Cleaning can play an important role in helping to keep certain illnesses at bay, especially as we approach flu and virus season; something that even your doctor won’t disagree with.
While there are practices we can all adopt to prevent our germs from becoming someone else’s germs and vice versa, such as covering our mouths when we sneeze or cough and regularly washing our hands with soap and water, keeping our homes clean can also help shield us from germs and bacteria that cause illnesses.
How clean should a home be?
For a truly clean home, you’re going to need to do more than simply wave a duster about the place and push a vacuum cleaner around once a week. A home that’s clean enough to keep you healthy, requires the use of sanitizing products, regular cleaning of all frequently touched surfaces, and deep cleaning of other, commonly neglected areas of the home.
To help you get your home clean enough to keep you healthy, here are some guidelines:
- Clean and service your HVAC
Often used but not cleaned anywhere near as often, HVAC systems can be breeding grounds for mold and bacteria, which if left, can easily be transmitted around your home and aggravate symptoms of allergies and respiratory diseases.
Schedule annual or bi-annual servicing and cleaning of your HVAC system to ensure it isn’t playing host to a mold infestation, the spores of which will travel at ease whenever the system is in use.
- Regularly sanitize handles, knobs and buttons
Basically, anything that is touched on a regular basis (and often by multiple pairs of hands), such as drawer and door handles and knobs, buttons and dials on appliances or remote controls, and light switches, should be disinfected as often as is possible (without it becoming an obsession!). This becomes especially important if someone in the household is sick.
- Launder items other than your clothes, laundry and towels
Busy households will often have washing machines that seem to be going non-stop, but they’re often full of clothes, bedsheets and towels. Have you ever stopped and thought about what might be lurking on stuffed toys (belonging to you, your kids or your pets), or hiding in plain sight on cushions and couch upholstery? If you have items that can’t easily be thrown into the machine and washed, you can spray them with a disinfectant to stop any germs present from contaminating those using them. here is a simple but highly effective and 100% natural antibacterial solution you can make yourself:
Half a cup of white vinegar
One cup of water
5 drops of your favorite essential oil
- Confine germs where possible
If one person in your household is sick and you have more than one bathroom in your home, try to have them use the same one to prevent spreading their germs to others. Of course, this space should still be cleaned frequently.
If you have a shared family bathroom, however, you’ll simply have to step up your cleaning efforts until they’re no longer contagious, and ensure that faucets, surfaces and places like the toilet flush and light switches, are disinfected regularly.
- Hire a cleaning company
This is by far the best way to ensure that your home is as clean as it can be, at all times. While you can’t eliminate every germ or spot of dirt in your home, hiring professionals will help keep the entire place as healthy and safe as it can possibly be, and with their knowledge and experience, they’ll have plenty of tips and tricks up their sleeves to keep you and your family germ-free throughout the year.
As we approach flu and virus season, why not do your bit to protect yourself and others in your home from getting sick or spreading germs, by stepping up your cleaning efforts a little? Don’t have the time or patience for that? Simply hire a cleaning service and let them do it for you!
