While it might seem impossible to get to the stage where your fridge isn’t full, leaving it with as few items in as possible makes deep cleaning it far easier. With so many opportunities to make us sick – from poorly stored food products to bacteria growing in nooks and crannies – a hygienically clean refrigerator is essential, and by following these 5 simple steps, you could help keep your entire household healthy:
Sometimes it’s the simplest and least thought about cleaning tricks that can be the most useful, and often we discover them completely at random. Many of us, when we’re looking to clean something that typically doesn’t cleaned so often, such as our rubber soled shoes, we turn to good old Google for the answers we need, and sometimes find a whole bunch of valuable tips that if successful, we quickly set about sharing with others.
With Covid-19 having caused so much disruption to all our lives of late, most of us are desperate to return to some semblance of normality. What this means to each of us, will naturally depend upon our individual circumstances; whether we return to work or continue working from home, for example. But either way, many of us will have endured much fuller households for an extended period, and no matter how hard we tried to keep the place clean and tidy, having so many more children and adults under one roof for so long, has inevitably meant that dust and grime have built up in different areas of the home.
As most of us already know, bathrooms can play host to a veritable bevy of bacteria and germs, but you might be surprised to learn just how many might be breeding in your bathroom as you read this!
It can be easy to forget that your washer might need cleaning once in a while, and it’s often only when we notice that our laundry isn’t smelling quite as fresh as usual, that we even think about whether the washer itself, might be dirty.
Some days even just the thought of cleaning can make us want to take to our beds, but let’s face it, cleaning is a part of life and a necessity for most, so what can you do to motivate yourself when cleaning couldn’t be further from your agenda?
While a lot depends upon how busy your household is, and how quickly it gets grubby, it can be helpful to think about which areas of your home the experts say you should clean more frequently than others, and with this short guide, you should be able to focus your cleaning energies in the right places:
Cats are wonderful creatures, and many of us love them and have them as pets, however, they can make your home smelly and cause issues with their pet dander. Just because you love your pet cats, doesn’t mean that you have to let them inadvertently spoil your home, so follow the below tips for keeping a clean home that is welcoming to both your pets, and visitors:
Water is a primary feature of bathrooms, and to that end, they can quickly become damp environments, and perfect breeding grounds for mildew and black mold. If surfaces aren’t cleaned regularly, mildew forms and if left, soon becomes mold.
While a grubby oven certainly looks unpleasant, it can also cause it to work less effectively, taint baked items, and even become a fire hazard. With this in mind, let’s look at some cleaning tips to get your grimy oven clean and working efficiently:
It can be all too easy to neglect cleaning your refrigerator; it’s always full and so the task can seem daunting, or you may not even think it necessary. However, since you’re storing food items in it, it should be hygienically clean at all times, which usually involves cleaning it at least once a month depending on its condition.
Limescale is a huge problem for many homeowners, causing problems when it fills pipes, reduces water pressure or makes shower doors cloudy. Coming from water that contains a high concentration of calcium and magnesium, otherwise known as hard water, limescale is common, but relatively easy to minimize:
Research has long shown us that the way in which we live our lives, and the conditions in which we live, can have a huge impact upon not only our physical health, but our mental wellbeing. Many of those interviewed in recent studies, stated that they felt happier and less stressed when their homes were clean and tidy, and that their ability to think more clearly and make rational decisions, was compromised when conditions in their homes deteriorated.
No matter how clean you try to keep your home, there will always be those hard to reach or forgotten about places where dirt and grime like to hide. And in fact, some of the dirtiest spots are the items we use the most, and it’s perhaps because we use them so often that we don’t always think about just how dirty they might be. Items such as video game and television controllers, and any other frequently used handheld devices can play host to thousands of germs per 100 square centimetres, which in many cases, amounts to more than five times the amount found on toilet seats, yuk!
It can be a real challenge to keep your home clean, neat and orderly when you have young children at home, but it is possible to achieve, provided you make your little ones’ part of the solution, and not the problem:
Cleaning your home can be an unforgiving task, and one that you probably don’t relish, however, there are a few simple steps you can follow to get the job done quickly and efficiently:
While you may be a fan of store-bought de-greasing solutions, there is little doubt that homemade ones can be just as effective (if not more so) and are generally far better for the environment and your pocket. A good cleaning solution that is brilliant for de-greasing need not contain harsh, harmful chemicals, and here is a perfect example of one mixture that is effective and affordable:
Disinfecting our homes has become a hot topic of late, and more and more of us are becoming aware of dangerous bacteria and the devastating effects they can have on our health. However, many of us don’t want to use harsh chemicals to keep our homes germ-free and clean, so what are the alternatives?
