Spring cleaning is a tradition worth keeping for many Americans: 62 percent of those recently polled by the Cleaning Institute say spring cleaning is an annual ritual in their home.

HVAC stands for heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and there isn’t a residential or commercial building in the nation that doesn’t have some version of HVAC. Without it, we’d be at the whims of Mother Nature all year. At the end of the day, however, the comforts of heating and air conditioning are lesser to the hygienic needs of air circulation HVAC provides. Trust me, if any part of your HVAC system falters, it’s not hard to notice.

Like your neighbors, you should always get to know your HVAC systems. Homeowners know where the thermostat is and can see the vents, but, for most, that’s where their knowledge of HVAC ends. Following the vents will lead you to your heating and cooling systems and knowing how they should be operating will help you prevent malfunctions and identify them. And like most things, some light reading is needed. Central heating/AC systems come with a guidebook and, yeah, I’d rather be reading Elmore Leonard too, but reading it will help you figure out where to find vent entry points and other useful information. In fact, any manufacturer will surely have it available to download via their website. If your unit is outside, you should clear it of any debris as regularly as once a week.

(BPT) - You might think that by the time the holidays arrive, allergy season is long gone. However, for millions of allergy sufferers, the reality is that allergens still abound. From pet dander to volatile organic compounds, indoor allergens can cause discomfort and health issues as bothersome as when pollen is in season.

There are many facets to living Green that, at first glance, seem a little annoying or even outright preposterous. Why exactly should I pay substantially more for a light bulb that looks like a curly fry if my neighbor is already doing it? Is it really that important that I resize all my doors and windows, and install bamboo instead of hardwood floors? Well, the light bulbs are, at the end of the day, easy to replace and last longer, so it’s worth it in the long run. As for the bamboo and the house-wide resizing, they really are for the best but aren’t urgent and do require some planning.

It was appropriate that, for last week’s entry, I wrote about how to keep any kind of sink easily clean. Over the weekend, at a small gathering of friends, I was prompted to explain my job and the conversation eventually led to ways to keep the house clean easily in general and a friend asked about something that, in hindsight, should have been part of the discussion from the get-go: garbage disposals.

To be sure, summer is all about pools, the outdoors, shorts, tank tops and rolled-down windows, but, for me, it’s always been a time chiefly denoted by cooking and food and the gatherings that occur around such meals. And, not surprisingly, a key to the success of these gatherings is preparation: a good part of my summer is spent over the kitchen sink, washing and peeling fruits and vegetables, thawing and preparing meats, with a solid internet radio station blaring in the background.

Like charity, going green begins at home. Even if you’re unable to build a home from scratch, there are plenty of simple steps homeowners and renters can take to make their living quarters a haven of clean air.

In their grief, those who survive a child’s unexpected death are often left with unanswered questions. For the last week panic-spreading headline writers have been asking the one question the family of Omar Rivera, the cherub-faced 12-year-old from Brooklyn who died of MRSA on Oct. 14, undoubtedly believe the most pressing: How did he contract this terrible illness? In the meantime, some important facts about the “superbug” seem to have gotten lost. Experts have been tracking this bacterial strain for some time and the same rational, measured steps that have contained it in the past will contain it today. There is no need for panic.

Believe it or not, tooth whitening, a trend that has taken the nation by storm, has been around since the Middle Ages. But the Knights of the Round Table were not experimenting with lasers, trays, strips, pastes or tablets to keep their pearly whites pearly white. Image conscious feudal lords and ladies on a quest for whiter teeth had to pay a visit to the village “barber-surgeon.”

An international relief organization has made good on its promise made last year to scrub down filthy and smelly sidewalks in downtown Flushing, with work to start on Sunday.

A woman bound for Dallas caused the partial evacuation of a terminal at LaGuardia Airport on Friday, when screeners found a gas mask and a small cylinder filled with white powder in one of her suitcases.