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A lot of spring cleaning in Collier County takes place in the fall. No, it’s not a mistake.

During that time of the year, many people return to their Florida homes, which have been closed during summer and need to be cleaned up and aired out.

“Spring or fall cleaning here also usually includes outdoor work, such as pressure washing pool decks, docks, lanais and the like,” explains Dave Rice, of Total Home Services on Marco Island.

If you’ve ever wondered why spring cleaning is such a ritual in our culture, no matter what time of the year is done, one reason is that we got it from our ancestors. Well, from some people’s ancestors.

Take the Wiccans, for example. Some call them witches, but not the broomstick, cartoon kind. Wicca is actually an ancient, pagan religion that worships nature’s complexities, but in some simple, fundamental ways. And that includes the concept of cleaning, opening, airing out this time of year.

The Wiccan Religious Cooperative of Florida Web site explains that Wiccans celebrate spring in a big way and that cleaning is crucial, at least symbolically.

“For me spring is a time to renew my connection with the gods and goddesses,” says one Web site contributor, with tips to other Wiccans on how to celebrate:

“Take a walk, search for signs of spring. Take off your shoes and socks and squish your toes in the mud. Create a sun wheel out of stalks of grain and hang it on your front door. Open all the doors and windows and turn on every light in the house for a few minutes and sweep out all the old energy.”

A typical Wiccan spring cleaning celebratory dinner might include lima bean soup, Dijon green beans, pork chops, herbed baby potatoes and Amaretto cheesecake. Seems the Wiccans have modernized the old ways a bit, unless ancient Wiccans had Amaretto.

Wiccans aren’t the only humans with ancestors who made spring cleaning part of the circle of life.

Take the Persians of yore, for another example. Many ancient cultures in their part of the world have been celebrating the spring equinox since 3000 B.C., including Mesopotamians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Akaddians and others.

The Persian Empire New Year observance, “No Ruz,” was a five-day bash, complete with guardian angels who dropped by from heaven to visit humans. That’s where spring cleaning came in.

The Persians did a massive cleanup to prepare for festivals and feasts, complete with roadside bonfires to welcome their divine party guests.

Still today, many Iranians jump over bonfires, a purification rite to clear out their illnesses and misfortunes. It was a tricky but popular way of “spring cleaning.”

I’m not making fun of any religions, ancient or modern; it’s just that in this spring cleaning thing, the past clearly is prologue.

How we got from all that to my grandmother scrubbing her hardscrabble household every spring until the dullest mirrors sparkled and the roughest floors shone, I don’t know. But the exertion to clean up, fix up and paint up often produces a rush of well being when it’s over. And it’s still a good excuse to have a party.

It may be that one of the greatest gifts of evolution where spring cleaning is concerned is the vacuum cleaner.

The first ones were very different from the sleek, humming cylinders we now glide through our homes.

Vacuum cleaner scholars differ on some fundamental details, but we do know that in 1869 a Briton named Ives McGaffey got a patent for a vacuum cleaner called a “sweeping machine.” He may not have been the first though.

In 1901, another Brit, Hubert Cecil Booth, created a vacuum cleaner of which myths are made. It was a large, horse-drawn, petroleum-powered thing. The operator parked it outside the house and long hoses were fed through the windows.

An American, David Kenny made a similar device, designed to be put in the basement with pipes running to each room. And so it went, the vacuum cleaner evolving, sucking in such pioneers as William Hoover. He was a marketing genius whose early cleaner was said to resemble a bagpipe attached to a cake box.

Vacuum cleaner sales soared in the early 1900s when Hoover thought up the 10-day free home trial.

History Channel experts say the first portable electric vacuum was made in 1905 in San Francisco. “It weighed 92 pounds and used a fan 18 inches in diameter to produce the suction, but because of its size, it did not sell well.”

Our present-day vacuum cleaners are better, of course. A germ has no chance under their relentless vroom-vroom across the carpet. And it’s a good thing, because modern TV advertising leaves the clear message that if we don’t keep our houses, yards and garages cleaner than a NASA white room, we surely will go to hell, guardian angels or not.

Goodness knows we have the material to conduct the war on dirt and mess. And there’s no shortage out there of advice on how to get it done.

A symbol of that is the successful newspaper column by Heloise. Her devoted fans send in tons of ideas on how to do this or that. The helpful hints run from how to save money with clever ways to re-use dental floss to creating one’s own household cleaning products.

Their favorite single component of anything having to do with housework is white vinegar. Need to clean the kitchen floor, the garage door? How about the ice rink at Germain Arena or Bourbon Street the morning after Mardi Gras? A tanker full of white vinegar and 20 minutes with a mop will make any place spic-and-span clean. Enough white vinegar in water could wipe out a lunar eclipse. Not only that, vinegar has at least 1,001 uses around the house and around the planet.

Outrageous claims abound. Vinegar, alone or with some other elixir, allegedly cures the hiccups when you swallow it, and stops a sore throat when you gargle with it. It cures warts and dissolves corns. It also improves your singing voice and helps you remember jokes.

You can rub your dog with vinegar to remove the smell of a skunk. Sure, the pooch will smell like an arugula salad for a month, but hey.

Vinegar also works with chickens. To keep them from pecking each other, put vinegar in their drinking water. And to keep your spouse from nagging you, put vinegar in his or her adult beverage. (I made that one up.)

If you are a victim of advertising and want to use commercial products for your spring cleaning, there are thousands of fluids, pastes, powders, tablets, capsules and suppositories, available in a rainbow of colors and fragrances, from liquor to licorice. Cleaning stuff comes in boxes, aerosols, pump sprays, squeeze bottles, boda bags and turkey basters.

They run the alphabet, from Ajax (the foaming cleanser, remember the jingle?) to Zep All Purpose Cleaner. Is it possible the secret ingredient in all of them is white vinegar?

There must have been a folk song once, strumming the virtues of vinegar, something like, “From the Redwood forests to the gulf stream waters, white vinegar was made for you and me.”

I for one am more interested in the psychological and spiritual features of spring cleaning, even here, where seasonal changes are real but subtle, nothing like northern climes, where winter lurches to spring, where melting snow reveals morale-raising flowers.

What you call those flowers can indicate where you’re from. If you grew up in the southeastern US, you may say “jonquils.” Elsewhere you might call them “daffodil.” Both also are known as Narcissus.

No matter what you call it, the upstart spring yellow bloomer is a sure sign spring is here, along with tulips, Irises and hyacinths.

I’m told one reason humans love these bulb plants is because they endure the winter and burst forth just when we need them.

Baseball spring training is sort of like that. Rust-belt and even sun-belt fans spend dreary winters, counting the days until the boys of summer arrive here for spring stretches, jumping jacks and pretend games in which they swing for the fences or try to learn to throw a spitter.

When the Red Sox and the Twins arrived in Lee County last February with semis full of gloves, bats and balls, BenGay, Advil and advice from the veterans for the rookies, we knew it was time to clean out our mental cobwebs.

Spring training is to cleansing the spirit as white vinegar is to cleaning everything else.

Cynics out there are stifling the gag reflex as I ramble on about baseball as a metaphor for new life that is the essence of spring. That’s okay and here’s why:

A day at the old ballpark in spring is a clean sweep if there ever was one. It’s also a great way to dodge the rigor of real life spring cleaning.

“Gee, honey I’d love to help you paint the bird house but the game starts at one o’clock and we need to get autographs first.”

That is a sport in itself.

PS: My thanks to Charles R. Lester for his expertise on vacuum cleaners, including information and photos from his Web site, The Cyber-Space Vacuum Cleaner Museum”. It is: www.137.com/museum/.