How clean is your house?
Keeping a spotless home makes for a better organized, less stressful, and less anxious life.
A recent survey highlights the link between cleanliness and decreased stress levels.
Check out these 10 innovative house cleaning tips to help you meet your goal of a spotless home.
Dirt Management
What bothers you most about your messy house?
If you’re serious about cleaning up, you are probably most bothered by the dirt that accumulates inside. A dirty interior is not only unsightly but can also be dangerous. If you don’t have a handle on the bacteria, before long, your home might require a service like Go-Forth Pest Control in Salisbury NC.
Sure, dirt is a part of living from day to day. But it doesn’t have to be a part of your lifestyle.
Reduce and maintain the mess in your home by considering the following management tips.
1. No Shoes In The House
Do you allow people to wear shoes in your house?
Though getting guests and family to take their shoes off at the front door might be a tad inconvenient, you should consider keeping this house cleaning rule.
Shoes look harmless–they even appear to be clean unless you’ve stepped into something particularly nasty. but according to a study at the University of Arizona, normal everyday wear results in a high amount of bacteria on footwear.
In this study, University of Arizona Professor Dr. Charles Gerba concluded that
421,000 units of bacteria gathered on the soles of shoes from two weeks of wear. The insides of the shoes accumulated 2,887 bacterial units.
The microbes found are linked to harmful diseases ranging from Meningitis to Intestinal tract infections to respiratory infections.
Do this:
- Leave a shoe rack or tray in your entryway.
- Put a chair next to the shoe rack.
- Tell guests and family to follow your lead and leave shoes on the wrack.
- Leave a couple pairs of new slippers by the door for guests to take a hint.
2. Spot Clean
Are you a spot cleaner or a deep cleaner?
Some people clean up messes as they happen. Others clean less frequently but more thoroughly. The trick is to get into the habit of doing both.
Spot cleaning is when you clean messes immediately after they happen. You mop up spills, sweep up dirt, and wipe down surfaces as needed.
Deep cleaners tend to spend less time spot cleaning, and periodically scrub down their homes from top to bottom. They do this every week or two.
Learn how to be a great spot cleaner:
- Cleaning messes up as they happen leaves you with less lingering bacteria.
- Dirt does not have a chance to accumulate on your surfaces, leaving less wear over time.
- Scrubbing grimy surfaces for hours is no longer an issue.
Spot cleaning saves you time during your deep house cleaning sessions. it also gives the appearance of a cleaner home over time.
3. Steam Your Floors
What do you wash your floors with?
Do you bypass the steam mop in favor of a strong chemical solution that’ll make you scrub your floors for hours?
Steaming your floors on a weekly basis carries many benefits you might not see immediately:
- Disinfects your surfaces, getting rid of bacteria thanks to the water’s high temperature.
- It’s nontoxic; your kids and pets can safely play on the floor once mopped.
- Lifts deep-seeded dirt quicker and more easily than traditional mopping.
- Does not leave streaks or residue on your surfaces.
- Does not deteriorate your floors like a chemical wash might.
Technically, you can clean more than just your floors with a steam mop. Depending on the kind you have, you can use the mop on all hard surfaces–even countertops!
Remember to vacuum prior to steaming your floors. this way, you won’t pick up loose dirt onto the microfiber cloth.
4. Make Better Use Of Your Dishwasher
Do you own a dishwasher?
if so, you’re in luck. Your dishwasher can double as your sterilizer.
Don’t restrict this useful machine to washing only your dishes and silverware. Throw in your child’s toys, dish sponges, and even toothbrushes to disinfect them during your standard wash cycle.
Avoid doing this with anything made of soft plastic. When loading these extra items into your dishwasher, make sure to put them on the top rack. They might melt if placed closer to the bottom.
Time Management
Are you low on time?
Is your schedule as cluttered as your home?
Half the trick to better house cleaning is better time management. Here are a few unique tips to help you tidy your schedule. And what do you know? these will inadvertently help you squeeze in a little more cleaning each day.
5. Soak, don’t Scrub
What’s one of the most time-consuming aspects of house cleaning?
Though scrubbing is traditionally the most effective way of cleaning most surfaces, you can cut down on time by employing an effortless method: soaking.
