The Reddit Post That Made Us Rethink How To Clean Our Kitchens

It's important to put yourself in someone else's shoes, especially when it comes to cleaning your kitchen. One Redditor came to this stunning realization when they compared the way they view the kitchen versus their much shorter children.

The post includes a photo of the stovetop, followed by a contrasting photo taken from a much lower angle, showing the children's view. The lower view shows the underside of the hood, which still needed to be cleaned. We've covered common cleaning mistakes before, but this one is often overlooked. Even if you regularly clean and polish your range hood, you can still appreciate the sentiment. The undersides of cupboards and edges of counters are things most of us rarely see, but someone closer to the ground notices them all the time.

Even a conscientious cleaner is going to miss things they can't see. Comments reinforced this: several people said they had tall friends who could easily see the tops of refrigerators. It sounds like when you're 6'5" or taller, you're constantly looking down at people's dirty fridge tops.

It's easy enough to look down and see the fronts of cupboards and drawers, and the floor as well. But until you actually get down onto that level, you don't really know what you're missing out on. The lower lip of counters and drawers, handles, and cupboards can all hide grimy surprises you wouldn't think of until you're down there.

If you have small kids in your house, or someone with mobility issues in a wheelchair, it's always good to get down on their level, not just to see what you're overlooking, but to see what's easily accessible to them. Handprints and smudges that are in their line of sight can be everywhere, so that the whole world might look that way from their perspective.

Someone once said our perspective is our reality, and it's jarring to realize that can be true even in the context of a clean kitchen. Clean to you may not be clean to someone else, so a thorough job truly needs to be from the top down.

Check under your toaster, the liner in your fridge door, beneath the knobs on your stove, and the edges of the dishwasher door. There are lots of places you might never think to clean. All you need to do is crouch down low and have a look around when you think the room is clean. You might find a job only half done.