20 Cleaning Tips for the Home

Today we bring you something special.

Not a typical long post like we normally write. But rather a short post with a video. This is an excellent video with 20 cleaning tips for the home that will help you speed clean so you don’t have to spend that might time on cleaning! It’s well worth a watch!

The Importance of Home Cleaning

Having a clean home is very important. A well-kept home not only speaks unspoken words to your guests when they are in your home but it also feels good. When you come how from work and you see everything is clean, or when you wake up on the weekend and don’t have to clean as everything is already clean. It’s a good feeling!

Why You Should Keep a Clean Home?

A lot of people find it difficult to keep a clean home due to busy work schedules and families to run. But a home should still be kept clean. The last thing you want to have is some infestation in your home as you left it dirty.

Regular cleaning will ensure that you will have an odour free home that you can look forward to living in. And your family. Although it does take quite a lot of energy to clean a home if you have a busy work schedule it’s something that really does need to be prioritised.

As without a regular cleaning schedule, a house can start to see wear and tear and over time damage that is not very nice to look at. Things like stains that are not cleaned get worse over time and might never come out. Dust that is not vacuumed up can end up causing dust mites. And even worse breathing in dust is very bad for your health.

So it is very important to keep a clean home not only for the feel-good factor but also for health reasons.

How to Keep a Home Clean – Scheduling

It’s not hard to keep a clean home it just comes down to a regular cleaning schedule. On their site, they have some blog posts that talk about keeping a regular cleaning schedule and that less cleaning is more and is in the best method overall. If you can just do a little cleaning every day then you will have a clean home overall that will not need a huge cleaning session on the weekend. That that is what is meant bu less is more. A little cleaning a day is the perfect routine for cleaning.

How Often Should You Clean?

This really depends on the size of the home you live in and the amount of foot traffic that home gets. For example, a couple who is pretty much only home before work and after work on weekdays and out all weekend is going to need much less cleaning than a family of five who has 3 kids with two not being in school yet making a mess at home.

As a rough guide, the following is a good starting point based on a weekly schedule if you don’t opt to do a little cleaning each day instead of weekly cleaning.

Apartment Cleaning

  • Bachelors can clean every 10 days
  • Couples living together can clean once per week

House Cleaning

  • A small house with 2 people living there should be cleaned twice per week
  • A family living in a medium-sized home needs cleaning three times per week
  • A family living in a large home needs daily cleaning

This might be a hard schedule to keep so if you can’t keep this schedule it’s best to hire a cleaning company to come in and do the work.

Having a cleaning home is good for your health and it also provides a calm and tranquil environment to live in. No one wants to be living in a home where they always have to think about how they should be cleaning as that gets on your nerves. It’s better to just get the cleaning done and be over and done with it!

If you don’t get your cleaning done. Be it with a professional cleaning company or by yourself you will let dust, dirt and germs build up. And the worst-case scenario is that you will actually get sick from living in a dirty home.

Do You Need to Hire a Commercial Cleaning Company?

Having a clean workplace is one of the most important things you need to take care of. Not only for your businesses presentation onto the world but also to keep your workspace clean so your staff don’t get sick.

Having sick staff means they will take days off and staff taking days off is not good for your bottom line.

There is a lot of cleaning that needs to take place in a workplace such as carpets, computers, windows, computers, desks, furniture and many more like the staff kitchen. A good cleaning company is generally required to make sure your workplace is properly cleaned. It’s not advisable to have your own staff do the cleaning.

Hiring a Commercial Cleaning Company

The longer you run a business for the faster you realise that actually hiring a cleaning company is an investment vs a cost.

But then again as a business owner, you have a choice. You could hire a full-time cleaner or two and provide them with the equipment needed. Or you can contract a commercial cleaning company or janitorial services company to do all the work.

Regardless of what option you decide is right for your business you will need to ensure cleaning is done daily. Unlike a home, even one with a large family, a workplace gets a lot dirtier, faster!

If you only have a cleaning team come into your business once or twice a week you will soon learn this is not good enough when you see the mess that is created and from the complaints of your staff.

Full-time Cleaning Staff vs Contracting a Cleaning Company

Let’s explore the two options you have as a business owner. Hiring full-time staff and contracting a cleaning company to do the cleaning work.

We are not going to weight the pros and cons of each. The answer pretty much is that you should hire a cleaning company to do all the work and here is why.

If you hire full time cleaning staff that become part of your business you will soon realise it’s will cost too much and you will have to deal with these headaches:

  1. Paying a monthly salary
  2. Employees are entitled to benefits
  3. You have to deal with restocking cleaning supplies
  4. If the staff member is sick you need to hire temp staff

So, in the end, it’s just not worth it. If you have a small business, even at minimum wage, a full-time cleaner and all the cleaning supplies you will need to provide easily cost triple of what a commercial cleaning company would charge.

A commercial cleaning company will just your business more flexibility not only with the price you pay but also with just dealing with the cleaning situation overall.

For example:

  1. If cleaning staff are sick the contracted cleaning company has more staff on hand
  2. They bring all the cleaning equipment and supplies
  3. You pay a fixed monthly rate
  4. You don’t have to pay sick leave, entitlements or any other benefits
  5. About 2 or 3 times cheaper than full-time staff

One option that can be a great start is to get a cleaning contract with a professional company. A company that provides janitorial services and commercial cleaning. This way you should easily be able to start with a few janitorial staff. And then as you figure out your real cleaning needs for business office or business move to getting a more structured cleaning plan with more permanent cleaning staff, but still not full-time staff.

The other major element that you need to keep in mind is that a cleaning company will do a good job. If you have one or two cleaning staff on-hand full time then who is going to check their work to ensure they are doing a good job?

