Every week, we all needlessly tire ourselves out with masses of cleaning jobs that aren’t necessary. In a recent survey, Mumsnet questioned nearly 1,000 working mothers on the division of labour in their home and found that women spend on average 10 hours per week on household tasks, with nearly nine in ten of people admitting they regularly put-off doing chores and jobs around the house. This doesn’t have to be the case as some weekly cleaning chores can be carried out monthly – not all of your free time needs to be spent cleaning and feeling sorry for yourself.
Here is how you can drastically cut the number of hours spent cleaning per week without making any compromises to your home’s cleanliness:
Laundry
Laundry is one of the most hated cleaning chores known to man for obvious reasons, especially for most Brits with 47% of people claiming that cleaning is a painful chore to complete, but it’s something that needs to be done regardless of whether we enjoy it or not. The best way to tackle your ever-growing laundry pile without letting it get too mountainous is to wash every week, especially as some items, such as towels, should only be used three times between washes. To make this job easier, have a designated laundry area where you and your family can split your light, dark and coloured clothing into separate bins to help cross step one off your routine list before you even start.
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Kitchen appliances
Even though your kitchen appliances – including your microwave, oven and fridge – may look immaculate and clean, and you wipe all surfaces regularly with a wet cloth, it doesn’t mean they are. To get rid of any excess dirt, food and fingerprint marks, buy some disinfectant wipes or invest in a clean sponge and surface cleaner and wipe down the sides after use to ensure any bothersome build-up is washed away instantaneously.
Carpet and rugs
As time-consuming as you think it is, vacuuming is important for creating a clean home. Before you even begin to see dust, crumbs or pet hair, you should Hoover it up. Even though your carpet looks clean and tidy, the chances are it’s saturated with heavy dirt and dust particles on the top, particularly in places of high-usage, such as the living room, hallways and bedrooms where dirt is often transferred from place to place.
Dusty furniture
Dust is everywhere and can accumulate quickly upon furniture and corners of wooden flooring. It doesn’t just make your home look dirty, it can potentially damage your furniture too by scratching surfaces if something rubs against it. The best way to combat this is by using a multipurpose spray cleaner, furniture polish or water in order to dampen a cloth and prevent harming your furnishings.
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Bath and shower
These wet and warm areas of your home are the breeding ground for grime if not maintained regularly. Every week, to resist stains, use a bathroom cleaner on these surfaces to prevent bacteria from reproducing. Remember, it’s important to dry these surfaces afterwards to stop any rogue bacteria in their tracks to make your job easier.
Bathroom surfaces
Bathroom surfaces include mirrors, countertops, the sink – everything. Sometimes it’s easy for us to clean the obvious surfaces in our bathrooms, but it’s easy to forget the main culprit of your bathroom’s dirtiness: the toilet. If you flush the toilet with the lid up, water particles can disturbingly spray up to six feet across the room. Remember to always keep the lid down.
Toilet
The dirtiest place in your home, also known as the toilet. Your toilet can be a breeding place for bacteria and can be hard to kill if not cleaned on a weekly basis. Every single day your toilet is used, and by a large number of people, so be sure to avoid embarrassment by ensuring it’s clean. One of the best, and quickest, ways to deep clean your toilet is to bleach it, focusing primarily around the sides and under the rim. Let it stay like this for as long as possible and flush, helping to wash away all limescale and grime build up that may have collected.
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Bed sheets
On average, we spend approximately half of our lives in bed on our bed sheets, duvet and pillowcases. As unpleasant as it sounds, germs, sweat and body oils are produced often and are soaked into our sheets every single day. According to a recent YouGov poll, one in 20 of us wash our sheets only every four weeks, and more than a third wait 14 days, but experts suggest we should wash our sheets every week – two week’s maximum – at 60 degrees Celsius to destroy bacteria. To ensure your bed sheets are squeaky clean – dry pillowcases and sheets in direct sunlight to successfully kill all micro-organisms that may have remained.
