How to Achieve a Cleaner Home
Not only is your home your own private domain in which to be free and express yourself, but it is a big investment. You can own the latest electronics in your home and display them proudly, or have a garden outside that has all the latest heirloom vegetables. Being the queen (or king) of your own castle has its many benefits.
But with owning a piece of property comes the inevitable responsibility of cleaning, maintaining, and properly utilizing that property. If it feels odd to you to be a neat freak or worried about cleanliness, don’t worry. There seems to be a general trend of keeping homes clean, modern, and upgraded. In fact, homeowners typically spend between 1% and 4% of their home’s value on upgrades and repairs each year. So it’s not that unusual, and gives you many opportunities to not only keep your home clean in creative ways, but to upgrade the “operating system” of your home by installing new appliances or rethinking some of the things you took for granted (like the color of a room or the furniture layout).
In this informative article we’ll talk about the various ways you can keep your home clean no matter what time of the year or day it is. By implementing simple systems or changing your habits, you can make cleaning a breeze that will have everybody wondering how you do it. If something is out of your skill level or expertise (such as sewage restoration), you can always hire a qualified contractor to get the job done. Hopefully, you’ll benefit from this knowledge and continue to use it into the future for a spectacularly spotless home.
Start With the Basics
When it comes time to keep your home clean, it’s easiest to start with the basics. Have you taken the trash out? Flushed the toilets and cleaned the ring around the bathtub? Made sure that there isn’t food waste rotting somewhere, or that the carpets have been cleaned? Going through this relatively simple checklist can save a lot of headaches and pressure on your wallet to invest in expensive cleaning services or products. While you may need to invest in these things eventually, simply performing the basics can go a long way toward having a home that is worth living in and inviting people over.
Making sure that you own a quality vacuum can be a lifesaver in a multitude of situations, from accidental spills to everyday maintenance on a worthwhile rug. By investing in a vacuum that can take a beating and won’t break down, you’ll be able to clean up and properly discard any of the debris or dust that happens to float in and land upon the floor of your property. Dirt, dust, and even small debris from broken items can be swept up in a breeze with a quality vacuum. This can also help with cleaning the hard to reach areas of a house if it has a hose attachment.
Having basic cleaning materials, such as antibacterial wipes and sprays can make all the difference in having clean areas vs. dirty messes. They not only help you clean up everyday situation (such as spilled wine or food), but are also a lifesaver in terms of cleaning an oven, appliances, or small spaces around your home. Various scents can enhance the cleaning effect, and there’s something about lemon that just screams “I’m clean and everyone knows it” when you walk into a room, isn’t there? If you’re worried about harmful and caustic chemicals from these cleaning agents, there are even “all natural” and “organic” versions of them that work just as well. By keeping them on hand, you’ll be prepared for any spill or situation that may come your way.
Getting Into the Nooks and Crannies
Sometimes, the reason our homes aren’t so clean is that there are hidden problems in the nooks and crannies of our household. Whether this is mold or mildew residing in a hard to reach area of the kitchen, or bed bugs and other critters camping out in our rooms, the concern is the same. Both are detrimental to your health, and you’ll want to call a company that has experience in bed bug control before you get sick or start scratching yourself to death. There are many hidden detriments such as this in households across the world, and they are all worth getting rid of.
You can do some inspections yourself, but it will take you getting down on your hands and knees to figure out exactly what nooks and crannies are affected. You’ll want to be equipped with some sort of cleaning spray, a brush, and a dish towel to wipe away dirt, grime, mold, and other unwelcome visitors. Places to check first are the connecting points of any area that gets a lot of water (such as fixtures in the bathroom), then places that are in neglected areas (such as the basement). You may not be able to find anything wrong on your own, in which case you should still think about hiring an expert to give you the “all clear.”
Mold and mildew can cause serious health problems, and if you live in an area with the humidity to support them you should certainly have an expert consultation about whether you’re at risk. Luckily the remedies for these things don’t have to be expensive, and even experts will be able to prescribe some sort of high-powered bleach formula to eliminate mold, mildew, spores, and unpleasant visitors. They’ll also be able to recommend how to seal your house (perhaps with replacement doors or a new seal to existing entry points) to prevent these things from coming in again and ruining your year.
Hiring Experts and Doing Repairs
Sometimes, you just don’t feel up to cleaning (or don’t know where to start). That’s perfectly OK, you’re never obligated to clean if you don’t want to. But if you want to keep your home clean it will have to be done by somebody. Perhaps this is where you invest the time and energy into hiring a wonderfully reviewed cleaning company to come every so often and fix your problems for you. It may seem like an added expense that is unnecessary, but if it saves you from pulling your hair out, is it? Leaving the cleaning to the experts if it’s really bothering you and focus on other ways to tidy and organize your home so it’s just the way you want.
