Before vacationing or leaving home for an extended period, close the spigots feeding your washing machine hoses. This can prevent a leaking hose, which can cause a basement flood, which can create a pricey cleanup!

There's no shame in calling a plumber. A lot of these jobs can be tricky for a DIY'er, and water damage can be ultra-expensive. Smart often trumps macho!

1 - Use high-quality coffee.

2 - Make sure carafe is squeaky clean.

3 - Use ice-cold water. Plus, run a carafe's-worth of white vinegar through your coffeemaker about once every 3-4 weeks to clean out old coffee-oil residue, which can make even fresh coffee taste somewhat bitter. You can reuse the same vinegar several times.

Find out now which vehicle is a perfect match for your personality and lifestyle with the "Why Men Love Cars" test from Men's Health.

According to groups like the American Lung Association and EPA, the air inside our homes can be four to five times more "polluted" than outdoor air with allergens, dust, pet dander, pollen, mold spores, bacteria and other lung-damaging particulates. The smart money buys a good indoor air filtration system, and Trane's CleanEffects whole-house air filtration system is about the best. It grabs up 99.98% of airborne allergens that pass through it. A good investment when you consider that humans breathe about 15,000 quarts of air each day.

Few things are germier than TV remote control units in hotel rooms - maids seldom if ever clean them. So toss a plastic Zip-Loc bag into your shaving kit and when you get to your room, put the clicker inside it to protect yourself against microbes.

A "cleaning yourself up" tip: when you're showering and want to exfoliate, cleanse and revitalize your skin but don't have a loofah, you can get about the same effect with the scrubby side of a Scotch-Brite sponge. For best results, go lightly and get plenty of soapy foam going on the sponge surface.

You have several options with twist-off lids - the first two rely on finesse...the last one is pure, old-fashioned machismo.

1. If the edge of the lid is thin (not deep), use a churchkey-style can opener, hook it under the lip, and apply just a little upward pressure to loosen.
2. If the lid is deeper, like that of a Mason jar or similar, just slip the point of a dinner knife under the edge and pull outward lightly to break the seal.
3. Use your brute strength and twist it off, impressing your gal greatly.

• After grabbing your mail, give yourself just two minutes to deal with it. That forces you to be fast and efficient.
• Sort mail the minute you enter the house in a set location: in the foyer, on the kitchen island, etc.
• Never let your mail hit a horizontal surface - file or toss it, but don't pile it.
• Pay bills the day you get them - online banking makes it easy.

• Rent a carpet cleaning machine like Rug Doctor from Home Depot or similar (about $25 for 24 hrs., plus detergent).
• Sprinkle baking soda over the dirtiest areas, work in with fingers, leave for as long as you like (but at least 15-30 minutes).
• Vacuum, then pre-treat the highest-trafficked, most-stained areas with a quality spray carpet cleaner like Woolite, Resolve or OxyClean.
• Spritz generously, rub into carpet and let it work for a while - at least 10 minutes.
• Finally, go over it all with the carpet cleaning machine. Make two passes over the areas that were dirtiest.

It's not that tough to do it yourself. A side-benefit: when you hire a crew of professional carpet cleaners they'll try to upsell you into a lot of expensive, can't-live-without-'em "extras" that always add up to hundreds of dollars more than you planned to spend.

Resist the temptation to plaster your refrigerator with the kids' artwork, notes to self, baseball schedules, snapshots, and “cute” magnetized items. This is visual blight, which in turn creates subconscious chaos - kind of a reverse feng shui effect.

• Clean your TV and computer screens.
• Strain wine that has tiny bits of broken cork in it.
• Cover foods while microwaving to prevent spatters.
• Wipe away your wife's tears of joy when she sees you utilizing all these diabolically-clever Clean Like a Man tips!

Water is relentless and destructive. You don't want to risk a leak that might cause thousands of dollars in damage (say, if you're on vacation) just for the sake of saving a few bucks or being a macho do-it-yourselfer. With plumbing, there's no shame in calling a pro.

A simple housekeeping "to-do" list is important for guys.

• It helps you stay more focused and goal-oriented, so you get done faster.
• It removes all doubt about what to do next.
• With a regular routine, you stay on top of cleaning tasks so they don't get out of hand.
• You see what needs to be done and realize that your chores are finite.
• It feels really good to check things off as done

Dear C.L.A.M. - My wife and I own a housecleaning business. There are two things single guys don't do that would help them immensely. First, unclutter the place before we arrive, or you'll be paying us to pick up and put away your scattered stuff instead of cleaning. Second, throw all your laundry-bound clothing into a hamper…otherwise they'll be all over the place.
Kevin

Pittsburgh

 C.L.A.M. replies:

Kevin, that's great advice for guys who can afford a housecleaner. For the rest of us, there's Clean Like a Man.