How to Break Bad Housekeeping Habits Efficiently

Regular maintenance will keep your home working well and looking good longer. Two golden rules for keeping your home clean are: allot a place for everything and constantly rid yourself of unwanted stuff. Once you inculcate the habit of designating a spot for everything coming into your home, you can see that the clutter will automatically disappear.

Let’s now discuss some bad housekeeping habits to avoid

• Wearing shoes inside: Shoes scuff floors, stain your lovely carpets, and deliver dust, dander and even diseases into your home. A research paper published by University of Houston states that 39% of shoes contained Clostridium difficile (C. Diff), a type of bacteria which causes a potentially life-threatening infection. A good idea is to place comfy slippers at the entry door for you and the guests to use inside your home.
• Putting cleaning tablets in the flush tanks of toilets: you may find it a handy shortcut to clean your toilet, but these tablets contain chemicals that will slowly corrode the plastic parts in the flush mechanism. Read Select Cleaning blog to get easy home tricks to keep your toilet clean and hygienic.
• Using closets to hide clutter: Clutter makes your house less organised and messy. You need to break bad habits such as letting the mails accumulate, keeping clothes you no longer require, old magazines you won't read again, and dishes you don’t need any more. Learn easy storage tricks that will make even the smallest closet in your home, a well organized and functional space.
• Neglecting small maintenance issues: A continuous musty smell in the bathroom area or basement could mean mould is growing. Hiring professional home cleaners occasionally can prevent mould growth in your house. However, if you avoid such warning symptoms in the beginning, things may complicate further, forcing you to go for major repairs.

Environment-friendly home cleaning tips for 2017

Add one tbsp of cornstarch to a litre of lukewarm water and your glass cleaner is ready. Now spray this liquid and wipe with newspaper, cloth or a squeegee to get your windows sparky clean. Remember to dampen the squeegee before cleaning and use it from the top down, wiping its edge after every stroke.

Naturally clean your window traps with vinegar. Dip a cotton bud in distilled white vinegar and run it along the filthy cobweb- and dust-ridden frames to perfectly clean the window traps.

Vinegar can also be used to deodorize your garbage bins and eliminate odours. Spray the bin inside and out with white vinegar. Scrub the bin with a toilet brush or other convenient long-handled brush before rinsing out with a hose. Allow the can to air dry and you’ll find that the terrible smell has gone.  

Do you dust the floor before vacuuming? If not, make it a habit because this way you can suck up any dirt and debris that you dislodge.

Remove rust stains from your tiled countertops or floor tiles with the help of a tomato. Acid elements contained in the tomato work with the rust stain and loosen it. Rub a cut piece of tomato onto the stain, add a little rock salt and use a toothbrush to clean the rust completely. Another method to remove rust is using bleach: smear a little bleach on the rust cylinder stain on your floor tiles, and after 15 minutes, sprinkle a little water and brush it away to get a clean surface.

Leave odour removers, such as a bowl of oats, a cup of distilled white vinegar, baking soda, charcoal briquettes, or a dish of dried coffee grounds, open in your fridge and they will suck in all the bad smells.

Call Select Cleaning verified home cleaners today on 0800 000 907. Your home cleaning tasks in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch are carried out by local, dedicated owner operators of Select Cleaning who bring all the cleaning materials, tools and equipment for the job.

Quick, Easy and Eco-friendly House Cleaning Ideas

Several years of experience in the home cleaning sector combined with the willingness to employ new technologies only can make a cleaning service reliable and efficient. Double check the details before booking your house clean.

Today we’re providing you some home cleaning tips and tricks which will help you a lot in daily housekeeping routines.

Cleaning your floors and bathroom

Firstly, sprinkle some cleaning powder over the tile surface so that it covers all the grimy grout. Take white vinegar and water in fifty-fifty proportion in a spray bottle and spray over the tile floor. Now scrub the surface with a wet cleaning brush to form a paste on the tile and grout.

The powder, spray solution, and water will combine to loosen all dirt and grime. Wipe down the surface after 5-10 minutes to see that your dingy tile and grout have attained a new look. This method can also be used to clean counters, cabinet fronts and soap scum in the shower.

While cleaning granite, marble or other natural stone countertops, never use a cleaning solution, which contains vinegar, bleach, or acidic substances like lemon and orange. These substances will break down the countertop's sealant and make it vulnerable to stains.

Toilet cleaning

Pour two cups of coca cola into the toilet bowl and around the rim of the bowl, and leave it overnight to get the best cleaning result. The carbonic, citric, and phosphoric acids in the coke can break down the built-up stains.

Finally, you can finish up the toilet cleaning with a spray and wipe down with undiluted hydrogen peroxide.

