The Need for Creating a Workable Home Cleaning Schedule

A research about people’s housekeeping behaviour published recently said only one in three persons has a set home cleaning schedule. The rest, that is around 62%, admit that they do the house cleaning chores as and when they find time.  In the survey, about 42% said they want to do it as fast as possible because they always have other important commitments to attend to.

Today everybody leads a busy life and it naturally gets in the way of house cleaning routines too. More people thus attempt the cleaning task when they have time rather than pre-planning in advance. Also, several people now depend on a professional home cleaning service to do it most efficiently. Oven cleaning, toilet cleaning and window cleaning are normally outsourced.

A whopping 67% of people who attended the survey said cleaning the oven is the thing they disliked most. Around 47% ticked toilet cleaning and 41% stood against window cleaning as their top dislikes among house cleaning tasks.

We know that the word cleaning makes you feel a bit nervous. Try to make monthly, weekly and daily house cleaning schedules and you’ll see that it becomes little bit easier and sensible that way. 

Make a list of cleaning chores that need to fall on your daily house cleaning checklist. Making beds, managing the dishwasher, washing & ironing the clothes, bathroom cleaning etc., - say anything that could get out of control if ignored on a daily basis, should be on your daily house cleaning list.

Dusting and vacuuming the living rooms, thorough cleaning of the countertops in the kitchen and may be removing unwanted items from the refrigerator etc. can fill up the weekly cleaning schedule. Then for the monthly cleaning tasks, include closets, pantries, the fridge, laundry rooms, guest rooms and garages etc.

Economic growth hints good prospect for the cleaning industry

Westpac’s Acting Chief Economist Michael Gordon said a couple of months back that the New Zealand economy is something of a sweet spot so far this year. His introduction to the bank’s latest Quarterly Economic Overview states: “The economy has been growing at a steady pace for some time, and a strong pipeline of building work and an improvement in dairy prices will help to keep that momentum going.”

Economic experts at Westpac are hopeful that annual GDP growth will reach 3% over the next couple of years. They attribute this high growth rate to a wave of building work progresses and higher dairy prices providing the much needed relief to rural regions.

The above growth rate is also confirmed by Euromonitor international’s home care in New Zealand report published in April, 2017. It says a housing boom is expected to drive growth this year. It clarifies that home care is expected to positively benefit from the expected increase in new build houses, especially in the Auckland region, as well as the continuing strong overall population growth rate of two percent.  In accordance with this population growth and building construction growth, laundry care and home cleaning sectors will be witnessing overall growth.

Ask the Select Clean experts what cleaning schedule you should follow to maintain proper order in your home. With a bit of home organization and know-how, you can prevent the daily cleaning chore piling up.  Scheduling the house cleaning task and dividing it among family members is a great idea to work together and finish the work fast.  Call the home cleaner professionals at times and on special occasions so that any mistakes in your cleaning technique will be compensated and your house will sparkle again.

Unleash a Sense of Imagination to Organise and Declutter Your Home

From the bath area to the home office, these creative home organising and decluttering ways will help you a lot to live a simplified, uncluttered life. Now onward you’ll feel getting organized is so much easier and fun.

Good to make a list and give away one item each day to reduce the unwanted things gathering dust. If you are working from home, it’s good to have a separate room for office supplies and crafts. Ensure office stationery such as file folders and notepads are all neatly arranged. Also minimise your writing instruments and physical files (paper documents) by creating digital files and folders.

Place different sizes of recycling bins - including small ones for expired medication, beauty products and dead batteries – at different places such as the bath area, bedroom, kitchen and all other locations where there is a possibility of clutter buildup.  For organizing a cluttered space, pick up the loose items and put them in matching bins and boxes, differentiating them with labels for easy identification.

Decluttering basics

The key to getting and staying organized is to act according to the well known saying that everything in your home needs a place. If you struggle to find a place for everything, it’s time to get rid of unwanted things, the less used items which you unknowingly keep for no purpose at all. Don’t put back in your cabinets something you know you don’t need and don’t love anymore- auction it or give it to charity. 

How to identify which clothes you can easily discard?  Do this funny hanger trick. Arrange your clothes in the wardrobe with all the hangers in the reverse direction. Once you use a dress and washed it, return it to the closet with the hanger facing the correct direction. After a few months, you can find out what clothes you wear a lot, and what you don’t! This will give you a clear picture of which items are to be trashed.

And for arranging things in their proper place, try to keep likes with likes; say keep all your dishes in one cupboard, and all your cups in another. And remember, though it’s a simple and easy method (Throwing out what is not in regular use, and keeping a box or bag for temporarily storing them before selling off), it’s actually the easiest way to keep your home neat and orderly.

The basic principle of decluttering is to start modestly, not over ambitiously. Pick up an easy spot first, for example, a drawer, a kitchen cabinet, a little stack of items, and try to make it neat and tidy. Once you manage it nicely, your confidence level will build up and also increase the energy and enthusiasm to try out further decluttering tasks in the house.

