Most of us who clean our homes on a regular basis can fall into the trap of thinking that there’s not much to it. After all, how much could there be in vacuuming our floors or washing some of our clothes in the washing machine? While these tasks may not seem very technical on the surface, from our experience, we have seen people make the same house cleaning mistakes time and time again, which prevent them from having the type of clean home they were looking for.
Today, we will look at 7 of these common house cleaning mistakes and our solution to dealing with them.
The 7 Common House Cleaning Mistakes
1. Cleaning Your Windows on a Sunny Day
Cleaning windows on a sunny day can already sound like a chore. Who wants to clean windows when you could be lying on the grass, right? But what if we told you that taking on this chore was also bad for your windows?
Sunlight can cause the water in your cleaning solution to evaportate faster on your windows, leaving awkward streaks and marks that definitely don’t help with the killer shine that you were looking for. We recommend that you take on this task on a cloudier day, especially if your windows are in the direction of direct sunlight.
For a more detailed description on cleaning windows visit our window cleaning blog.
2. Using Cleaning Spray on TV Screens
If your idea for cleaning your TV screen is to spray on some window cleaner and give it a nice scrub, you really need to stop! This method has 2 major flaws as some cleaning cloths may scratch your TV screen and the harsh chemicals from some cleaning products can degrade your display.
As a general rule, we recommend using the cleaning cloth that most manufacturers provide in the box for this purpose. No need to sweat if you’ve tossed this away or lost it over the years as most of us have, a dry and soft microfibre cloth also does the job! Using your soft cloth, gently remove any dust or particles on your TV screen. If your TV screen is especially dirty, we’ve found dish soap mixed with water to be quite effective in providing a good clean.
Since not all TV screens are created the same (quite literally), we recommend reading your TV manufacturer’s guidance on cleaning their product before jumping into the clean.
3. Excessively Using Furniture Polish When Dusting
Back in the day, if you wanted to keep your funiture shining, there was no substitute for good old furniture polish and some elbow grease. Fast forward to today’s day and age, this is much less of a necessity since most furniture comes with a protective topcoat. This also makes cleaning the furniture a lot easier as all you need in most cases is a damp peice of microfibre cloth to give your furniture a good wipe down.
If you have some antique furniture lying around, it’s okay to use furniture polish to clean this occasionally. However, if you do decide to do this, we recommend sticking to the same brand of furniture polish. This is because different products contain different chemicals that upon contact to each other can cause a chemical reaction. When this happens, it can leave a thick or sticky residue.
4. Not Cleaning Your Sponge
This is one that more than a few of us are guilty of. Over time, sponges gather germs and harmful bacteria. Using these to clean our dishes or countertops can cause us to transfer thousands of harmful bacteria to objects we come in contact with everyday. If that isn’t scary enough, this article deems it to be the dirtiest item in your house. Neglecting to properly deal with this can be one of the most dangerous house cleaning mistakes for our health.
Here are a few methods to prolonge the life of your sponge
1. Microwave method – Start by soaking your sponge in water without letting it dry. Next, put your sponge on top of a paper towel and leave this in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. Remove the sponge from the microwave and let it cool before touching. The sponge will likely be very hot at this point and you could burn your hand by touching it.
Note: Some sponges have plastic in them which can melt in the microwave, even when wet. The paper towel helps clean up this mess when this happens.
2. Replace your sponge over short intervals – Since your sponge collects germs and bacteria over time and repeated use, replacing it over shorter intervals can help ensure that germs and bacteria are not allowed to build up for too long.
3. Dishwasher method – This involves leaving your sponge in the utensils compartment of your dishwasher for the whole wash. This can help kill up to 99% of bacteria on your sponge.
5. Not Cleaning the Washing Machine
Some would wonder why this item is even on our list of house cleaning mistakes. After all, you would assume that a washing machine would clean itself during each cycle. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Over time, germs can build up in the drum of the washing machine. Without periodic cleaning, these can be transferred onto your clothes.
To clean the washing machine, add 1 cup of baking soda and 1 quart of white vinegar to the empty machine. Next, run the washing machine at it’s highest temperature and longest cycle with an empty load.
Here’s what the detergent company, Persil says about cleaning your washing machine.
6. Changing Your Vacuum’s Dust Bag Only When it’s Full
It is understandable that some of us want to get as much mileage from our products as we can. We don’t usually empty out our garbage bags before they are full, so why should the dust bag be any different?
When a dust bag approaches its maximum capacity, dust and other small particles within it start to slow down the suction power of the vacuum. This makes your vacuum far less effective for cleaning floors. What’s more is that organic products, such as bits of food that get sucked into the bag can decompose and leave an unpleasant smell.
We recommend changing your dust bag when it gets to 2/3rd of it’s capacity.
7. Scrubbing Stains on Carpet and Upholstery
Spilling something on a new carpet or an expensive piece of furniture can leave us leaping in to scrub away frantically in order to save our beloved possession. However, it is this scrubbing that causes the real damage. Scrubbing pushes the stain and dust particles deeper into the fibres of our carpets or upholstery, making it much harder to eventually clean the stain.
If you ever find yourself with a stained carpet, check out our detailed carpet cleaning guide where we walk you through how to clean your carpet and keep it clean for longer.
The Bottom Line
House cleaning may not always be as easy as it looks at the start and sometimes we make common mistakes that aren’t very obvious if we haven’t encountered them before. Luckily, that’s why glimmr is here to provide you with the best cleaning solutions to help give you the home you deserve.
We look forward to seeing you at our next post!