Mould menace

Minimise mould formation in your house with the help of clove oil.  Take one litre of water in a bucket and add three drops of clove oil. Use this solution to wipe down mould affected areas and get rid of the menace as clove oil destroys mould spores.

Oven cleaning – make your own natural oven cleaner

Baking soda can be effectively used to clean your oven in a safe, natural way. Spray the whole oven down with a water bottle so that it is damp, and pour on a thick layer of baking soda, especially on the bottom, until there is about a quarter inch layer of baking soda paste on the bottom.

Make sure that the oven is off during this cleaning process. Let the baking soda paste remain like that for a few hours to loosen the grime in the oven. You can engage yourself in other works during that time. Now when you come back, wipe up the paste with a cloth and all the grime comes with it. Sometimes you may need to repeat the entire process for a really dirty oven with stubborn grime. Ensure that no traces of baking soda are left inside the oven once your cleaning is over.

Handy home tips

• The tops and creases of Roman blinds can be effectively cleaned using a vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment.
• Remove dead skin cells from mattress by vacuuming it, giving special attention to piping and crevices. This will prevent dust mite infestation.
• Does the smell of garlic stick around on your hands? Remove the smell completely by first rubbing your hands against a stainless steel sink and then washing with soap.
• Apply a dab of nail varnish on the top thread or onto the stem of the thread of a button on your dress and leave to dry. This way you can prevent the buttons from becoming loose or undone.

Select your home cleaner wisely 

Select Cleaning (serving New Zealand & Australia) also do spring cleaning and moving cleans, but don’t do steam cleaning, carpet cleaning, ceiling cleaning, and window cleaning. They can arrange to have these special tasks done for you by quality cleaners who are known to them.

Select home cleaners in New Zealand use their own product and equipment to ensure that you’re least disturbed during the cleaning process. Also, your house will be looking and smelling far better with Select Cleaning compared to the result achieved by DIY cleaning.

Call the most reliable Select Cleaning service on 0800 000 907 to get affordable quality cleaning New Zealand- now available in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga and Hamilton.

Cleaning Guidelines from Your Favourite House Cleaning Service in New Zealand

Regular home cleaning services with affordable rates are available in New Zealand for people who need help maintaining their clean home on a weekly basis. Select Cleaning is one such quality service, which provides regular inside cleaning of homes- all bathrooms and toilets, all kitchen surfaces, all floors vacuumed & mopped and all dusting.

Watch a Speed Cleaning Training video from SelectCleaning to learn the basics of speed cleaning and how to effectively dust and spot clean a room. It shows a lounge but applies to every room in a house except the kitchen and bathrooms, which are described in separate videos: Kitchen Cleaning & Bathroom & Toilet cleaning.

General home cleaning & maintenance tips

Let’s discuss some Do’s and Don’ts pertaining to cleaning up mercury spills in your house. Mercury is a dangerous toxic substance. Mercury spill can occur through thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs, or mercury-containing thermostats.

If the mercury spill is around a quarter teaspoon or less, you can manage it by yourself. However, if the spill is more, inform professional hazardous waste disposal companies to clean it up. The mercury spill is harmful because it easily evaporates at room temperature and cause health issues if the vapour is inhaled.

Don’ts with mercury spill

• A vacuum cleaner or common broom if used to clean the mercury spill can cause it to break into smaller drops. This will further aggravate the problem as mercury droplets will evaporate faster and quickly spread in the room, increasing the chance of more people inhaling it. 
• Avoid using household cleaning products to remove the mercury spill. The chlorine or ammonia present in the cleaners will chemically react with mercury and produce toxic gases.
• Don’t pour mercury down a drain. It can get lodged in the ‘p’ traps and evaporate in the room or clog your plumbing and pollute the septic system or wastewater treatment plants.
• Never wash mercury-contaminated clothing or sponges; instead put them in a plastic bag and seal for disposal.

Do’s for cleaning up mercury

If a fluorescent bulb is broken, do the following:

• Clear the room of people, especially children, and pets. Now ventilate the area at once. Respiratory protection may not be necessary as the bulbs contain only small amounts of mercury.
• Shut off the heater or air conditioning system to avoid the mercury-contaminated air moving to other areas.
• Do not touch the mercury droplets with your hand, use rubber gloves. Take out glass and metal pieces with the help of a cardboard piece. The mercury should not be allowed to evaporate, so put the breakage into a glass jar with a lid or a sealable plastic bag. Smaller pieces of debris with mercury beads can be scooped up using a sticky tape. Put everything in the glass jar or bag for disposing off.
• Any leftover mercury droplets or glass dust can be spotted using a flashlight as they reflect light. Search the entire room for traces of mercury, which can move far on hard flat surfaces. 