Another way to keep your home clean is to do some repairs on old appliances or items that are giving you trouble. For example, an old air conditioner unit, even if the filter has been replaced, could be spewing mold, dust, or other debris into your house and causing it to be unnecessarily dirty. Instead of throwing up your hands and constantly cleaning up after its mess, it may simply be time to call ac repair services and get a new air conditioner installed so that the problem is both solved and upgraded all in one sweep.
If you find that a major portion of why your home isn’t clean is that you have a large amount of debris or objects hidden in storage, then you might want to consider a trash removal company. Depending on the company, they may either provide a large rubbish bin for you to toss all of your trash into (and then haul it away) or like a moving company they might actually contract workers to get into these spaces and take away your trash in bags or boxes. Either way, you will literally be getting rid of trash and tidying your home in the process so there are minimal downsides.
Little Touches Make the Difference
It’s astounding how little touches can make all the difference in trying to keep your home clean. From having a broom in the kitchen so that stray dust is never free to blow around, to placing scented candles in rooms, little touches can make a clean home feel spotless and spectacular. Potpourri or other wonderful smells can help enhance a clean home’s aesthetic and bring mental clarity to a space, or simply wiping down a granite countertop with a lemon-scented spray can make it both clean enough to eat off of and delightfully shiny.
When trying to keep your home clean, little touches can also mean having backups of commonly used items, such as dish towels or pillowcases in case common accidents occur. If you need to clean up a spill in the kitchen, there’s no need to fret about running out of towels or napkins and being left defenseless. Instead, you can keep spare paper towels under the sink or extra dish towels in a small basket so that when duty calls you’re ready to go. It truly is amazing how having a fresh towel or clean space can make all the difference.
Little touches don’t have to conform to any particular time, space, or quality in your home. In fact, only you know what’s best in trying to keep your home clean and spotless for the future and beyond. Whatever little touches you leave for yourself and guests will have to be personalized to you and your tastes in order to bring the highest quality to light. Take some time to personally reflect on what will help make your clean home shine a little brighter and then do it!
DIY is Sometimes the Answer
Every so often in life, DIY is the answer. While many people underestimate their confidence in being able to perform tasks, it need not be so. While trying to keep your home clean you may come across innumerable objects and pieces of furniture that you no longer use (or didn’t even know you still had). Along with hiring a movie company to provide packing services, you can take this time to pack a couple of boxes yourself, or organize the things that are currently cluttering your house.
Packing things away and finding out what’s essential and what’s not can actually be a very relaxing activity. You can listen to podcasts or music while looking at each item or piece of furniture carefully and trying to decide why you still own it, before relegating it to the donation box or trash bin. Perhaps you even own some rare or sought-after items, in which you could fetch a pretty penny on sites like eBay and Craigslist for. As they say, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
Aside from sorting possessions and cleaning dust, you can also engage in activities such as drain cleaning in your bathroom. Assuming that you don’t have a legitimate plumbing problem (in which case you should consult a plumber), it’s rather easy to search online about how to plumb a drain and clean it out with either tools or chemicals. Doing so may get rid of any smells or odors that are coming out of it, or finally get rid of the blockage that is keeping your shower or bathtub from draining. This will surely go a long way toward making your bathroom space cleaner and a more pleasant environment to be in.
Appreciating Your Property, Or Getting a New One
At the end of all these tips, you may have discovered that your house is quite larger than you would like it to be. Not necessarily in square feet or land mass, but in the sheer complexity of maintenance and cleaning. Despite being able to hire plumbers and other specialists to perform cesspool maintenance, you may decide that it’s not something you want to engage in any longer and that it’s too much effort to keep your home clean. Especially if you are keeping rooms or areas clean that you never utilize. That’s OK, you are never obligated to continue to own a piece of property you don’t want anymore.
While many people may try to dissuade you from selling your home or downsizing to a smaller living space, always remember that it’s not their decision. If trying to keep your home clean in your current environment is more like disaster cleanup, the mental load of trying to compartmentalize everything that needs to be done can be more trouble than it’s worth. You may be better off selling your current property and looking for a more clean-friendly environment, perhaps with newer construction.
Smaller residences, such as townhouses and apartments, can offer many benefits besides being easier to clean. They are generally located in more urban environments and closer to basic services that housing developments tend to be. If you’d still like to have land, you can always look at rural areas with smaller houses, or have a smaller house built with the earnings from the sale of your current one. Don’t feel trapped in a space that makes you crazy if you don’t want to be. While it’s great to appreciate your home and develop a cleaning routine, sometimes it’s also OK to consider other options. At the end of the day, the choice is yours.