Using the right solution, you can soak anything from clothing to frying pans to get rid of stains, dirt, and hardened food particles.
Depending on what you’re trying to clean, either high heat or a naturally acidic solution is good for soaking.
Soak a scorched pan in boiling water with a few drops of vinegar or three heaping spoons of salt. Then, rinse out the pan. Any burnt-on food will come off with ease.
Forget about scrubbing your toilet. Just spray the interior with straight bleach, close the toilet lid, and leave it overnight. Then, wipe it down with a toilet brush and flush. Both bacteria and stains disappear with this treatment.
6. Multitask
Cleaning doesn’t have to be a solitary chore. You can get more of it done when you splice it in with lighter tasks.
For instance, try cleaning your tub while you take a shower. Of course, you won’t deep-clean the tub this way, but you can get rid of soap scum and rinse the base of the tub.
Also, pair some of your house cleaning with a fun activity. Why not catch up on a favorite show while you wash dishes? Or get in some exercise by dancing as you mop the floors.
7. Clean A Day At A Time
Doing your house cleaning all at once can be overwhelming. To overcome the anxiety that sometimes goes along with deep cleaning, space out your tasks across several days.
Clean your kitchen every Monday, your bathroom every Friday, and so forth. This will allow you to devote less time to keeping up with your chores each day. It may also help you do a more thorough job of each task.
8. Use A Cleaning Calendar
How do you organize your house cleaning?
Is your work triggered by spotting a mess, or do you keep track of tasks in your head?
The best (and easiest) way to keep track of what needs to be done around the home is by following a cleaning calendar.
A cleaning calendar doesn’t only keep track of when each task was done last. It also suggests at what intervals you should do each chore. For instance, it might remind you to clean your light bulbs every other month and wash your walls every four months.
Of course, you can amend your calendar to suit your own preferences and schedule. But if you need suggestions on how long to go without dusting your shelves and cleaning doorframes, you have a simple go-to guide on hand.
House Cleaning Products
Often, what you use to clean your home is as important as how often you do it.
Sure, you can go to a store and pick up the latest and greatest in extra-strength cleaning products, but how do you know which ones are most useful?
9. All-Natural Cleaning Solutions
Does it surprise you that some of the most effective cleaning products aren’t branded as such?
You won’t find nontoxic solutions that are comparable to bleach bottled and ready to be bought at your local supermarket. The best house cleaning products are ones you make yourself using natural ingredients.
The two most important ingredients to have on hand are baking soda and white vinegar. Coupled with water, these two natural ingredients can degrease, disinfect, and polish nearly everything.
- Mix a solution of half water and half vinegar in a spray bottle and spray it in your tub.
- Sprinkle baking soda over the vinegar solution and let it sit for an hour.
- Sponge it down and rinse with hot water.
- All the soap scum and oily skin residue are no more.
Lemon, olive oil and various essential oils are also stellar natural components to use for your natural house cleaning solutions.
Use lemon juice to polish layers of grime off of copper, for instance. Mix lemon juice with water and lavender to create a safe, great-smelling liquid pipe cleaner.
10. Cloth, Not Paper
Do you swear by paper towels when cleaning your home?
If so, stop wasting good money on rolls of paper and invest in some cloth rags instead.
In fact, there’s no need to spend any actual money on cleaning cloths; simply retire and recycle old clothes. Cut up t-shirts and jeans into small squares and use them in conjunction with your natural cleaning solutions.
Cloth is easier on your surfaces, whether windows or hardwood floors. Also, it doesn’t leave a nasty, sticky residue like paper towels do sometimes.
While paper towels absorb moisture quickly and become useless, cloth rags get more useful over time. their fibers become softer, and they can be reused for years.
To maintain them, throw your cleaning rags into your washer on the sanitary setting every week. You can include them with a larger sanitary load.
House Cleaning: Final Thoughts
House cleaning can be fun and effortless if you get creative with it. Spend some time employing the above tips, and see how much more productive you become.
Think of some more strategies to make the messes disappear.
Do you need more ideas on how to manage your home?
Check out more tips on how to make your home clean and comfortable today.