Removing mould and mildew in the shower

Worried about the gross gunk that builds up in your shower?

Add one cup of hot water into a mixture of one cup each of baking soda and borax. When it becomes a runny paste, scrub and rinse to get rid of mildew and mould build up in your bathroom. Gunk in front of sinks & stove can also be effectively cleaned using this baking soda-borax paste.

It is certain that Select Home cleaners do a pretty good job, and you can confirm it by going through the testimonials from their clients. 

Select Cleaning are confident of their service, which is why they’re proud to offer cent percent guarantee. In case you have any concerns about the quality of the cleaning, please contact your cleaner immediately. They guarantee to fix any problems on the next visit or you will get the next clean for free. Call them now on 0800 000 907 for your free quote.

Concern on Cleaning Industry Standard and Some Quick Home Cleaning Tips

Recent figures released by NZQA show that cleaners in New Zealand have been getting inadequate training for a long time. Out of the estimated 30,000 people employed in the cleaning sector across New Zealand, a very low percentage of cleaners had received an NZQA qualification suitable for undertaking a commercial cleaning job, including following basic levels of infection control precautions, the NZQA release said.

Actually there needs to be a National Standard for the home cleaning sector and the $1 billion commercial cleaning industry.Poor standards of cleaning affect New Zealand businesses as well as individual residences. People are falling sick because of unhygienic cleaning procedures.

We can assure you that SelectCleaning invests time and money to ensure their home cleaners have clear-cut knowledge about various surfaces such as wooden, stone, ceramic etc. They have been appropriately trained in the “SelectCleaning way” to ensure consistent high-quality cleaning. Naturally, they know the best cleaning method to be adopted professionally for all areas in your home and they do it in the most hygienic and efficient manner conforming to all quality standards.

The Select Cleaning home cleaners are chosen after conducting proper selection processes and security checks to ensure that they are honest and capable of undertaking your cleaning in a professional manner. Additionally, they are not just normal cleaners, but they are SelectCleaning Franchisee owners who really care about the quality they provide.

How to clean your house pretty fast

Allot a small amount of time each day to keep your home looking and smelling fresh. Knowing some quick cleaning tips will go a long way in accomplishing this and it will also save you hours of cleaning on the weekends or when a guest arrives with short notice.

Here are some easy cleaning tips, which will soon become a habit, if you practise them regularly:

First of all switch on some music when you do the cleaning. It’ll give inspiration and energy to do the task without boring you.  

Bedroom - ensure to make your bed each morning, and tidy up clothes and other items on the floorrather than creating piles of clutter accumulating each day.  It may take only a few minutes to do them, but will make a world of difference in your daily life.

Toilet & Bathroom – clean the toilet every few days so it won’t accumulate much dirt. Apply disposable wipes on the surfaces, including the toilet seat and handle, and use an effectivebowl cleaner.

It’s ideal to clean the bathroom everyday as you use it. For example, do a quick wipe on the bench and sink after brushing the teeth. Don’t forget to quickly sweep the floor after washing your hair.

Kitchen – never allow your kitchen to become a storehouse of dirty dishes. Here also follow the clean after use procedure. Wash or stack dirty dishes in the dishwasher immediately after everybody finishes eating. Also give a quick wipe on benchtops and tabletops after each meal. Similarly, remember to clean the stove top and sink regularly after cooking.

Weekly and fortnightly cleaning schedule - Vacuuming, dusting, and mopping the floor can be done on a weekly basis without fail. If you do it sincerely every week, it won’t take more than 30 minutes to complete the whole thing.

And strictly follow these fortnightly cleaning tasks too: wipe down the windows and mirrors. Wash commonly used surfaces such as door handles, remotes and the bin. Allot sufficient time for cleaning your refrigerator properly to wipe out all germs.

Call a SelectCleaning Franchisee owner today on 0800 000 907. Currently they service Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch.

Home Design Trends and the House Cleaning Industry

Our homes not only give us shelter but provide happiness and the joy of living as we look at it as sanctuaries- places where we feel safe and nurtured.

Interior experts say there will be more people renovating, decorating and beautifying their houses in the coming years, turning them into passionate and stylish homes. This makes the home cleaning task more sophisticated and burdensome for the home owners, and so there will be more work for professional cleaning services.

Modern day kitchens have evolved into social hubs and are considered as the nerve centre of the home, even more so than the living rooms.  From cooking and entertaining to planning and socialising, most of our daily activities are happening in and around the kitchen. It is thus clear that all latest design trends and new appliances are first coming into the kitchen.    

