LEWISTON — It’s time to open the windows, take that brown wreath off the front door and clean places you haven’t seen in months.

Professional cleaner Betty Allen of Auburn, who teaches a spring-cleaning class at Lewiston Adult Education, has a few suggestions.

Allen has worked in homes “from all walks of life, from single parents to movie stars, from Section 8 to mansions on Route 88 in Falmouth Foreside.” Allen is working to become a consultant in feng shui — an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics — to help homeowners diagnose and correct home-cleaning and organizing problems.

Shoes off, mats down

Allen’s top home-cleaning tip is about prevention.

“The most important thing is to have a doormat on both sides of your door, and take your shoes off,” she said. “That is HUGE, the single most beneficial thing you can do to protect the investment of your floors.”

It’s simple, but a lot of people don’t do it.

Shoes off and doormats down prevents dirt from going everywhere in the house. “Maine is a gritty state,” Allen said, especially in the spring. Grit erodes, wears down and chews up floors.

“Most people think the wear on carpet is the traffic pattern, which it is. But that traffic pattern is mostly grit,” she said.

And it’s not only the grit you can see. Your shoes bring in other things: pollen, road dust from tires and tailpipe exhaust. That black on the spring snowbanks is from motor vehicles. Preventing all that doesn’t only mean a prettier home, it’s better for your health.

Keep the bathroom dry

“You really need to have your bathroom dry as quickly as possible” to prevent mold, Allen said. Mold is not only unsightly, it can make you sick. And dust mites and bedbugs like moist environments, she said.

Buy a shower squeegee and use it to get moisture and water off the shower walls. The bathroom vent is not for odor, it’s for moisture, Betty said. “You want to run that thing while you shower.”

If your bathroom doesn’t have a vent, open the window, use a fan, even flap a towel to move the moisture out.

“Water is insidious,” Allen said. “If there’s a tiny crack in the tile, around the tub or a light fixture, it’ll get in there. You can’t defeat the laws of physics.”

Before you leave the bathroom, look around and make sure you’re not leaving water behind. Wipe up any you see, pick up and shake off the shower mat, leaving it hanging to dry.

“Sick-house syndrome, or sick building, or Legionnaire’s disease, is real,” Allen said.

Of 50 homes she’s cleaned, three had mold so bad that people in the household became ill. In one home, a small bathroom off a bedroom had no windows, and insufficient air flow. Mold got into the walls, prompting a teenager to become sick for weeks.

Another client had sinus issues from too much moisture in the bathroom. The family had heavy drapes instead of a light shower curtain, an inefficient ceiling fan and a bamboo mat that looked good but held in moisture, Allen said.

Less clutter equals roomier rooms

Allen says you have too much stuff if you put something down and you can’t find it, or it takes you more than an hour to do your weekly dusting. (Dusting and vacuuming should be done weekly to prevent dust mites, she says.)

Too much clutter is a common problem, hence the hoarding shows on cable television. Allen has seen too much stuff in all of the houses she’s cleaned except for some empty nesters and Realtors. “Realtors get it,” she said.

Empty space, empty counters, empty tables “are peaceful, roomy, attractive,” she said. “You can see what you’ve got.”

Too many toys can be overwhelming for children, making it harder for them to decide what to play with, Allen said. “It’s plain irresponsible to have more than you can care for, whether it’s children, animals or knickknacks.”

It’s work to get rid of stuff, easy to justify keeping it. Allen recommends prioritizing and organizing, donating what you don’t need. She offered two examples of how she won her own clutter battle:

She loves family artwork. Instead of getting rid of it, she organized and filed it into seasons, displaying some in the fall, others in the winter, spring and summer. Swapping the art lets her avoid throwing out things she loves and keeps her from having her walls too busy.

She also has a weakness for arts and crafts. She prioritized which materials to keep, which to donate. She went with beading, macrame and sewing, and got rid of woodworking and painting. “It was hard,” she said. “I can sympathize with everybody, but it was awesome to get rid of it.”

Give dogs monthly baths

If your dog sleeps on your couch and beds, he or she needs a monthly bath. Again, it’s about prevention: A dirty dog is a dirty house. Allen recommends vacuuming couch cushions weekly along with your floors. Or manually wiping cushions with a damp cloth to remove dog dirt and fur.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

More Betty’s better home tips:

Fight dust mites. Dust mites are everywhere, and they can make some people sick, said professional cleaner Betty Allen. The solution is to dust and vacuum, especially your bedroom. Wash sheets weekly. Don’t keep piles of books or magazines in the room, some mites cling to  paper. Invest in a good vinyl, zipper cover for your mattress. “It will keep dust mites, and bed bugs, out.”

Everyone should help clean. “The whole family should be maintaining the house. If you walk on the floor you should take your turn vacuuming it. If you pull food out of the fridge you should take your turn cleaning out the fridge,” Betty said.

Parents need to show kids how to clean. “Yelling at a kid to clean room isn’t going to do any good if he doesn’t know what that means,” she said.

Get a vacuum right for you. Betty recommends not buying a vacuum without test driving it first. “Different floors need different kind of tools. You need to talk to someone.” She likes the Vac Shack in Lewiston.

Change vacuum bags frequently. Don’t let vacuum bags get more than half full. The bag needs room to work properly, she said. A bag more than half full compromises the suction “and increases the possibility that things you don’t want to breathe, dirt, dead dust mites, is getting pushed through the bag.”