Having a well-cleaned and good-looking home environment is not only essential to the impression it leaves in your guests, but it has lots of benefits for your health as well. Various health issues can be provoked by dirty home surfaces – dust, dust mites, pollen, pet hairs, bad air quality, and other may affect your health inevitably. The best way to make sure you live in a completely clean and safe home environment is to regularly clean your home and organise it for its best look.
Cleaning Activities
Oftentimes, people are quite busy and cannot engage fully in the cleaning activities at home. As we previously mentioned, the results may be devastating to your health – asthma, allergies, blood supply disruption, lung issues and many other medical conditions are some of the problems your dirty home may cause you, therefore, you should never neglect the cleaning activities and teach the whole family how to properly do them.
Every single cleaning activity performed in your home, as simple as it looks, is actually very important.
Sheets and mattresses
Changing your sheets every week, will make sure your dirty linen doesn’t affect your health. Sheets and mattresses tend to accumulate large amounts of dead skin cells, dust mites and dust, which should not be left just like that. Dust mites feed of humidity and, especially in summer, your body sweats while sleeping, which creates great conditions for these microorganisms to grow and cause problems. As for the mattresses, they should be cleaned every few months, to make sure they are safe for you, as well.
Bathroom and shower areas
Mold and mildew are caused by humidity. Without any doubts the highest amount of water in your home can be found in your bathroom and the respective areas.
What should you do to make sure mold growing is prevented, is to purchase a squeegee and use it every time you take a shower to make sure excess quantities of water are gone. You should always regularly let fresh air invade your bathroom, which makes humidity stay less time therefore it’s harder for mold to grow.
Apart from bathrooms, mold can be found in kitchen areas as well (sink area, cupboards, etc.). Make sure you wipe spills right away and often check the places prone to holding and accumulating water.
Carpets
While carpets are undoubtedly a great complement to your home interior, they tend to accumulate the largest amounts of dust, pet hairs, dust mites, dirty particles and bacteria, which can easily end up on your body, if you walk barefoot.
To avoid health issues, make sure to regularly vacuum your carpets and deep clean them at least once every year. Depending on how much one carpet is used, the proper times to clean it may vary. If, for example, the carpet with the highest levels of traffic is in your living room, it should be cleaned twice a year. Carpets are dirty not only on their surfaces, but dirty particles accumulate between the fibres and underneath the surface. Take good care of your carpets for both your health and their longer lifespan.
Cleaning Routines
Cleaning the home surfaces is essential, as we made clear, however, the cleaning itself is more than important as well. There are different types of cleaning routines, which according to the necessity, can be done daily, weekly, monthly, a few months apart and once a year. According to your preferences, you can tailor the tasks and make a schedule, which you will remember perfectly after some time.
Every day
Your daily activities require of you to pay some attention to basic things, such as: wiping kitchen surfaces, removing clutter from every surface in every room; making bed in the morning; washing dishes, loading the dishwasher; opening windows to let fresh air in; and many other simple tasks.
Every week
The weekly activities include: changing sheets; taking care of garbage; wiping refrigerator surfaces; cleaning taps and sinks; disinfecting light switches, remote controls, handles; dusting furniture; vacuuming carpets, etc.
Every Month
When you regularly do your daily and weekly cleaning routines, there is not much left to do as monthly tasks, but pay some attention to: cleaning the vacuum cleaner; clean thoroughly kitchen appliances; clean refrigerator shelves; wipe mirrors; clean washing machine and dishwasher; clean walls, ceilings, floors, bathroom tiles; declutter closets, dressers, nightstands, etc.
Every few months (3 to 6 months)
In this category fall a few simple tasks, the results of which you can achieve with not much effort: cleaning drains and gutters; clean thoroughly windows and the respective fixtures; clean radiators, skirting boards; washing cushions, pillows, blankets and covers; and so on.
Once or twice a year
For these cleaning routines, you can, and sometimes is preferred, to seek professional help. Cleaning thoroughly carpets, upholstery, mattresses and drapes are sometimes better done by professionals due to their specialised equipment.
Whether a cleaning task is daily or monthly, it should be done with attention and care. If you think the activities are too much, just make a schedule and put each one in a different day, except the daily ones (which tend to take not more than 30 minutes in total). This way you will be able to easily organise the surfaces at home and you will be glad how good it looks with so much less effort and time.
Cleaning tools and products
Cleaning activities, performed on a regular basis, are important for the clean environment in which you live, as well as for your health, but it’s even more important what type of equipment and products you choose to perform the activities with. The market offers a great variety of helpers for the cleaning procedures, but not all of them are suitable for neither the surfaces, nor your health.
Tools
The tools offered on the market, not that are improper, but they can be quite expensive. Instead of wandering around the shelves in the supermarket, make smarter purchases. For example, why do you need to buy a new scrubbing brush, if the old one wasn’t that good. Save an old toothbrush and use it to clean cracks, narrow spaces and similar hard to be cleaned surfaces. Toothbrushes’ bristles are quite thin and easy to manage and are, in fact, an amazingly handy cleaning tool.
Microfiber cloths are one of the best cleaning tools ever existed. Even when old T-shirts also work great, microfiber cloths are the best choice for wiping dust and cleaning greasy surfaces – basically every type of cleaning procedure is more than easily done with them.
Products
the majority of the cleaning products found on the market are, in fact, filled with great amounts of chemicals, many of them – poisonous in the long run. Chemicals not only trigger asthma and allergies, but can affect the health of an otherwise healthy person. Instead of buying expensive and chemicals-based cleaning products, go for naturally homemade cleaners. Vinegar, baking soda, salt, lemon, lime, essential oils and many other natural ingredients complement perfectly an all-purpose cleaner and are also efficient when used separately.
Be smart when you clean your home, because not only that it should look and be clean, but it should be cleaned safe and be safe for you and your family!