Even though the home cleaning industry as a whole suffered revenue loss during the recession period, it has bounced back since 2015 as unemployment and office vacancy rates saw steady declining trends. The cleaning service will further expand its horizon as strong economic growth (boosted by job growth) is predicted for the next 5 years, by economic analysts.

However, there is high risk in the cleaning industry as cleaning companies in general lose up to 55% of their customer base every year due to poor service. That’s why Select Clean makes it mandatory for its cleaners to be 100% quality oriented. During the training process, we advise every cleaner that the cleaning activities they do sincerely and perfectly may go unnoticed for years, but a single bad job will get reported instantly and affect their reputation.

Home cleaning tips

Cherry wood kitchen cabinets can be nicely cleaned with any standard dish soap. You should clean them once in a month or even fortnightly as the dirt accumulation is directly proportional to the number of times you cook and how often you use your kitchen.  Sometimes it’s OK to clean the cabinets once a season. The key point here is to check how grimy your wooden cabinets are getting.

If you have laminate flooring and stone flooring, remember that both need separate cleaning procedures. Avoid wet-washing the laminate ones frequently.  When they are wet-washed, use either white vinegar or ammonia only, not soap, abrasives or wax-based products.

To get rid of ink stains on cloths or rugs, try rubbing alcohol on the ink stains. For ink stains on carpets, apply a paste of cornstarch and milk to lift the stains.

Tired and bored of cleaning the household chores? Try tricking your children into home cleaning! Show them different cleaning products such as gloves, face masks etc. and some hands on activity on cleaning equipment under your supervision. If you can cleverly and properly manage it, it’ll be fun!

Stubborn stains on your carpets or rugs can be removed by brushing the spots with a toothbrush sprayed with a good quality stain-removing spray. 

If you have pets, house cleaning assumes great significance due to hygienic issues. Allergy and other problems can be caused due to the presence of fur, flakes of skin, dirt, dog drool, pet urine etc. In such a situation, it is a must that you should maintain your home germ-free and perfectly clean.  Only a reputed home cleaning service in New Zealand can ensure that you can enjoy life with pets without any health issues. Also use more pet-friendly upholstery and fewer rugs in your home interior decor.

Need some help with cleaning your home efficiently?

Call Select Clean now on 0800 000 907 for a free home cleaning quote. They provide reliable domestic house cleaning service in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch.

Identify the Often Neglected Areas in Home Cleaning

Instead of organising and cleaning the house, some people have a tendency to keep on searching for more innovative and easy-to-do cleaning ideas. However, when it comes to practically doing the task, they feel their mood has changed!  If you fit into that category, then it’s better to hire a professional home cleaning service in New Zealand to do the job for you.

A clean home is very pleasant and evokes divine feeling, whereas a dusty and unkempt house makes you feeling guilty and irritated. It’s also a matter of hygiene to keep your house clean at all times.

Given below are some areas often forgotten while cleaning your home yourself or by some cheap service providers:

1. Some areas where dust accumulates due to continuous neglect are under the bed, and behind the sofa, curtains and doors.

2. Grease in the kitchen cabinets: there will be traces of grease visible as sticky, yellowing or darkening grime accumulated in the kitchen cabinets over time. Just giving them occasional quick wipe down with a damp rag will not suffice to properly degrease. Stubborn grease and oil stains need special cleaners to get completely removed from the cabinets.                  

Here’s a DIY degreasing method: Utilise the grease-busting qualities of white vinegar to clean your kitchen cabinets. Spray few drops of vinegar into clean, dry cloth and wipe down the cabinets. Then dip the cloth in warm water, and use it to rinse the cabinetry after squeezing the water out from the cloth. Finally dry the area to a shine, using paper towels.

3. You don’t know how many bacteria colonies reside in the kitchen sink:clean the kitchen sinks with a powerful anti-bacterial cleanser at least once in a week. These sinks accommodate more disease causing germs than your bath area!

4. Identify less used items in your house and dust them off: Have a look at the curio cabinets, framed photos on the wall, other decorative items in every room, and the frame of those table lamps- they are less used items and so gradually become super dusty! Dust these ornamental items thoroughly once in a while to prevent persistent dust mites generating allergens in your home. Dust and dirt that accumulate between the creases of a sofa are often neglected where homeowners or residents do all the cleaning.  Only a professional home cleaning service has the knowhow to smartly clean such neglected spots in your home.  

5. Decluttering can reduce the amount of dust particles inside your home. Dispose of old clothes, unused toys, damaged electrical & electronic items, and other less used items that have begun invading common spaces in your home. They form storehouse for dust and dirt.

