Keeping House: Easy Ways to Reduce the Grime and Your Cleaning Time

Fighting grime is a battle that never ends but you can work smarter to rid your home of dirt, dust, and debris.  Rather than work harder, get clever to reduce the grime and shorten the time you need to clean.

Take Off Your Shoes

Shoes track in dirt and grime.  Lessen the amount of dirt coming in your house by leaving your shoes at the door.  Encourage your spouse, kids, friends, and visitors to do the same.  It’s a minor request that can make a major difference in the fight against grime.  Considering all of the dirt, grease, and grime that exists on the streets and sidewalks, it’s amazing that most people don’t urge visitors to leave their shoes at the door.

Mic the Sponge

Sponges are breeding grounds for bacteria but your sponges don’t have to house such nastiness.  Every evening, rinse your sponge and then zap it in the microwave for about a minute.  When it gets too dilapidated, toss it and exchange it for a new one.

Change the Liner

Shower liners are fairly inexpensive, so rather than watch the soap scum consume it week after week, change it out every other month.  In between showers, spray down the curtain and the sides of the walls with disinfectant spray.  Particular products only necessitate a thorough spraying; just let it dry to keep your shower clean.

Sweep or Vac  Daily

It’s easier to keep the inside of your home clean if it contains less fabric.  For example, it’s easier to keep wood floors clean versus carpets and rugs.   If you have wood floors, sweep daily and vacuum regularly if you have rugs.  Doing so will give you an edge over accumulated grime.

Take Ten Minutes

Reserve ten minutes in the morning and again in the evening toward cleaning and maintaining the home.  A total of twenty minutes per day will dramatically decrease the time it takes to clean the home from top to bottom.  Plus, if you know you’re only going to spend ten minutes at a time, it relieves associated anxiety.

Control Pets

Pets are well loved but they can add a lot of fur and dander to the home.  Invest in a trusted pet brush and comb your best friend daily.  Moreover, control where your pet sleeps.  If you allow them to sleep on your bed, be sure to remove the accumulated hair daily rather than let it sit.  Train your pet to stay off of countertops, the kitchen table, and other surfaces where you store and eat food.

Use Dryer Sheets

Yes, use dryer sheets as recommended, to make your clothes extra soft but dryer sheets serve multiple purposes.  For example, use dryer sheets to get water spots out of glass.  Also, use the small sheets to get that nasty ring out of your toilet.  Lastly, use sheets to wipe your baseboards clean.

Use Tin Foil

Toaster and main ovens get pretty grimy and are difficult to clean.  However, you can line them with tin foil so only the foil gets coated in grime.  Continuously change out the lining of foil in your ovens.  It requires only a bit of effort versus the major effort needed to scrub grime from the inside of the oven.  The same philosophy can be applied to the inside of your car; you won’t want to use tinfoil to line your seats but you can use a range of products found at www.shearcomfort.com.

Use Shower Gel

Traditionals soaps contain fats and oils that are responsible for the ‘soap scum’ that builds on the inside of your tub and shower.  However, shower gel or bodywash is not soap but a detergent and will not create the buildup and scum related with traditional soaps.  The tub and sides of the shower will be much easier to clean and will look better between cleans.

Archie Gibbs might be a man, but he is slightly OCD when it comes to keeping his house clean. With a lot of vinegar, lemons, and bicarb on hand, he shares some of his cleaning tips online.