About Tara Garner
My name is Tara Garner and I'm here to help you turn your hour house into a well-run, efficient home. With time left over to still have a life.
I've been cleaning and organizing my home and raising kids for nearly thirty years. At first, I was overwhelmed trying to keep track of everything and everyone. At times it felt like the clutter would never get put away, and I'd never be finished cleaning.
Experienced House Cleaning Advice
Back in the 1990s, I began writing for the San Francisco Chronicle's Home Section. I was privileged to ask the 'dumb' questions we all want to ask of the home cleaning and organizing experts. And ask I did.
I heard it all from some of the cleaning and organizing industry's top experts - and frequently, those experts' opinions differed. So I went home and put the experts' various strategies and techniques to the test.
Often, I found a combination of the experts' techniques to be the most effective solution. I learned quite a bit from the hands-on testing of the various experts' advice, and two new monthly newspaper columns were born: "Coming Clean" and "Quick Fixes."
"Coming Clean" was among the Home Section's most popular columns. "Mrs. Clean Jeans' Housekeeping with Kids" followed my first book, "Simplify Your Household." My continuing quest for effective cleaning, organizing, and laundry techniques, strategies provides plenty of fodder for this blog.
In the ensuing years, I've been asked to share my cleaning, organizing, and family life strategies on news and feature programs across the U.S. I've posted a few of them below, the most recent from March 2019 in New York City.
My New Book
The Clean Freak Manifesto covers everything you need to know in order to keep your entire home truly sanitized and healthy amid the ever-changing world of viruses and bacteria. So stop panic-cleaning with bleach when someone suddenly gets sick or the headlines discover a new health threat. Instead, get prepared now with sensible steps that will work hard for your household all year round.
With The Clean Freak Manifesto you'll feel smart, prepared, and safe as your germ anxiety eases and you take control! I am a mom of three and the author of Mrs. Clean Jean's Housekeeping with Kids: Family Pickup Lines (and Household Routines) That Work with Less Work from You
and Simplify your household (Simpler Life Series)
, and the Clean Freak Manifesto: The Germaphobe's Guide to Sanitizing Everything in Your Home, Castle Point Books, June 2021.