How Spring Cleaning Became a Thing

Here's something to ponder while you're dusting and spritzing and wiping down every surface of your home while spring cleaning this year: you're participating in an age-old tradition that's rooted in religious and cultural traditions, and possibly linked to our biology.

Just think of all those who came before you, scrubbing and mopping without the aid of technology, such as this 1864 housewife, who wrote in her diary:

During the 1800s, according to the Washington Post, the biggest annual housecleaning took place in the spring because the winter left homes coated with "a layer of soot and grime in every room." Lamps of the time were lit with whale oil or kerosene, which had to be heated with coal or wood, so you can just imagine that mess. Proper cleaning required opening windows to let the soot out, which, of course, could only be done during warmer weather.

The Religious and Cultural Origins of Spring Cleaning

In Jewish custom, spring cleaning is linked to Passover in March or April, which marks the liberation of Jews from slavery in Egypt. Before the start of the holiday, a general cleaning takes place in order to remove any yeast bread, or chametz, from the home. (Populations enslaved by the Egyptians were fed unleavened bread, which the Jews later adopted as a symbol of their survival. Thus, having any leaven or bread made with yeast, even crumbs, in the house was considered ungrateful.)

In Christian custom, the Catholics clean the church altar the day before Good Friday, also normally in March or April, according to Apartment Therapy. Members of the Greek Orthodox church clean house for a week leading up to Lent.

In Iran, the holiday Nowruz, or Persian New Year, coincides with the first day of spring. The 13-day celebration traditionally involves cleaning (or "shaking the house"), buying new clothes, and spending time with family and friends.

How Human Nature Governs Spring Cleaning

We may not full-on hibernate like bears or tortoises, but winter makes humans sleepier and sluggish, too. As HowStuffWorks explains, fewer hours of daylight trigger the release melatonin in our brains, a.k.a. hormone that causes sleepiness. We literally don't have the energy to deep clean during colder months. But once the days start getting longer, we're energized by more sunlight and melatonin production subsides. Not to mention all that sunlight streaming through the windows probably makes the dust we'd forgotten about highly visible.

Well, at least we don't have to scrub coal soot off the walls anymore.

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