Select Home Cleaning provides friendly professionals you can trust

If you’re a busy professional and don’t have the time and energy to manage your home cleaning, it’s a great idea to hire a cleaning service. It not only saves your relaxing time, but prolongs the life and good looks of your home and its interiors also.

Select Clean surpasses home cleaning industry standards in New Zealand for affordable, quality cleaning services, while maintaining personalised service standards to clients. Timely service, best quality products at the lowest possible price, perfect cleaning standards, and honest and direct approach in all our dealings make us the clients’ favourite choice. Even though we don’t do carpet cleaning and window cleaning, people used to call us to have those works done by other professionals recommended by us. That’s the level of trust and beliefs vested on us by our clients and professional contacts.   

We value the trust and beliefs vested in us by our clients and professional contacts and provide a dedicated cleaning service with an honest and direct approach in all our dealings. 

New Trends and Attitude in Household Cleaning and Home Care Products

The year 2016 saw the use of fragrance enhancing products as a key trend in home care sector in New Zealand, a Nielsen Global Home Care Report 2016 said. Very many varieties of fragrances were introduced in premium and blended category to mask chemical odours or add value to cleaning and beauty products. In Asia-Pacific region, respondents were also more inclined to say they’re looking for Eco-friendly all-purpose cleaners, the survey report added. Around 46% of respondents in the region said they seek environmentally friendly products, whereas it stood 40% on a global average.

Large retail chains are popular self-reported places to shop for household-cleaning products, and e-commerce is showing promise, the report further said.

New housing boom is a key growth driver in the home care industry in New Zealand. Retail volume growth of home care industry including home cleaning and other services is said to be moving in upward scale in the coming years as a new housing boom is expected, especially in Auckland, the Auckland Build 2016 Expo revealed. Its estimate says about 80,000 new homes will be built in Auckland itself by 2020.

Unilever New Zealand continued to lead laundry care and dish-washing products in 2015 and 2016, with 35 to 38% share of retail value sales, a Euromonitor study said. Persil brand topped laundry care products with an 18% share of retail value sales. Their slogan “dirt is good” along with ads related to sports like football and rugby gained popularity in every household. Their cleaning products are available in powder and liquid formats.

The consumers generally preferred the incorporation of laundry aids in laundry detergents. The surveys said that it would enable time-poor consumers to rely on an all-in-one product to clean, soften, brighten and remove stains in one wash cycle. This will help the consumers to save money by not buying a number of particular task oriented cleaning products.

However, it’s not advisable to wholly depend on all-in-one products for your home cleaning. To improve the health and hygiene of family members, it’s necessary to call in reputable home cleaners at least on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Select Home Cleaning Service New Zealand

Choose Select Cleaning’s regular weekly or fortnightly home cleaning service to suit your cleaning requirements and your budget.

Some of the home-cleaning tasks they perform are as follows:

• Vacuuming all the floors
• Dusting the surfaces
• Spot cleaning marks
• Washing all hard floors
• Clean all kitchen surfaces
• Complete cleaning of bathrooms, floor tiles and countertops
• Also do little extra cleaning such as cleaning inside the fridge and oven though they will be separate tasks for thorough cleaning 

You’ll be happy to know that all the SelectClean home cleaners have passed strict selection process and police verification. We also have an up to date training programme on latest techniques of home cleaning.

The cleaners of Select Home Cleaning Company are owner-operators and so you can rest assured that you house, the family members, the pets and plants, all are in caring, responsible hands.

There will be discounts for regular customers in their home cleaning list. Select Clean service can give you quality work output and they have competitive price because they already clean for customers in your area. Their cleaning service mainly concentrates on cities such as Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch. Contact their friendly staff today on 0800 000 907.

Easy Cleaning Tips and Tricks That’ll Remove Many of Your Household Headaches

Did you know that most people collect tips and hints to save time and money and make everyday home cleaning and maintenance tasks fast and easy?

Here is one such useful tip to jot down in your kitchen notebook. As we are now in the middle of winter, it’s good to know how we can keep our windows and glass doors from frosting. Take one quart warm water and mix it with half a cup of rubbing alcohol. Apply this solution on the glass surface and clean with a soft cotton cloth to view beautiful scenes of nature outside. No more foggy windows and glass door during winter!

The following collection of tips and tricks will help you greatly in day to day home maintenance: 

1. Pencil erasers can be used to remove sticky price tags, and clean buttons and keys on your mobile, laptop and remote control. 

2. Mix one tablespoon each of baking powder and salt and then add one tablespoon of water into the paste. Your stove top cleaning product is ready. Now take a clean cloth and use a little bit of the mixture to smartly clean the stove. This newly made chemical compound can also be used to clean your outdoor grill.

