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.