Take a Breath: What You Don’t Need to Clean for Passover

1. If you know for sure that all year you haven’t brought chametz into the paperwork drawer or the top shelves of a clothing closet, great—there’s no need to clean or check those spots for chametz.

2. Are you packing your everyday kitchenware into closed cabinets and selling them to a non-Jew? If so, there’s no need for special cleaning or to check those items for chametz. This rule applies to anything else you sell to a non-Jew as well.

3. Are your books and toys full of crumbs? Not a big deal. If you’re Sephardim, the job is easier: according to Maran Rabbi Ovadia Yosef zatzal, and also Rabbi Ben Zion Abba Shaul zatzal, there’s no need to clean up crumbs smaller than a kezayit—27 grams. Assuming you don’t have crumbs that large in your books and toys—or anywhere else—there’s no need to clean them. You must, however, be careful that those crumbs don’t end up mixing with food during the holiday. Therefore: if there are crumbs smaller than a kezayit on the computer or in books or toys, there’s no obligation to clean them, but it is absolutely forbidden to bring them to the table or to any eating or food-prep area during Passover.

If you’re Ashkenazim who follow 'Mishnah Berurah', however, you’ll need to clean even crumbs smaller than a kezayit—unless they’re so dirty that no one would eat them. For example, pouring cleaning fluid on the crumbs makes them inedible, and that’s sufficient.

4. Clothing and linens washed before the holiday don’t need to be checked for chametz after laundering, but check the pockets so no one reaches into a pocket on Passover and pulls out chametz that might accidentally end up in their mouth.

5. Floors: sweeping and mopping as usual with a cleaning product is enough. No need to go beyond that.

6. And now, all together: Dust is not chametz.

Good luck!