With the official start of Spring last week comes the official start of Spring Cleaning Season nationwide.

In some homes, Spring Cleaning is an annual ritual, tackled within one sweat-filled, rubber-gloved weekend.  In other homes, it's a less serious endeavor. 

Either way, it helps to have a game plan.

Courtesy of Martha Stewart's website, the Spring Cleaning Organizer is a 9-step checklist covering all of the basics. 

• Clean shades and windows
• Sort through wardrobes
• Clean and rotate mattresses and cushions

Most of the checklist items can be retired with household cleansers and vacuums.  A few, however, require heavy-duty appliances that you may not have at-home.  For example, cleaning carpets and rugs is best-handled with a steam cleaner; and, washing windows may be too dangerous, depending on your home.

If you don't want to rent cleaning equipment from your local hardware store just for Spring Cleaning, consider hiring an Angie's List contractor to do the job for you.  It will cost more money than doing it yourself, but the job will get done right (and your home will be clean).

The Spring Cleaning checklist also reminds homeowners to check the batteries of in-home safety devices like smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, and flashlights.

(Image courtesy: Junk Bee Gone)

It's well-known, but worth repeating.

Grease should never be poured down a kitchen drain.  The moment that liquid fat touches cold water or cold pipes, it can harden and block pipes.

Traditionally, disposing of grease required:

1. Pouring the grease into a glass jar
2. Placing the jar in the refrigerator
3. Throwing out the jar once the grease had hardened

However, a new, biodegradable product called Absorb-Ease lets you go from Grill to Garbage in one easy step -- with no spilled grease and no collecting of glass jars.

Just put an FDA-approved Absorb-Ease pad in a hot, greasy skillet and watch it absorb liquid like a paper towel absorbs a spill.  The analogy is fitting, in fact, because Absorb-Ease is made from food-grade, fibrous tree pulp -- much like paper towel. 

Grease-soaked Absorb-Ease pads can be thrown out with the rest of the garbage and can be bought online in packs of 64.  They cost roughly $0.27 each.