Decluttering woes

There are plenty of tempting organising materials, from cute wicker baskets to mini chalkboard labels, and from lovely looking containers to stylish baskets etc., available on the market via online and retail stores. However, before ordering these stylish items, just declutter and organise your home and find out what storage you actually need. Otherwise you end up spending money and creating more clutter!

Decluttering your home can be overwhelming if you approach it unplanned. For everyone, the most productive day starts the night before, as mornings are short lived with busy schedule. Try doing little bit organising and decluttering by utilising a few minutes in the evening to prepare yourself for the next day. This way you know exactly where everything is when you’ll be rushing through the morning hours. It’ll be a great relief to find the right makeup kit or medicines without hunting and pecking for them through piles of clutter.

With the Select Clean providing you professional home cleaning service, you need not to live in chaos anymore! We can get your home perfectly clean and organized without much ado! After our dedicated house cleaning process, you’ll find it cakewalk to organise it. Our blog will guide you to delutter efficiently and establish simple routines to keep your home sparkling. Call us now on 0800 000 907 to book a cleaner or for a free quote.

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.

Autumn Cleaning and Home Maintenance Tips

While autumn is the best time to go for trekking, cycling or fly fishing, it’s also the ideal time to clean out the rain gutters from autumn leaves and debris. As you watch autumn’s last leaves fall, beware of the damage it can cause - these leaves clog your gutters and send water into your home. However, if you don’t have the time to clean the gutters or don’t want to pay house gutter cleaners, try installing quality gutter protectors which stop leaves and debris etc. from entering your gutters.  

Autumn season is the right time to give the deck and patio some face-lift. If you have a wood deck, you should consider giving it a bath before it goes for seasonal hibernation in the rains or snow. This is to avoid mould and fungi growing and staining the wooden surface. Brick or concrete patios also need thorough cleaning and if possible apply some concrete or sand seal at worn out joints and cracks.

When you turn the clocks forward and back, remember one more thing- do the functional check on fire alarms. Change their batteries as needed. Also remove all dust and dirt accumulated in the alarms with the brush attachment on the vacuum cleaner.

Autumn is also the right time to collect and store enough firewood for the burner. And if you see that your mud yard is slippery, make an alternate brick pathway to the mailbox or boundary wall before the onslaught of rain or snow. Similarly, inspect and fill the cracks on the sidewalks and driveways now, or they may get larger and damage the driveway when water seeps inside the small cracks and freezes during the winter.    

General home cleaning and maintenance tips

There are two basic organisational tips: 1. Maintain a place for everything; 2. Inculcate the habit of removing things that are no longer in use.

Stains on plastic cutting boards: Sprinkle some rock salt into a cut lemon; now use it to clean the cutting boards, you’ll see that all the stains have gone!

Barbecue cleaning: This cut lemon with salt also works fine to clean your barbecue. First, heat the grill up to a high temperature, and then wipe it clean with the half lemon and salt.

Bathroom & toilet cleaning: If you see mould growth on the caulk between the bath tub and tiles, make it a habit to clean the area with white vinegar.

For stubborn toilet stains, clean it with the help of a good quality bowl cleaner solution and a pumice stick. 

Home Cleaning Service providers in New Zealand

Select Clean professional home cleaners- the security cleared, owner operators- are insured, and trained on latest technology in the house cleaning industry.

Everybody knows that cleaning a house at times is very stressful. Let Select Cleaning in New Zealand take away that stress from you as their cleaners can come in and do all the normal weekly or fortnightly cleaning tasks with more technical precision than you would normally do. 

Select Clean's routine cleaning service include: 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. They can also do the little extras like inside the fridge or oven.  

Call Select Clean today on 0800 000 907 for a free home cleaning quote.

Home Cleaning in New Zealand – Trends and Cleaning Needs in Today’s World

A recent household survey conducted in New Zealand revealed that over 26% of the respondents (irrespective of whether employed or not) already have a regular home cleaner.

Hiring a house cleaner will make your family happier because the benefits are sure to outweigh the cost – interestingly, the actual cost could be less than what you expect. There is also the health benefit of getting enough sleep without any guilty conscience about keeping your house unclean and cluttered. 

The good sleep and relaxation you enjoy by hiring a professional home cleaner will tremendously improve your memory and attention, cutting inflammation and lowering stress levels, medical experts said.

The method used for cleaning shows a shift from traditional hand washing to appliance-supported cleaning procedures, but dirt, dust and stains still remain nightmares for majority of housewives, the survey further said. 

Life is in the fast lane, and consumers are moving in hyper-speed with their cleaning needs and preferences also changing accordingly. House designs are also changing - countertops made of natural stones and other hard surface materials have gained popularity, and wood floors started replacing carpets etc. - and this change in house design trends requires different cleaning materials and equipment.  In such a scenario, there is high demand for products that help to clean quickly and effectively, thereby reducing the time spent on house cleaning chores.