A cleaning company also have special equipment that is required for specific cleaning tasks that you might not have or refuse to buy due to the cost and being a small business.

In summary, it’s well worth the cost of hiring a commercial cleaning company to do the work that you require. If that is janitorial staff who come in and do cleaning a few times a week for your business or if that is cleaning staff who are in your business daily. To add to what has just been said when you outsource your cleaning it means you have one less headache to deal with in your business and you can focus your time and attention on your daily operations.

The same applies for residential cleaning. Hiring a professional domestic cleaning company is well worth the cost.

Cleaning Sand in your Home and Keeping it Out!

Who doesn’t love going to the beach for a relaxing day?

It’s a great way to relax and recharge the batteries after a look and hard work week. But one thing that is not fun is cleaning up all the sand that ends up getting tracked into your home after you come back from the beach. Today we have something special for you with some easy tips that you can follow to keep your home clean after a fun and eventful day at the beach.

The Shower is your Friend!

Before you even think about getting back in the car make sure you get everyone to take a shower at the beach. Most beaches have outdoor showers or proper facilities with change rooms and lockers.

Then before you get in the car make sure you get all the sand out of any towels. Just like you would freshen up a mattress, do the same with the towel and you will get rid of all the sand that was hiding.

Clean Your Sandy Feet

While showering at the beach might get rid of most of the sand you will always find leftover sand. Most of the time it’s in odd places like the back of your ankles. A good way to get rid of any final sand is to keep a tub of water by your front door. Set this up before you head out to the beach and when everyone gets home get them to wash off their feet before going back into the house.

Keep Shoes Outside

The good thing about going to the beach is that you are not going to need your regular shoes. Flip flops will do and flip-flops can happily live outside and never enter your home.

If you walk inside with shoes that are covered with sand you will track sand into every last corner of your home. But if you only use a dedicate pair of flip-flops that never go inside your home you won’t get any sand inside. Easy, right?

Shower ASAP When Home

As soon as everyone is home get them to shower right away. There should be no sitting on the couch and checking the phone or going on the family computer first.

The first job everyone one has is to shower up. As just like your feet. There is always extra sand that will stay stuck to your body and find its way into your home if you don’t shower up as soon as you get home.

Spot Check and Clean the Sand

Once everyone is showered up grab your broom or vacuum you keep at home and go sand hunting. Give the bathrooms a quick sweep or vacuum and also check by the front door. Cleaning up any sand you can. Even if it’s not much sand please remember that sand will get stuck to your feer and then be tracked all around the house so every last grain of sand matters!

If you follow these steps you should easily be able to keep a clean home after going to the beach and not have to worry about sand getting all over the place.

 

Carpet Cleaning Myths Exposed!

A great way to help bring more of a ‘spark’ into your home is with clean carpets. If you don’t look after your carpet the rest of your home could potentially be spotless but it will still have a somewhat dull felling if carpets look old and dirty.

Clean carpets also increase the value of your home. No, not money wise, although it does, we are talking value in the sense that the occupants of the home, being you, fell good about being in the home. Just take a look at the photo below and you can see how much of an impact deep steam cleaning can have on the carpet.

But…

When it comes to carpet cleaning there is so much miss-information out there so no wonder homeowners are confused about what they need to keep care of their carpets. As Myth Busters says, time to bust that myth!

High Powered Carpet Cleaning Machines are Bad for Carpets.

Nonsense! This is without a shadow of a doubt false.

But where did this myth come from? It came from people hiring carpet cleaning machines and not knowing how to use them properly. Just like any piece of machinery if used incorrectly it can cause damage. If an untrained person simply hires a carpet cleaning machine that should be operated only after the specific train is completed then there is a good chance that person will ruin their carpets.

The solution? Hire a professional carpet cleaning company to get the job done.

When a trained professional operates commercial carpet cleaning equipment in your home to clean your carpets you can sit back and relax. A professional will not only know what machine to use on your carpets so they are cleaned properly but they will also know what method to use to clean your carpets as each machine can be used in a variety of different ways.

If you want undamaged carpets that get professionally cleaning hire the pros and don’t do a DIY job.

Carpet Cleaning Is Only Needed for Stains

And to add to the title of this section people also believe that cleaning your carpet professionally will destroy its original look.

Not the case at all. For both!

This might have had some truth way back in the day when carpet cleaning machines were first starting out with the harsh chemicals they used and this is likely where the rumour started. But as technology has improved for machines and chemical so the ability to not damage a carpet and keep its original look.

These days while a carpet cleaning machine might be a very powerful piece of equipment it does a good job of gently cleaning the carpet fibres and leaving the originally look at fell of your carpet intact.

If anything it’s actually quite important to clean your carpets professionally on a regular basis. If you are a home owner this should take place about two times per year with a professional carpet cleaning service if you want to preserve your carpets for the long run.

If you want to read a more on carpet cleaning then carpet cleaning guide is very detailed.

Carpet Cleaning Attracts Mold

This is a myth that is easy to believe as some carpet cleaning processes are done in a wet manner buy cleaning the carpet in a similar way a washing machine cleans clothes. And then that leaves one to wonder how the carpet drys and if it doesn’t then mold can build up.

But this is not the case.

What is the truth? Well, carpet cleaning can actually promote mold growth if, and only if, the carpet is not dried out properly. You shouldn’t have this problem when hiring a professional firm to clean your carpets.

If you use a dry carpet cleaning method this is not a problem at all. If a wet method uses the carpet cleaning machines of the 21st century are quite sophisticated and they actually suck out a lot of the excess moisture anyhow.

But the be 100% safe and ensure you don’t get any mold build up all the windows in your home should be opened for at least three hours after the carpet is professional cleaning and in that time the carpet shouldn’t be walked on either.