Few of us want a messy, dirty home, but sometimes it can be difficult to know where and how to begin cleaning it up. If your home is beginning to look unsightly, cluttered and grimy, here are a few questions that you can ask yourself to help you prioritise the cleaning tasks:
A fresh, sweetly scented home is something that many of us women crave, often to the annoyance of the men in the household! Plug in air fresheners, scented candles and reed diffusers are flying off the shelves in stores, but how healthy are those chemicals for us? Not very, is the answer, and we should probably look to finding more natural methods of ensuring that our homes smell inviting all year round.
Dust can be a nuisance; unsightly and even bad for health, but so difficult to eliminate. Here are a few ways, however, that you might be able to prevent dust from ruling your home:
Some types of mold, such as Stachybotrys chartarum, better known as black mold, is toxic and can pose a serious health threat when found in the home. Here are some of the dangers that mold can present and how you can avoid them:
Streaky, dusty and grimy glass – whether it’s on your windows or any glass items in your home such as mirrors – will quickly make the place look unkempt and uncared for, so it’s important to clean glass regularly. While there are many commercial cleaning solutions available, many of us nowadays prefer to use non-chemical preparations, so here are a few cleaning solutions that you can make yourself and which won’t harm you or the environment, but will still give you sparkling and streak free glass:
Cleaning shouldn’t be something that you dread, and it shouldn’t take up a lot of your time, either, as let’s face it, there’s more to life than cleaning up spillages, mopping floors and vacuuming carpets. Follow these 5 tips to help make cleaning your home as easy as ABC, and as speedy as 123!
Dust is a nuisance and can quickly build up on all surfaces in the home. While not exactly life threatening, it can aggravate allergies and when left undusted, it can make a home look unclean and most certainly unloved!
If you’ve got a glass shower stall or cubicle, then you’ll know how hard it can be to get it sparkling clean all year round. However, there are a few things that you can do to help the glass look clean and prolong the sparkle:
Keeping your glass shower door clean and sparkling can be tough, but nothing can make a bathroom look grubby and neglected, more than dirty glass. Naturally, the glass door of the shower is exposed to moisture on a regular basis, and when not cleaned every day, grime and mineral deposits can quickly begin to build upon the surface.
If you’re lucky enough to have a furry best friend or two sharing your home, then you’ll know all about the doggy aroma your canine companion can leave behind. Masking the smell is not the solution, although it may be the quickest in the short-term, so here are some tips for banishing the doggy aroma from your home for good:
No matter how clean you try to keep your home, it’s inevitable that your carpets will retain a degree of dirt from spillages and general detritus, and a stained carpet can really make a room look grubby. However, there are several techniques and products that when used in the correct way, can help to eliminate dirt and grime and get your carpets back to brand new condition, quickly:
It’s virtually impossible to completely rid your home of all germs, and most of the time, it isn’t necessary, even during a pandemic. However, it is necessary to try and ensure that your home is hygienically clean, and thankfully, it’s simple enough to achieve with the use of soap, water and disinfectants:
There may be no way to avoid cleaning your home (unless you employ a cleaner, of course), but there is certainly more than one way to avoid having to spend hours and sometimes days, spring cleaning every year.
When we talk about stress, we’re typically referring to the mental, emotional or physical tension that we experience when we deal with the strains of everyday life. This tension can often cause us to worry uncontrollably, or to feel sad and anxious, and while there are many ideas about how best to eliminate these feelings, research has shown that the simple act of cleaning may help us more than we may think.
One of the most important ways to ensure that your bedroom becomes a space that you can relax and unwind in, is to banish kids from entering it! If this feels too cruel, then you could try having certain times when they’re permitted inside and make it very clear that there are ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’ times of the day when they must learn to amuse themselves without you.
Cleaning your home with natural products isn’t merely a trend that has hit homemakers, but a lifestyle choice that is better for the environment and easier on your pocket, too.
Dust is unsightly, bad for our health and a general annoyance in most homes, but there are steps you can take to help reduce the levels of dust, even if you can never eliminate it entirely, and here’s how:
Do you struggle to come up with an innovative and useful gift for a friend or family member every time their birthday rolls around again? Are you tired of hunting high and low, looking for gift inspiration? Do you always come back empty handed? If so, then a cleaning voucher may be just the thing you’ve been looking for.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) affects many millions of people the world over, and can manifest itself in different ways. However, the one common theme of an OCD is that causes a pattern of thoughts and behaviours in a person, and for some, these can be utterly debilitating:
You don’t have to be a genius to clean your home, that much is true, but sometimes it does pay to put a little thought into how you do it. Haphazardly cleaning your home in a random fashion usually only means that you don’t get the job done efficiently, and some parts of your home get missed if you’re not methodical. Here are a few steps for cleaning your entire home quickly and efficiently:
If you’re going to put time and effort into cleaning your home, you want to know that you’re doing it effectively, right? And if there were things that you were doing wrong, or ineffectively, you’d want to be told?
