Whether you’re cleaning up for houseguests, trying to get your security deposit back, or just want your place to look its best, we’re here today to teach you the methods you need to get your bathroom looking like new!

Materials

To clean your grout, you’re going to want a sturdy rag and a spray bottle of bathroom cleaner from the hardware store. Make sure it says “bathroom cleaner” on it, though — it’s got chemicals that will blast the residue right off your floor! If you own a mop, feel free to use it, but why would you need a mop, anyway? It’s grout! It’ll take, like, fifteen minutes, tops, to clean.

Initial cleaning

First, apply the cleaner gently to the grout. You don’t need too much, probably, and besides, it’s kind of toxic, what with all the chemicals. Wait maybe fifteen seconds, then rub with a light touch… Um. Okay, so while cleaners are toxic and everything, grout does require a little more than you used before, so just spray a bunch of it on there — make sure it gets into the pores — and then scrub it, and… fuck. Is it worse? It looks smudgy. How the hell can grout look smudgy?

Frantic googling

Using your laptop, phone, or any nearby method of connecting to the Internet, mutter mild profanities to yourself as you google some permutation of “how to clean grout no smudge” over and over again, passing the articles before your eyes without really reading them, until every results page is a heartbreaking wasteland of purple links. Take a second to try and remember why you’re cleaning your grout in the first place — was it that thing your mom said when she came over? Why does she care what your grout looks like? Reread some of the better articles — maybe there’s something you’re doing wrong? Wait — oh, that should work. Phew. That’s so easy.

Buy a brush

The guide online said that the biggest rookie mistake you can make when cleaning your grout is not using a brush. Maybe you should just use a toothbrush? No, that seems kind of demeaning, scrubbing the grout with a fucking toothbrush. So go back to the hardware store and timidly ask the beefy guy behind the counter if they have grout brushes. Buy one of the ones that looks good, although they all look like torture implements. Wonder how a cleaning brush could possibly cost so much — isn’t it just, like, a really scratchy, tiny broom? Pay for it resentfully. Bring it home. Mutter “grout” over and over and over again under your breath until the word has lost all meaning.

Scrub the ever-living hell out of that grout

Scrub it like you’ve never scrubbed anything before. Scrub it like you’re scrubbing out the stupid fucking societal standard that you’re supposed to have clean grout anyway, which, like — who actually has clean grout? Steve from college doesn’t, and he’s rich enough that he has a goddamn maid named Esme! Scrub until the sweat is running down in rivulets from your forehead and your arm is about to fall off. And then look down, and — no. NO. It’s not fucking yellow. Yellow is worse than gray. Maybe it’s your vision. You were scrubbing pretty hard. No. Okay, now you have a yellow patch of grout in the middle of all your pitch-black grout. It looks like pus. It looks like fucking pus.

Bleach that fucker

Bleach it dead. The bathroom cleaner said not to mix with bleach, harmful fumes, yadda yadda yadda bleach will cleanse the stain on your soul that your grout has become. Bleach will fix it. Sweet, sweet bleach. Bleach fixes everything. Spray it all over. Spray it until your bathroom smells like a middle-school girls’ locker room after gym-class water polo, and then spray it some more. You’re getting light-headed? Too fucking bad, sister. Open a window and brush that grout until you’re breathing it in. Scrub scrub scrub scrarb scurub sburucurb scubbrb no no no no no no NO NO NO It’s not still yellow it’s a trick of the light it’s these fucking bathroom tract lights… no it’s yellow it’s always been yellow and it always will be fucking YELLOW. Yellow like urine, like Carol’s prom dress. Remember Carol from high school? She’s married!! She has, like, three kids! She owns a yoga studio and she remodeled her house with her own two hands! All you’ve got is a learner’s permit you keep renewing year after year as if you’re ever going to learn how to drive and an on-and-off boyfriend who doesn’t read and calls the Red Hot Chili Peppers “the Peps” and you can’t even clean your fucking grout and—

Yell impotently at the grout

Yell until the neighbors start banging on the ceiling and your voice gives out and slowly, steadily, your anger turns into steely rage.

This ends.

This ends NOW.

Cleansing fire

The forest is healthiest when it has burned. Yes, fire is a purifying force. It destroys what is weak, letting the strong survive. Watch the flames lick the tub, the bathroom mirror, the toilet. Watch them spread. The apartment is in flames now. As it should be. Destruction is creation. Breathe the acrid smoke in deep. Let it burn your lungs. Sigh happily. Isn’t it all so… beautiful?

And there you have it — you no longer have to worry about cleaning your grout!