Git not removing files when switching branch

Question

Sometimes when switching branches using Git (version 1.7.2.1) it does not seem to remove the files/directories I created specific to the branch I switched away from. Neither

Answer 1

First:

git reset --hard

Reset the repository to the state of the last commit.
Since git normally does not remove files it is not tracking those could still cause issues.

Then:

git clean -d --dry-run

See what files would get deleted. We don't want to loose valuable work. and if that is ok:

git clean -d