Keeping a clean home is something that all of us aspire to, and in fact, some of us even enjoy it! However, for some individuals, cleaning can feel like a compulsion and can even take over their lives. Knowing when you are cleaning too much can be hard to recognize though, especially if you live alone and have no other input from family members or friends, or you simply never discuss your cleaning habits with anyone. The sad reality is that sometimes, cleaning becomes an obsession and can jeopardise valuable relationships with loved ones, and when this starts to happen, you know you need help:
Your refrigerator is used so frequently that it’s not always easy to keep it clean, however, considering food items are stored there, it’s important that you make the effort to keep it as hygienically clean as possible. One way of ensuring that the entire fridge gets a thorough clean is by gradually emptying the food stored in it, so that cleaning it properly is made easier.
While we may each have different ideas about what a clean home really means, there are some standards that need to be met for hygiene purposes, and these should not be subjective:
The more cleaning and tidying tasks you can complete each day, the easier your house will be to clean in the long run, and the better you and the other inhabitants of your home will feel. These tasks don’t have to take long or even involve much effort, but you’ll be surprised what a difference they can make:
We often jokingly refer to professional cleaners as being ‘fairies’, as if in some way they secretly enter our homes while we’re sleeping and make all our cleaning catastrophes and dirt disasters look as if they never happened. This is not the reality, of course, but since they so often help us with tasks we are not keen to carry out ourselves, and do such a great job of it, we are inclined to view them as mythical creatures!
It’s sometimes too daunting a prospect, cleaning your entire home in one go, so let’s begin with tackling your bedroom, kitchen and dining room, and let’s get it done the express way!
Bathrooms can get grubby quickly, especially if you have a large household with multiple occupants all using one bathroom. Mold and mildew can be a huge problem in many homes, particularly in bathrooms and if left to worsen, it can look unsightly and cause health issues, too. Knowing the best way to prevent mold and mildew from growing in your bathroom is the best way to keep it under control or eliminate it altogether:
Stay-at-home moms are well respected these days, and most accept that theirs is a worthwhile job that can greatly benefit the entire family. They take care of the children (or child) and engage them in fun and interesting activities, prepare healthy meals for them, and generally try to raise them in a loving environment. It may be that the partner goes out to work full time, or the mom may be raising her kids alone.
When we teach our kids to clean up after themselves, we’re helping to instill some important values in them, such as how to contribute to the family unit, how to keep a clean home ready for when they move out (eventually!) and understanding the importance of having responsibilities.
Mold and mildew can make the cleanest of homes look grubby and uncared for, not to mention the smell that is associated with damp and the risks to health that it poses. If you have areas of unsightly and unhygienic mold and mildew in your home, here are 5 top tips for tackling and eliminating it:
Did you know that indoor pollutants can be far higher than those found outside, sometimes up to 100 times higher! Much of the pollutants come from home decorating and cleaning products, so finding a way to make your home clean and green, really is the best way to achieve a healthy life, healthy home and happy environment.
We all have different methods, techniques and schedules for keeping our homes clean, but one of the most effective and efficient methods, is to keep a structured cleaning plan, whether your home has single or multiple occupancy.
There can be no disputing the fact that bleach is a fantastic disinfectant and cleaning agent, but it is a harsh product and highly toxic, and when there are alternatives to using it for cleaning your bathroom, health experts advise that it’s use be kept to a minimum.
Many things can cause a home to smell bad, from an overflowing trash bin, pets or even teenagers who refuse to wash! While there are some smells that we can ignore, or which will pass quickly enough, others are enduring and require immediate attention, especially if they can cause health problems, fires or in the worst case, even death.
Your kids should probably be feeling lucky that you’re even asking the question of whether cleaning can be fun for them, since many parents inflict it upon them without stopping to think whether they might enjoy it!
The reality is that germs are everywhere and are impossible to avoid entirely, and they are often present in homes. While most of these bacteria won’t harm you, some can be quite dangerous and it’s these you want to prevent from breeding in the sanctity of your home. Here are a few ways in which you can fight household bacteria and prevent you or any other members of your household from becoming sick: