once a month. This is because a dirty filter is not going to get your dishes clean.

You're going to come across lots of dust and just whatever has slid under your fridge. And also, if you have pets, there's going to be a lot of pet hair back there, too. After we safely move the refrigerator, you don't want to yank it, you don't want to pull it because it is going to be connected with a wire. Just kind of check the area and make sure there's no loose wires before you just start vacuuming. And we start vacuuming the baseboard, the wall, the coils to get all that dirt and dust off. We used a foaming action spray. We used a microfiber cloth, because that's really good at trapping dust and dirt. You want to at least pull that out two to three times a year. If you have a bigger family and you have a lot of pets, you probably want to do it more, but at least a minimum of three times a year.

Cleaning the inside of a oven is probably the last thing you want to do after cleaning your whole kitchen. So the more you let the oven go, the worse it's going to get. So that's just cooking oils and food splatter. So, first thing we do is pull out the racks, and we will spray the racks down with the blue Easy-Off. And the reason that we use the blue can of Easy-Off is because that is an oven cleaner that is safe for self-cleaning ovens. Once we spray the racks, we then go back to the oven, and we will check out the bottom of the oven. And if there's any loose or burned food debris, we will wipe all that out with paper towels, try to get as much of that loose food debris off the bottom of the oven, and then we go in with the Easy-Off and just spray a generous amount of product. And then we close the door and let it sit a minimum of one hour and 15 minutes depending on how bad the buildup is. We go in with SOS pads and scrub and scrub and scrub until everything comes off. They are a type of steel wool abrasive pads, and they are the thickest grit that you can use. We'll wipe that first layer of product off with paper towels to get as much of it off as possible. And then the key is to rinse with water. So we'll spray water, we'll wipe, we'll wipe again, and we'll wipe again. Because one common question we get with this product is, "I've used it, but it leaves a white residue." Well, that's because you didn't rinse. You're going to want to rinse your oven at least four or five times to ensure that all that product is taken off and nothing stays behind. About once a month, give it a deep cleaning. We do not encourage the self-clean oven cycle. There is way too many risk and fire hazards with that.

You know, when you cook on your stove top, grease and food's going to splatter, and it can fall on the sides of the oven. In this particular instance, we used a Scour Daddy, which, a Scour Daddy is really good at lifting thick grease, caked-on grease. We used the Sprayway cleaner too because it has that foaming action that can really lift all that buildup. And then we just kind of went back over it to make sure everything was taken off. Bugs will definitely get drawn in there, especially if there's food that gets stuck in there. So when you pull it out, you might see some dead bugs stuck in there. And if you're ever wondering if there's a foul odor in your kitchen, pull out your oven. There might be some stuff that's gotten behind the oven and on the sides of the oven.