Raise your hand if you like cleaning the house….
Raise your hand if you enjoy scrubbing toilets and washing dishes…
Raise your hand if…okay, nobody is raising hands. And that’s because cleaning sucks. It’s messy, time-consuming, and never-ending. Worst of all, it seems to get undone in a matter of minutes. Alas, it has to be done. So the question isn’t, should I clean? It’s, how can I keep my house cleaner for longer?
5 Tips for Keeping Your House Clean
A clean house isn’t easy to maintain – especially if you have pets, children, roommates, or a messy spouse. Throw in several of these variables and you’re really in trouble. But with the following tips, you can keep your house cleaner for a longer period of time.
- Choose Durable Materials
While cleanliness is mostly about behavior management, there’s also something to be said for using durable materials in your home. This will help your house look cleaner for longer.
Carpet is a great example. Typically carpet wears out after just a few years, which can leave your house looking dirty even when it’s clean. So next time you replace your carpet, get the good stuff.
“The first thing to consider is the type of carpet fiber,” explains Green Residential, a Houston-based property management company that works with landlords to protect their properties. “Not only does this affect the look, but also contributes to longevity and durability. Solution dyed polyester is very cost-effective and is virtually stain and bleach proof, nylon carpet fibers are great when you expect lots of foot traffic, and standard polyester is eco-friendly and pretty much stain resistant, too. Whatever you do, avoid staple polyester yarn. It’s being phased out and doesn’t hold up well at all.”
As far as countertops go, avoid cheap, white laminate-like materials. They stain easily and don’t hold up over time. If you choose to go with stainless steel appliances, be prepared to clean every few days.
- Keep Doormats at Entries
The majority of the dirt and grime on your carpet and floors is tracked in from the outside via dirty shoes. If you can cut back on this, you’ll enjoy a much cleaner home.
“‘Leave more at the door’ is my motto to keep our house clean,” homeowner Rosemary Beauvais says. “I place a mat on both the inside and the outside of the front and back doors. The amount of dirt that collects on the indoor mats is proof to me that this method works wonders.”
- Spread Out Cleaning Supplies
Most people keep all of their home cleaning supplies in a single closet or cabinet. And while this might be fine from an organizational point of view, it makes it hard to clean up little messes as you go. As a result, things pile up and you have to wait until that one big cleaning session that only comes every few weeks.
You can keep your house cleaner for longer by spreading out supplies in different rooms – such as bathrooms, bedrooms, and the kitchen. Then when you see a mess – like a smudge on the mirror or stain on the carpet – you just grab the cleaner and take a couple of minutes and deal with it in the moment.
- Keep Pets Contained
Pets are a huge source of messes inside the home. In addition to having a pet cleaning station by the door, keep pets confined to certain rooms. This keeps their messes to only a portion of the home, rather than having pet hair and stains all throughout the house.
- Have a Place for Everything
Everything in your house needs a home. If something doesn’t have a “place,” then this means you need to trash it, sell it, or donate it.
Along this same line of thinking, take five minutes before you go to bed each evening and tidy up. The biggest problem areas tend to be the living room, kitchen table, countertops, and laundry room.
Make Cleaning Worth Your Time
If you’re going to take the time to clean your house, you need to do it right the first time around. By implementing some of these simple techniques, you can avoid having all of your hard work erased in a matter of hours.
