It’s impossible to keep any home clean 100 percent of the time.
Homes are made to be lived in, and messes happen more often than not. Add multiple residents, kids of all ages, their friends, pets and a busy at-home social calendar, and you have a recipe for grunge, grime and grit of all kinds.
Sounds lovely, doesn’t it!
Even the neat freaks among us may surrender at all that. But cleaning crises and catastrophes don’t have to be daily or weekly occurrences. Here are some tips to keep the sparkle in your new custom Florida home.
Do the basics first
Probably none of us love piloting the vacuum cleaner, folding laundry or washing up the kitchen after meals. Add the mildew and soap-scum wars in bathrooms, and you might feel defeated before you begin.
But these basic chores form the foundation of your home’s long-term cleanliness.
Regularly knocking them out keeps the workload manageable, as does sharing the duties with family members. It also prevents dish piles and laundry mounds from becoming bigger messes.
While you’re at it, don’t allow clutter to accumulate on tables or counter tops. Junk piled around, whether kids’ toys or printouts from the office, makes it harder to do those basic chores.
Because then you have clean up before you can clean up!
Germ hogs to avoid
Regardless of how often you’ll clean your new custom Florida home, there always will be something else you can do to make it cleaner.
Taking a bit more time to dust shelves or chandeliers, or using a dust mop on hard flooring to remove the worst grime before you vacuum, are two examples.
But dirt is only half of your cleaning equation. Battling illness-causing bacteria and viruses is another important reason to keep your new home tidy. So, consider adding the items below to your cleansing routine.
Yucky wet stuff
Sinks, faucet handles and bath towels are used multiple times each day in most homes, often by multiple family members (like the hand towels in kitchens and bathrooms).
Those are a lot of touches by hands bringing home germs from school, work, doctor appointments, daycare, grocery stores — you name it.
So don’t forget to swipe sinks and faucet handles regularly with a bacteria-and-virus-repellent cleaning solution. And forgo using bath towels multiple times. Hang those used bath towels to dry, then toss them in the laundry basket and use a fresh towel for your next shower.
Yucky dry stuff
You might already know some of this, thanks to flu-season and vacuum-cleaner advertisements.
Your TV remote (any household remote, computer tablet or smart-home control pad) and door handles are germ carriers of the first degree. Keep antiseptic wipes handy to clean frequently-used door handles and those remotes/tablets.
And if you have carpet or rugs, use a vacuum made for them, or the carpet attachment on your vacuum. Steam-cleaning carpets and dry-cleaning rugs on a regular basis also is a healthy idea.
grunge, grime and grit of all kinds.
