Knowing how to clean your home correctly is something that nobody teaches you in the formal education system. If you’re lucky, you might have your parents or guardians who taught you everything as you grew.
However, not everyone has had the privilege to get the proper homecare education that would make them great homeowners. In fact, in your life, you might encounter a lot of cleaning mistakes that you didn’t even know were inadvisable. Sometimes, you’ll find that practical experience is what’s going to be the best teacher for you.
But instead of learning by experience and ending up ruining your home before you learn, you might want to get a bit of a heads up.
With that said, here are eight terrible home cleaning mistakes that you might be making:
Starting at the wrong spot
If you’re cleaning your entire home, you must plan out the places where you should clean first. Otherwise, you might be bringing in dirt and germs to what was otherwise a place that you already cleaned.
Therefore, when you’re cleaning your entire house, make sure that you have a set place where you start to clean.
It’s also crucial that you know which cleaning tasks are essential to do at the beginning first. For example, when you clean a room, you should go from top to bottom. That way, you are able to collect dirt and dust on the floor before sweeping them all in your dust bin.
Another example would be to make sure that you start every cleaning task of a room with a dusting. That way, you won’t have to do cleaning work again and again.
Mixing different cleaners
Nowadays, a lot of people are interested in creating homemade cleaning solutions because it’s more affordable and better for the environment. However, the key to creating homemade cleaning solutions is to use natural household ingredients.
What you shouldn’t do is to mix bleach with all sorts of other things to make a homemade cleaner. It might end up creating a chemical reaction that you don’t know how to address. Not to mention that possible health risk that comes with it.
Therefore, make sure that you look up appropriate homemade cleaning solution recipes online. The ingredients list usually indicates things like vinegar, lemon, baking soda, among others. These are generally ingredients that are safe for anyone by itself.
Cleaning your windows on sunny days
At Maid Sailors Maid Service Chicago, they notice that the most common cleaning mistakes that people make cleaning the windows on a sunny day. The reason for this is that people think the water would dry the water faster.
However, what they don’t consider is the fact that cleaning solutions are going to evaporate so quickly that they end up creating hard water stains, which is more difficult to remove.
What you should do instead is to clean your windows during the late afternoon or when it’s cloudy.
Overlook mildew and mold
Don’t ignore mildew and mold once you see them. These can make people in your house quite sick if left unchecked.
With that said, you should periodically check up on your house for mildew and mold.
In particular, you should check up on your bathroom and kitchen so that you don’t have to deal with a worse infestation in the future.
Cleaning with dirty cleaning tools
You shouldn’t forget to clean or replace entirely the tools that you use for cleaning. If you don’t take care of your cleaning tools, you’re only going to end up spreading germs and dirt in the places you plan on cleaning.
Using a feather duster
Contrary to popular belief, a feather duster is not the best thing to take the dust off of your furniture.
These dusters end up creating micro-abrasions in furniture. Aside from that, they spread dust or move it instead of getting rid of it.
It’s better to use a wet microfiber cloth or an old rag to wipe away dust instead.
Directly spraying the cleaning solution onto a surface
Spray your cleaning solutions on your applicator (microfiber cloth, paper towels, etc.) instead of directly on the place you plan on cleaning. It might create a build-up that will make dirt and dust stick to it more if you spray onto it directly.
Putting everything in the dishwasher
Make sure that you don’t rely too much on your dishwasher when cleaning cutleries and the like.
Instead, you should check that these items are dishwasher safe first. Otherwise, things like your knives and non-stick pots and pans are something that you wash by hand.
Being a good homeowner is a constant process. Over the years, you start to accumulate your knowledge and learn the dos and don’ts. However, you can always use a headstart, so watch out for the cleaning mistakes we have listed above when cleaning your home. That way, you maintain a neat and tidy home without suffering repercussions.