3. Use ice cube to remove stubborn carpet dents left by heavy furniture. Use a picking tool to drop an ice cube on the carpet where it is dented. Wait for the ice cube to melt fully and then use a toothbrush to fluff the area and the carpet fibres will expand and regain the original position.

4. Same ice treatment can be used to remove chewing gum from your carpets. Put few ice cubes in a small plastic bag and place it on top of the stuck gum. Wait for 15 minutes and you can see that the gum has hardened. Now you can easily peel the gum off without breaking.

5. Wood ash is a desiccant, so it can be used to remove oil or grease stains from stone and cement surfaces in your garage or elsewhere. Just rub the wood ashes into the stained area with a cloth and then apply water to clean up the stain.

6. Deep toilet stains can be easily removed with a pumice stone if you have to urgently clean the toilet due to the arrival of a guest within short notice. Normally such cleaning task is to be given to professional home cleaners to do it hygienically.

7. Are there water spots on your wooden table or other wood surfaces? Don’t worry- it can be easily removed with the help of your hair dryer. Use the blow dryer at medium heat and focus it on the water stain keeping the dryer about two inches away. Normally the stain mark will disappear immediately, but if it persists, use a napkin to wipe out the stain while applying heat. Afterwards use two drops of olive oil to moisturise the wood.

8. Did you know that cooking spray is a soap scum buster? Spray some non-stick cooking spray into the soap scum and hard water spots on your glass shower door and tiles. Wait for 5 minutes and then wash the area with mild soapy water to see that all blemishes have gone! 

9. Mix dry tea leaves into the litter box to prevent it smelling badly. The tea leaves also have anti-bacterial quality which is an added advantage for hygienic purpose.

10. Stain marks on the walls can be easily removed using semi-stale white bread. The gluten in the bread helps to remove the stain. Remove the crusts from two bread loaves and make it a ball of bread and rub it on the stained area after cleaning the spot with a cloth. Bread is highly absorbent and gradually the stain marks disappear.  

11. Artificial Sweeteners can be used to remove stains like red wine, coffee and tea from a tablecloth. Put the sweetener over the stain and keep it overnight. Next day brush off the remaining sweetener and rinse the cloth in cold water.

Importance of Professional Home Cleaning

One significant point to mention that there is no shortcut to keeping your home hygienic. You’ll have to spend considerable time washing and disinfecting your home. Here comes the role of home cleaning companies. A clean and orderly house itself will help reduce lot of stress.

Save your weekends and relax while an affordable and trustworthy cleaning professional comes and do all the home cleaning tasks with minimum disruption. Do call Select Home Cleaning Company right now on 0800 000 907 to experience that pleasant feeling. 

Cleaning and General Maintenance Tips to Get the Entire House Neat & Organised

As a respectable homeowner, you’ll have to keep in touch with a reputed house cleaning company for professional home cleaning tasks such as removing stubborn stains on countertops/floors, effectively cleaning bathrooms and kitchen, and more. However, it’s also a must to have some cleaning tips at your fingertips for a clean, tidy, and good smelling home.

Easy Home Cleaning Tips

Kitchen Area

Save your kitchen marble countertop from staining by burnishing it with a quality car polish. The thin layer of the polish will prevent accidental spills from staining the costly stone surface. 

To effortlessly clean burnt saucepans, first soak it in hot water to loosen and lift off any burnt on food particles sticking to the surface. While pouring hot water add two teaspoons of dishwashing detergent and let it soak overnight. Next day it’ll be easy to remove the burnt marks using a quality cleaning product as recommended by professional home cleaners. Afterwards if there are stubborn stains of grease left with, then apply a paste of baking soda and water and keep it for an hour. Finally scrub off the baking soda paste with soft sponge or cloth. It’s not advisable to forcibly scrub a stainless steel pan with steel wool trying to remove the burnt marks.

When cleaning out your fireplace, sprinkle damp coffee grounds over the ashes to prevent them from spreading in the area. If coffee grounds are not available, spray some water to prevent ash from flying everywhere.

Simple way to rid your house of bad smells: When you feel nasty odours in the kitchen, burn some coffee beans and its smell will sweep over the other bad odours. 

Bathroom Cleaning Tips

Occasionally rub the bathroom mirror with a bar soap and then clean it with a cloth to keep mirrors from fogging up with steam. 

Save some bucks: Collecting bits of soap left over in the bathrooms is a boring task – Now you can make it a nice job by using those bits to prepare your homemade liquid soap! Mix the soap bits with glycerine and some warm water, and pour it into an empty liquid soap bottle; that’s it! 

