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.

Make Your Cleaning Time As Productive As Possible with Handy Home Tips

Nearly one-third of rental properties were assessed as 'poorly maintained' in a recent building industry survey undertaken by the Building Research Association of New Zealand(BRANZ). The survey had rated one fifth of New Zealand housing stock as poorly maintained - one third of rental housing falls in this category, compared to 14% of owner-occupied houses.  With the owner-occupied houses, about 48% were judged to be 'well-maintained'.

It was reported that the BRANZ survey inspected 560 homes across the country and assessed each property's condition and defects, both internally and externally.

Postponing timely home maintenance can cause minor repairs to become big problems over time, which requires more expensive procedure to finally fix.

Standard home cleaning services are available in New Zealand, which won’t cost you much. Only thing to remember that you should check the credentials of the cleaner you’re hiring. Visit their website and read testimonials of their clients; also read all the contract terms, guarantee, safety etc.

Given below are some smart tricks for easy housekeeping, brought to you by Select Cleaning, the top home cleaners in New Zealand:

1. Price-sticker residue on homewares can be completely removed with the help of a paper towel and any readily available oil in your kitchen such as sunflower or olive. Apply the oil onto the paper towel and place it over the sticker residue. The gunk will be softened after sometime and then you can remove it completely by rubbing.  
2. While handling furniture, you might have spoiled your costly carpet with dents. Don’t worry; these indentations can be made alright by placing an ice cube onto the spot and leaving it overnight. Next day you’ll find that the dents have covered completely with the ice treatment. If some fibres are still not straightened, raise them using a fork.     
3. A tape barrier can effectively stop ants entering your home and food cupboards. Take a double-sided tape and line your windows and entranceways to prevent the ant menace.
4. Easy way to keep your bathroom mirror from fogging up: Rub a dry bar of soap lightly onto the surface and buff it in with a cloth to see crystal clear mirror. Another trick to prevent bathroom mirrors, glass doors and windshields from fogging up is to lather the glass surface with shaving cream, then wiping it clean with a towel.
5. A simple trick to make your candle last longer is to place it in the freezer before use- freezing time for thicker pillar candles is around seven hours while it needs just an hour for thin candles. The science behind this technique is that freezing makes the candles melt more slowly.  
6. Want to get rid of musty odour in your fabric couch? Sprinkle some baking soda on the couch and leave for a few minutes before you vacuum it. The baking soda absorbs odours from fabrics. 
7. To remove stains from mattress, follow this method: apply a mix of quarter cup hydrogen peroxide with one tablespoon each of dishwasher detergent and table salt on the stain mark. Rub in before scraping away.
8. When you’re cleaning dusty blades of ceiling fans, use an old pillowcase, which will prevent dust and debris falling on the floor. 
9. Clean a burnt iron with salt. Put five spoons of table salt on a cotton cloth; lay the cloth on the ironing board and then iron over on the cotton setting, till all traces of the scorch marks are gone. Turn off and allow cooling completely, and then wipe the iron's sole plate with a damp cloth.

Use these handy home tips for day to day housekeeping. And for regular home cleaning, always depend on professionals. You may contact Select Cleaning now on 0800 000 907 for guaranteed home cleaning service in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga and Hamilton.

General Housekeeping Tips and Health Care Advice

The pollution, low indoor air quality (mould, formaldehyde, and radon can make indoor air unhealthy), germ colonies in the kitchen and bath area etc. can adversely affect your health and comfort, causing serious hygiene-related diseases. Let’s consider some general cleaning tips and tricks to avoid such unwanted health issues.

Home Cleaning Tips

Homemade all purpose cleaner: Take a half cup each of water and apple cider vinegar in a spray bottle, add 22 drops of any good quality essential oil and keep the bottle in a cool, dark place. Shake well before using this all purpose cleaner.

Here’s a working idea to remove ink stains: Apply some toothpaste on the ink stains and wait for sometime till it dries up fully. Now you can wash the cloth as usual and see that the stains are gone.

How to whiten your clothes:  Take some hot water in a metal bucket and put a slice of lemon. Now soak the white cloths in the hot water for around 10 to 15 minutes. You’ll get a brighter cloth whitened well.

Mirror cleaning: Pour few drops of Sprite into a cotton cloth and clean the mirrors to get them shine.

Tricks: Open the water tap and pour water into a dustpan and direct it to fill buckets or pots that don’t fit under the sink.

  

Health and Cookery Related Tips

Kitchen and cookery tips:

Put the lemons in a container with hot water for up to one hour, and then juice them. This way you can extract maximum juice from the lemons.

In order to easily skin the potatoes, first boil them and then soak in cold water for five minutes.

If you can put a piece of bread along with the cabbage while cooking, there won’t be any pinching smell of cabbage.

Do you face the tears problem while cutting onion? Just chew some delicious chewing gum and there won’t be any tears!

Get good shine to your hair by applying one teaspoon of vinegar to hair ten minutes before bathing.

Dip a cotton ball into some Listerine and dab it on pimples to shrink them within minutes. The alcohol will dry up the pimples and cause them to fade.

Boiling the drinking water first before placing in the freezer gives you pure and fresh water.

You’ll love this splinter removal method, especially for kids:

Remove a splinter by applying a paste of baking soda and water mixture at the affected spot. Wait for a few minutes and you’ll see that the soda mixture forces the splinter to pop out of the skin.

Health tips

No more migraine headache:

Dip your feet and hands in warm water while placing a frozen bag of peas at the base of your skull. The heat difference will pull the blood from your head and relieve the headache.

Sore feet?

Fill a plastic water bottle with 3/4^th water and freeze it, then use it after a workout or a marathon run to roll the bottoms of your feet to reduce inflammation.

Easy way to clear a blocked nose:

Push your tongue against the top of the mouth and apply pressure in between the eyebrows using a finger. Do it for about 25 seconds, and the sinuses will slowly drain out. 

 

Sore throat?

Eat four marshmallows and you will get relief from sore throat. The gelatin ingredient in marshmallows helps in soothing the throat and relieving the pain.

Stop night time coughing

Coughing at night can be disturbing for self and others in the family. Try these simple remedies:

• Use a comfy pillow to keep your head elevated.
• It’s advisable to keep comfortable distance from fans, air conditioners or heaters because direct cold or hot air can make your nasal airways dry, leading to coughing.
• Mix organic honey with warm water and have it before going to bed. Honey soothes your throat and stops dryness and irritation.
• Another method to stop coughing at night is by gargling warm salt water before bedtime. Salt water is very soothing and it also removes excessive mucus.
• Ginger and turmeric are also very effective for dry cough. 

These home maintenance and health related tips are brought to you by the research wing of Select Home Cleaning Company in New Zealand and Australia. We know what the pollution and air quality in your home can do to the health of your family members. Contact the friendly admin staff of SelectClean on 0800 000 907 for booking a home cleaner today.