Home cleaning tips you need

There are only a handful of devotees who love house cleaning. For most of us, it is literally a chore. We do it because we want to live in a germ-free, smell-free home that welcomes others. Therefore, we are often looking for some hints and tips to shortcut the process. While being able to stick to a cleaning schedule is top advice, we mostly want ways to make this schedule as short as possible. Here we explore the best way to make the most impact with the least effort.

Germ-invasion of the keyboard

Our laptop keyboard is probably one of the most germ-infested devices in our home. Rather than dwell too much on a comparison with your toilet, trust us when we say washing your hands after typing is advisable. If you are now freaked out by the strains of Bacillus and Staphylococcus across your QWERTY, disinfection is simple. With a toothbrush dipped in a solution made up of half-water and half-vinegar, you can eliminate these germs. Make sure you scrub the keys and the gaps in between the keys to doing the best job.

The buggy kitchen sponge

Most of us use a kitchen sponge. We think we are cleaning down our countertops and washing our dishes, but we might spread a host of bacteria instead. The dirt you wipe away gets caught in the sponge and reproduces. While you can regularly clean or replace your sponge to prevent the spread of these germs, you might want to reduce waste or the use of chemicals. An alternative is to microwave the sponge for about 90 seconds, reducing the bugs by almost 99%.

Stuck on dirt

Cooked in grime and stuck on dirt in your oven and microwave are a pain to remove. It seems like the only option is to put in some hardcore elbow grease. However, steam cleaning is a much better option. Fortunately, your microwave offers a natural heating mechanism and putting a bowl of water into the oven will lift off that tough grime. After you have steamed the inside of the microwave, you should be able to wipe off dirt with a cloth. Steam might take longer to work in a standard oven but is still a useful tool.

Shifting stuck on grime on your pots and pans can also be unstuck – using a drying sheet. Soak your dirty kitchen items in the sink with some soapy, warm water and a dryer sheet. Leave those pots in there for a couple of hours, and when you rinse off the soap, the dirt will disappear too.

If you don’t have a drying sheet – try rhubarb. Honestly, a few sticks of rhubarb and some water boiled in a pan will allow you to lift any burnt-in grime from the bottom of a pan. It is not surprising that this works, as rhubarb has many natural acids that help in the cleaning process.

Unusual cleaning materials

We have already shown how vinegar might be useful for your keyboard, but it can also clean your coffee maker. Vinegar is essentially a mild acid and is the base ingredient of a lot of products you buy. Places like our coffee machines can become a hotbed of bacteria in the gunk that builds up. Running a mixture of white vinegar and water through the machine will get rid of the germs and get rid of the smell.

You can also use denture tablets to clean your coffee maker too. Put the denture tablets into the top where the water goes and set your machine going for a couple of cycles.

Your blender can equally be a pain to clean. If you have some baking soda, you can remove the stuck-on mess with a quick swoosh of the blender itself. Add baking soda to some water and washing up liquid and press the start button. This process will get it cleaner than even putting it through your dishwasher.

Refresh with lemons

It is easy to see that products with natural acidity are going to be good cleaners. The good news about lemons is that they also have a naturally fresh and zingy smell that can deodorise and remove germs. Therefore, dropping some lemons into your drains can provide a fresh scent. Equally, lemons are a great way of cleaning your wooden carving boards. Rubbing the boards with lemon and salt is more hygienic than running them through the dishwasher. Be sure to rinse away the lemon before using it next.

Summary

There are easy cleaning methods we can use in our home that are effective, quick, and cheap. While we think we need a host of products to keep germs at bay, realistically, we have items that work better and cost less.