Hello and welcome to the Toronto Maids blog! Today we wanted to give you tips for disinfecting your home: why, when and how to do it.
Disinfecting your home is important, especially during these more recent years. We all know how important it is to keep our surfaces sanitized and keep bacteria and viruses out of our home.
You can hire a house cleaning service in Toronto to disinfect your home using professional equipment. However, most surfaces need to be sanitized on a daily basis.
This is why you should have DIY disinfectants, sanitizers and cleaners at hand when you’re in the middle of your daily house cleaning. Now, without further ado, lets read some house disinfecting tips!
Before you start the cleaning process, we wanted to talk about the difference between disinfecting, sanitizing and cleaning.
People use these terms interchangeably all the time. However, they’re slightly different.
Cleaning means removing dirt or dust from surfaces, like you would do with a damp towel. It doesn’t mean killing bacteria, mold or other germs.
Sanitizing means reducing germs or bacteria on a surface until it’s safe to interact with them.
Disinfecting means killing bacteria and viruses on the surface with chemicals. Killing germs instead of lowering them can be kind of tricky because they are resistant and you need very strong, industrial-grade chemicals to completely kill them.
There are very few house cleaning products that are able to properly disinfect. In fact, you don’t need to disinfect most surfaces, this is rarely needed in your home. Sanitizing is enough in most cases.
That’s why we’re using the term “disinfecting” loosely in the rest of the article. Now, let’s grab the essential items to keep your home clean!
As we were mentioning earlier, its important to take care of your home regularly to keep bacteria and viruses at bay.
After COVID-19, we were all more careful and concerned with cleanliness and hygiene. However, there are many other pathogens potentially around our homes.
The kitchen, for example, is one of the areas with the biggest chances for bacteria to grow. Especially items like your sponges and your cutting boards. And it’s a high risk because this is the place where you have dinner every day!
By disinfecting, you are not only killing microbes on the surface, but also on the air. For airborne pathogens, you are going to need an air purifier, or a vacuum cleaner with an HVAC system.
If you work from home or spend a lot of time in your computer, that is also a ground for contamination. You can find millions of germs in your keyboards, mice and phones.
We all know we should be disinfecting your home regularly, but exactly when is the right time for it?
As you may guess, there’s no right answer for this. However, keep in mind the following factors:
As a rule of thumb, you should be cleaning and disinfecting your home once a week.
If someone in your home is sick, you need to increase the frequency of your cleaning. Pay special attention to areas shared by everyone in the household, such as the kitchen or a bathroom.
If you have moved in recently, it’s a great idea to disinfect your home or to hire a move-in cleaning service to do it for you.
And, if you just had visitors in your home, you should disinfect the areas they have come into contact with.
Some examples are doorknobs, countertops, and light switches. You don’t know what germs they have brought into your home unknowingly.
Having a small bottle filled with a disinfectant or sanitizer in each room of your home is a great way to incorporate this habit into your daily life.
You can create a schedule where you would clean and disinfect problematic areas more often (kitchen + bathrooms) once a week, and then leave the living room and bedrooms for disinfecting once a month.
At the end of the day, find a routine that works for you and your family.
For disinfecting your surfaces and completely remove the most common viruses and bacteria, you can use bleach.
You should dilute bleach with water first before using. A one-part bleach, ten-parts water is enough to be effective yet safe on the surfaces. Most manufacturers add the diluting instructions on the product label.
Keep in mind, bleach is an abrasive, strong chemical. Do not use it on sensitive surfaces, such as natural stone (e.g. granite, marble) or hardwood floors. Bleach is particularly effective to kill mold in bathrooms.
Wear gloves, a mask, goggles, and keep a window or a door open when you’re using it. Do not mix bleach with other chemicals such as vinegar or ammonia.
Bleach is effective after 5 minutes, so make sure you leave this product for at least 5 to 10 minutes before removing.
Related: Post-Canada Day Cleaning Tips
Rubbing alcohol is capable of killing many types of germs, including the most common house bacteria and viruses.
Isopropyl alcohol needs to have a 70% concentration because that’s the highest effectiveness concentration.
To create an alcohol-based disinfectant, you will need the following ingredients:
Mix two parts of rubbing alcohol and one part water in a spray bottle. Shake well each time before you use and let sit for a few minutes. Remember to wipe it off with a clean cloth.
This solution is perfect for areas that you constantly touch with your hands, like doorknobs and light switches. You can also use them on countertops, but always confirm with your manufacturer’s instructions.
Natural stone surfaces such as granite and marble are sensitive to some cleaning agents.
Steam is a fantastic way to kill germs in your home. Water is the safest cleaning agent out there! Besides, it’s extremely cheap and versatile.
Research shows that steam cleaners kill dust mites in carpet floors, for example. They also kill many types of bacteria, viruses and other microbes.
You can use steam cleaners for cleaning tile and grout, and water fixtures as well. They are also outstanding countertop cleaners. Countertops are usually sensitive to abrasive chemicals, which means water is the perfect choice for them.
Last but not least, steam is perfect for children’s toys. For obvious reasons, you want to use non-toxic cleaning agents for any of your kids’ belongings.
Related: Pet Hair Removal Tips: How To Reduce Pet Hair In Your Home
That’s it! We hope these tricks help you in the process of disinfecting your home more regularly and keep you and your family safe.
If you don’t have the time, remember to check Toronto Maids and our cleaning services. We are a house cleaning company in Toronto ready to help you take care of your home.
We will be back soon with more cleaning articles!
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