Maintenance Tips Related to Clothes and Carpets

Blood stains from clothes can be removed by adding a few drops of hydrogen peroxide and brushing it. Wash the area with soapy water to see the blood stains gone. 

Suppose a few drops of oil accidentally fell on your silk clothing, don’t get upset. Sprinkle cornflour into the affected area and gently brush off. Put more cornflour to fully cover the oil stained area and keep it for two hours. Now shake off the cornflour and clean the clothing to see that oil marks are disappeared.  

Sometimes we see the bottom of the iron accumulates dirt from burned fabric. You can remove it neatly by sprinkling salt on the ironing board and ironing back and forth. 

When you notice your wool carpet has furniture indentations, place a clean cotton cloth over the area and press with a warm iron. This will lift the wool fibres.  Never attempt this on synthetic carpets as it could spoil fibres. 

General House Cleaning Tips

Spray a mixture of vinegar and water (3:1 ratio) on your car windows to prevent ice and frost formation when left outside overnight in winter.

Gummy residue left by shop stickers can be easily removed by applying eucalyptus oil.

It’s not a rare sight that a glass vase falls to the ground, breaking into pieces... After removing the pieces that can be easily picked, rest of the minute glass dust can be removed by pressing a piece of bread onto the floor.

Next time when you think of throwing the water from your aquarium to replenish it, try using it for watering your garden plants. It’s a good fertiliser with full of nutrients.

Know Your Cleaning Company

These cleaning tips are shared by our professional home cleaners at Select Home Cleaning Company who have a wealth of experience in keeping your home clean and organised. We provide full housekeeping services or a customised particular cleaning service to suit your requirement. Generally we provide: Weekly/Fortnightly Cleaning | Spring Cleaning | Move-out/Move-in Cleaning.

Available now in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga and Hamilton, you can contact us on Phone 0800 000 907 for a free home cleaning quote.   

Why Do You Need Professional Deep Cleaning Service For Your Wooden Floor?

Assign your most stress causing job of home cleaning to reliable service providers who will manage it efficiently at affordable rates. You’ll realise how much you can enjoy your life when such a constant headache is removed from you daily chores. 

The fully trained owner operators of Select Home Cleaning service bring everything with them that is needed for the cleaning task and will leave your home sparkling. You need not to be present while Select Cleaning home cleaners are doing the job at your home because they are police checked, trustworthy professionals.

Some of the specialist home cleaning jobs done by Select Cleaning service are: vacuuming all floors, dusting surfaces, spot cleaning marks around doors and switches, washing all hard floors, cleaning all kitchen surfaces, and completely cleaning bathrooms & toilets. Their home cleaners also will manage cleaning inside the fridge or oven as per the nature of the job assigned by you.

Tips & techniques for your hardwood floor care maintenance

Keep your timber floors in good shape - Of course you’ll have to, because it’s a costly investment you made towards your home improvement. Maintain your beautiful wooden floors with these easy, time-tested cleaning tips.

Don’t use more water while cleaning wooden floor. It’ll stain the wood surface and can cause expanded and warped boards. Hot water is also harmful for timber floors. The best way to prolong the life and elegance of this type of flooring is to follow standard mop and mopping techniques employed by professional home cleaners in New Zealand and Australia.

While mopping a wooden floor, look at the grains of the wood and mop along the grains in one direction, so maximum dust and grit, even embedded dirt, are completely removed. Ensure that your mop is slightly damp and not too wet.

See what happened to a homeowner: “I put too much wood floor cleaning spray on and now the floor is so slippery my dogs can't even walk on it without sliding.” When you manage the home cleaning singlehandedly, you’ll have to confront such awkward situations. 

Additional points from Select Home Cleaning for timber floor cleaning

• Babies crawl on the floor and put their fingers in the mouth. So, the least thing you want on your floor is petrochemicals or any other harmful chemical residues.
• Mop up spills as soon as possible to reduce the risk of staining
• For removing stubborn stains, contact home cleaning specialists.
• Always make it a point to sweep or vacuum the timber floor frequently to remove loose dirt, dust, grit as these can cause fine scratches on the wood surface.
• Never use strong household cleaners and bleach-based detergents on wooden floor.
• It’s recommended to use removable or washable cotton mop, because when you use a sponge mop it just spread the dirt around.
• There are quite a large variety of finishing materials such as varnish, wax, oil, shellac, and lacquer are used to seal wooden floors. Remember to use a floor cleaning method which suits the type of sealing compound used.  Your timber floors will look so much better then!