Advantages of hiring a home cleaning service in New Zealand

• Fifty-eight percent of householders interviewed said they don’t spend enough time for social life. The time saved from home cleaning can then be utilised for mingling with close friends and family. What a great idea- it’ll simply solve many of the family problems and improve your overall health and social life.
• When you leave the house cleaning to a verified cleaner, you can go jogging or visit a fitness club with the extra time in your hand. This will help you to get fit.
• You may get tired during the cleaning process and end up in leaving the germs untouched in the fridge, oven or cabinets in your kitchen. However, the cleaning task undertaken by the Select Home Cleaners is their daily job, and their livelihood. They won’t make any shortcuts to it because on one side they are dedicated and have pride in their work, and on the other side, they know poor and incomplete cleaning will affect their career. Moreover, the professionals come with proper equipment and correct products for the job which make it a perfect job.
• There are some places in the house you usually forget while cleaning, but the fresh eyes of an expert cleaner will definitely identify them straightaway and clean them as a routine.  
• You can tidy up the rooms before the cleaner arrives so that precious time can be saved. It’s something like all the clutter from the carpets, TV set, kitchen countertops or the bed can be cleared of so that the professionals can concentrate mainly on the cleaning part. This will also make you more organised.
• Enjoy your life. You have some extra time because you paid a service provider to do the cleaning and chores in your home. Now utilise that free time to do some hobbies you enjoyed the most but have been kept aside because of time restrictions.  Reading, writing, cooking experiments, handcrafting etc., whatever be it, renew that hobby which gives you the much needed relaxation in your life.

Select Cleaning New Zealand

It’s not that easy to get extremely reliable and honest home cleaning services in your locality. Security is a big issue, and quality of work and cost are other important factors.  We request you to visit our website and read the testimonials written by people like you. ‘Once a customer, always a customer’ is the phrase upon which the cleaning policy of Select Cleaning has been formulated.

We service Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington & Christchurch, and can be contacted on Phone 0800 000 907 for a free home cleaning quote.

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. 

Move Out Clean and DIY Home Cleaning Tips

Are you moving out? Well, Select Cleaning provides the best one-off cleaners in New Zealand- affordable and highly professional. Select Cleaners can help you move out peacefully from your past home or flat by managing all the sophisticated end-of-lease cleaning requirements.

The move out cleaning job is a little bit complicated one as it’ll be further inspected by the property owner, and  you may be in the risk of losing a security deposit over a home that’s not cleaned up to the requisite standard. Here comes the need for professional help from a reputed house cleaning service which knows how to bring the home or flat to the condition it was before your tenancy began. This way, by paying a small fee to the professional cleaner, save yourself the embarrassment with the landowner and take the stress out of the bond cleaning process.  

DIY Home Cleaning Ideas

Eliminate the clutter to avoid constant frustration

For solving clutter menace, remember and follow the old saying, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Group your clutter cleverly and arrange them in a proper way, like putting them in a decorative storage box or keeping a folder for bills and notes, or a bookcase for favourite reading materials, or a bowl for keys and wallets etc. This will impart a feeling of orderliness in your home. Consider such ideas and implement them to get rid of the clutter and chaos in your home, and life.

Clogged drains?

First, sprinkle two cups of baking soda into the drain followed by two cups of boiled vinegar. Allow the fizzing to stop and let the mixture stay in the drain for about five minutes. Flush with boiling water.

Some people also recommend pouring hot water and detergent down the drain for fat, oil and grease clogs that are common in household clogs.  

Getting prepared for cleaning your room

Ensure that you have all the right tools and products readily available with you before you start cleaning.

Let’s have a list:

• Microfibre cloths for dusting, cleaning and polishing.
• Cotton cloth for cleaning windows, mirrors, and glass screens of TV & computers.
• Mop for vacuuming hard floors.
• All purpose, good quality cleaner.
• Glass cleaner.
• Disinfectant.
• Fresh linens for bedrooms.

Cleaning procedure:

Firstly, tidy and deal with garbage and laundry. Secondly, start dusting and cleaning. And lastly, mop the floors.

Dusting:

For lowering the allergens and improving the air quality in your house, make it a habit to dust out your rooms regularly. Use a microfibre cloth and go left to right, and top to bottom in order to avoid spreading of dust all over the place.

How do you dust the slatted blinds, one slat at a time? You’re doing it wrong. The easy and efficient way is to close them one way (by pulling the string) and dust, then close them the other way and repeat the dusting. Clean the computer and TV screens, and the glass framed photos using glass cleaner sprayed to a fresh cotton cloth.

Mopping:

After dusting, go for mopping. While you do mopping, always start at the farthest corner of the room and move back toward the entrance door, so you’re always standing on a dry piece of floor without spoiling the already cleaned area. Rinse the mop frequently to ensure thorough cleaning.

Now listen to the best option:

While you're busy at work or on a weekend family trip, a police verified smart Select Home cleaner will make your home absolutely neat and clean. There's nothing like coming home, walking in, and see the house fresh smelling and in perfect shape!  Book a regular weekly/fortnightly cleaning service, or a catch up, once off cleaning service on the weekly cleaning when your week gets away from you! 

Visit SelectClean website for more info.