Around this time of year in the northern hemisphere, thoughts have over the years, often turned to spring cleaning the house. The origins of the practice of spring cleaning are many, with justifiable claims for Iranian, Jewish and Scottish beginnings.
Ancient origins would suggest that spring as a time of new growth sparked many practices including spring cleaning the home as the ‘old’ of winter is swept aside by the ‘new’ of spring. Certainly the warmer longer days would have started to highlight the dust and dirt accumulated over the dark cold days of winter. The spring Equinox that was also the key to many ancient festivals saw the length of daylight equal that of darkness and would have been a trigger to getting the house in order for the year.
In more recent time the origin of spring cleaning would simple be that the warmer days allowed for the opening of windows or shutters and the throwing out of straw used to cover floors.
One source for the advent of spring cleaning comes from Iran, where the then Persian New year or “Nowruz” falls in March and the practice of “Khouneh Tekouni” or shaking the house was practiced. Another claim is that the Jewish tradition of cleaning the house prior to Passover, which falls in March, is also the root of the practice. The Scottish tradition of Hogmanay cleaning would place this on 1st January and is therefore more of a winter event rather than a spring one. The above explanations are a few of many found around the world including Greek Clean week prior to Lent and Chinese New Year.
Whatever the source of the practice today’s modern living has made undertaking spring cleaning a much less arduous task than of years gone by. Prior to the invention of the first vacuum cleaner in 1869 or the first carpet sweeper in 1876, cleaning of floors and carpets was a labour intensive job. Either requiring sweeping with a broom, or in the case of textile floor coverings a beating to remove dust, cleaning relied on muscle power. A besom broom or small hand brush and dustpan would be all that was available to many to clean floors.