Advantages of professional timber floor cleaning

As explained with the wooden flooring, there are particular care and maintenance procedures for ceramic tile floors, slate floors, vinyl floors, linoleum floors and marble floors etc. It’s not easy for you to know all those procedures if your home has different kinds of hard surface floors.   

Even though the above mentioned timber floor cleaning tips will help you in a great way, you should have the time and mood to clean your home before attempting to do it alone. If you lack the patience, then better call a professional home cleaner, and get wonderful result in no time.

Professional cleaning can bring you a high degree of cleanliness that you can’t achieve using everyday household items. The grime and grit that has been ground into the wood just can’t be removed with microfiber pads, mops and vacuums -they are just meant for daily maintenance after occasional deep cleaning by expert home cleaners. 

The stubborn grime and stains on hardwood floors need high-powered scrubbers and cleaning products specifically made to remove them through efficient cleaning. Get an obligation-free professional hardwood floor cleaning quote today.

Quick Home Cleaning Checklist and DIY Cleaning Tips

While cleaning our homes, we have a tendency to leave those hard-to-reach areas, thinking we’ll look at it later. But the problem is that we normally fail to come back to clean those dusty spots! Professional home cleaners have appropriate tools and equipment for cleaning inaccessible places such as ceiling fans, walls and ceiling, place under the bed, and so on. 

Making a cleaning schedule for your home is a great idea. Manage the cleaning works efficiently one day at a time with some useful daily and weekly tips we will give you in this article. Once these tasks are executed in a timely manner, you can freely enjoy the weekends with your beloved family. 

Daily Cleaning Chores:

• Do dishes
• Collect all trash
• Wipe down all hard surfaces like wood or natural stone
• Do a quick pick up

Weekly Cleaning Tasks:

• Sweep, mop and dust
• Do laundry
• Clean stoves and microwave
• Scrub shower and tubs

If you do all those cleaning chores not in an orderly manner, it’ll consume more time and energy. Cleaning as per the given schedule is so much easier and don’t need more than half an hour daily to finish the cleaning task- the main advantage here is that the weekends are free for relaxing and family get together! 

However, setting the house cleaning schedule is entirely up to you as per your special needs. In addition to the daily and weekly schedule mentioned, there are spacialised cleaning (like oven cleaning, fridge cleaning, BBQ cleaning etc.) and seasonal cleaning to keep your home spick-and-span.   Keeping your refrigerator, dishwasher and oven pristine, hygienic and sweet smelling is the foremost thing in kitchen cleaning. 

DIY Home Cleaning & Maintenance Tips

Rather than purchasing costly bathroom cleaners, think about natural home products. Warm a cup of vinegar and mix it with a cup of dish soap. Pour the solution into a spray bottle and you can use this excellent cleaner on tiles and shower doors. Better result can be achieved if you can allow the solution to sit on the tiles overnight, and then clean the next day morning. 

Remove pet hair out of the carpets with a rubber squeegee. It’s more effective and an energy saver method as you need not to run the vacuum cleaner.  

How many times we lost our temper untangling mixed cords and cables! Just cut the coil cords and cables into shorter lengths, and place those into rolls (to keep them separated) made out of finished paper towel, aluminium foil and plastic wrap rolls.  

You can make enough magazine-holder style containers from empty cereal boxes. Use those handy containers now on the study desk of your children, or as your bill holders! 

How to save the cleaning time for your microwave? Heat a small bowl of vinegar in your microwave oven for 5 minutes. Now switch off the microwave and clean it efficiently. The steam of vinegar loosens grime and dry food particles for easy clean up. 

Here’s an easy way to remove static cling from newly washed clothes. Use a couple of dryer balls of aluminium foil to prevent static in laundry. Comparatively they’re much cheaper than dryer sheets.

Use an old toothbrush to brush out dirty spots around spa bath button displays, taps or hinges on toilets etc. 

Professional Home Cleaning

For professional cleaning, you need to choose a standard cleaning package that best suits your requirements. For this, consult with the best home cleaners in New Zealand. 

Common laundry detergents contain fillers that are left behind on your clothes. You may be facing problems with hard water causing lime and calcium deposits on kitchen and bathroom sinks and fixtures. Rust is another issue- it’ll create stains on taps, drains and tiles. To prevent these issues, always use quality cleaning products made with natural ingredients and recommended by professional home cleaning specialists. 

Regarding environment protection, Select Home Cleaning Company doesn’t pretend to be perfect, but they do their best by reviewing procedures and choosing the most appropriate products. Once you ordered a home cleaning task, they’ll come up on time with all the tools, equipment and quality cleaning products – so, it’s no botheration for you and you may even go for shopping or picnic while these security-checked professionals clean your home exceeding your expectations.