The vast majority of ovens sold today come with a self-clean feature on the oven. This is a cycle that you can run in your oven that will bring up the temperature high enough safely to burn off any spilled food house burned in your oven. But many people have never even used their self-clean cycle on their oven, or even know how often to do it.
When it comes to running the self-cleaning cycle on your oven, you should usually do it about every four to six months. Depending on how messy of a cook you are, if there has been a major spillage in your oven, you may want to do it more often. Likewise, if you seldom use the oven, you may be able to easily go longer than four to six months, not a problem.
If you have never run the self-cleaning cycle on your oven, and it is more than a year old, you may want to give the inside of your oven a quick wipe down with a paper towel to remove any loose Springfield from the bottom. If there’s been a lot of build-up, the self-cleaning cycle may be a lot smaller than most people are used to. So removing any of the loose food bits first will alleviate this issue.
Also, a quick note that the self-cleaning cycle can be dangerous for many types of tropical birds, so be aware of that if there is a bird in the household.