diff --git a/fs/btrfs/disk-io.c b/fs/btrfs/disk-io.c
index e0bdc0c902e440..813834552aa10a 100644
--- a/fs/btrfs/disk-io.c
+++ b/fs/btrfs/disk-io.c
@@ -1688,9 +1688,8 @@ static int cleaner_kthread(void *arg)
 	struct btrfs_root *root = arg;
 	struct btrfs_fs_info *fs_info = root->fs_info;
 	int again;
-	struct btrfs_trans_handle *trans;
 
-	do {
+	while (1) {
 		again = 0;
 
 		/* Make the cleaner go to sleep early. */
@@ -1739,42 +1738,16 @@ static int cleaner_kthread(void *arg)
 		 */
 		btrfs_delete_unused_bgs(fs_info);
 sleep:
+		if (kthread_should_park())
+			kthread_parkme();
+		if (kthread_should_stop())
+			return 0;
 		if (!again) {
 			set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);
-			if (!kthread_should_stop())
-				schedule();
+			schedule();
 			__set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING);
 		}
-	} while (!kthread_should_stop());
-
-	/*
-	 * Transaction kthread is stopped before us and wakes us up.
-	 * However we might have started a new transaction and COWed some
-	 * tree blocks when deleting unused block groups for example. So
-	 * make sure we commit the transaction we started to have a clean
-	 * shutdown when evicting the btree inode - if it has dirty pages
-	 * when we do the final iput() on it, eviction will trigger a
-	 * writeback for it which will fail with null pointer dereferences
-	 * since work queues and other resources were already released and
-	 * destroyed by the time the iput/eviction/writeback is made.
-	 */
-	trans = btrfs_attach_transaction(root);
-	if (IS_ERR(trans)) {
-		if (PTR_ERR(trans) != -ENOENT)
-			btrfs_err(fs_info,
-				  "cleaner transaction attach returned %ld",
-				  PTR_ERR(trans));
-	} else {
-		int ret;
-
-		ret = btrfs_commit_transaction(trans);
-		if (ret)
-			btrfs_err(fs_info,
-				  "cleaner open transaction commit returned %d",
-				  ret);
 	}
-
-	return 0;
 }
 
 static int transaction_kthread(void *arg)
@@ -3713,6 +3686,13 @@ void close_ctree(struct btrfs_fs_info *fs_info)
 	int ret;
 
 	set_bit(BTRFS_FS_CLOSING_START, &fs_info->flags);
+	/*
+	 * We don't want the cleaner to start new transactions, add more delayed
+	 * iputs, etc. while we're closing. We can't use kthread_stop() yet
+	 * because that frees the task_struct, and the transaction kthread might
+	 * still try to wake up the cleaner.
+	 */
+	kthread_park(fs_info->cleaner_kthread);
 
 	/* wait for the qgroup rescan worker to stop */
 	btrfs_qgroup_wait_for_completion(fs_info, false);
@@ -3740,9 +3720,8 @@ void close_ctree(struct btrfs_fs_info *fs_info)
 
 	if (!sb_rdonly(fs_info->sb)) {
 		/*
-		 * If the cleaner thread is stopped and there are
-		 * block groups queued for removal, the deletion will be
-		 * skipped when we quit the cleaner thread.
+		 * The cleaner kthread is stopped, so do one final pass over
+		 * unused block groups.
 		 */
 		btrfs_delete_unused_bgs(fs_info);