Storage Hacks That Will Keep You Organised and Peaceful

Find some impressive storage solutions to maximise space and minimise clutter by making the most of your home's existing space. Getting your stuff organized with these smart storage ideas is a great feeling and it makes finding everything easier also.  

Make your furniture a clever storage space

A platform-style bed for children with built-in drawers and shelves is a lovely idea to keep books, toys and clothes stored neatly. This will also help your child to grasp the habit of cleanliness and orderliness.

Also make concealed storage space under your bed so you can smartly de-clutter the bedroom. A bed frame with such storage units is worth the investment.

Recessed pantry

Worried about your cramped, cluttered kitchen? No tensions, some additional storage space can be created there by knocking a hole through a garage wall. Also try height adjustable shelves, pull out baskets, tray divider, and sliding doors which make an efficient, versatile pantry.

Above-the-door shelf

Over the door storage for a small Bath with limited space and no linen closet is a great option for maximising space. These storage shelves can also be constructed for other necessary places around your home for a better organised look.

Clever way to organise your accessories

Want to try a smart idea to utilise an unwanted ice cube tray? Store your jewellery items in the tray displayed in a stylish manner so you can impress your guests next time they pay a visit. Similarly, let your creativity take wings to find lovely storage places for all unused items in your home.

Facing lack of space for laundry storage?

Tired of all the clutter in your floors and on the countertops? Fix a few pegboards on your walls to hang shelves, baskets, and even cleaning materials & brooms. You can also put all the small things and other clutter on your pegboard. Use a combination of open shelves and pegboards to rev up the storage potential of your hallway wall.

Proven, trusted and experienced home cleaners in your town

Everybody likes a home cleaner who is particularly careful about attention to detail. That is exactly what the customers wanted in a house cleaner. Relax then. Select Cleaning are known for providing a stress–free solution to your home cleaning needs.  

The clients will also be impressed if their items are dutifully put back in their original position when the cleaning is over.  Sincere efforts to polish the water taps until they shine, and getting the mop right into the corners of the kitchen floor are the good habits a homeowner looks in a home cleaner.

You deserve an impeccable service whether it’s weekly or fortnightly home cleaning. Many of the customers of Select Cleaning even got their full deposit back from their landlord after a move out clean and you know normally that never happens with other cleaning services in New Zealand!

Given below are a couple of testimonials taken from the Select Cleaning customer review section on their website.

“Very polite and respectful of property. Fit in with my family routines. Always do a fantastic job better than I can. Frees up my time and makes my life more pleasant. 100% dependable and reliable. No problem with security – very trustworthy.” – Rachael; Mt Albert.

“Very reliable, always on time. Love having a cleaner, it frees up my time, makes my life less stressful. Great attention to detail, very trustworthy. They are very happy to accommodate changes with my family timetables. Always respond to my requests in the communication book.” – Lee; One Tree Hill.

You can call the Select Cleaning service now on 0800 000 907 for a free home cleaning quote in Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch, Tauranga and Wellington.

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.

Home Cleaning Tips, Tricks and Hacks for Parents of Toddlers and Small Children

Every father and mother with small kids will always be interested and eager to know more tips and tricks in home cleaning and organising that will help make their life better!

An untidy and messy house is the least thing anyone wants to occupy. However, with children at home it’s indeed a difficult task to keep your house tidy all the time.  

Find some tips, tricks and hacks for you with young children at home:

1. Clean up after playtime and do a deep scrub of everything once the kids have gone to bed. This quick sweeping will ensure that your house will be neat and clean every day before bedtime. Before sweeping, you can collect the toys and other children’s items and put them back in their original place.  
2. Teach your children clean up after themselves with you. This will inculcate a good habit in young children and at the same time come as a helping hand for you. Put some music on as it makes cleaning a little less boring, and also the children will appreciate it.
3. Keep a donation bin for items you no longer require.  This will certainly reduce the clutter, and is more applicable with children who have a strong affinity for clothing and toys even though they’re damaged.
4. Put the newspapers and magazines in the recycling bin once you finished reading. Never keep them piling up, thinking that you may need them later.
5. Another clever way to find time tidying up is to utilise those free short minutes you get here and there. For example, make use of a TV commercial break, or the waiting time for a device to get heated up like the microwave, coffee maker or a hair-styling device. You can do some short bursts of cleaning work such as a quick tidy, wipe-down, or load some plates into the dishwasher etc. during these small snippets of time.

More handy tips for Moms

• Baby food jars can be used to store spices. Label each container and display them in your kitchen shelves. 
• You can make a door stopper by reusing a pool noodle.
• Stick a medicine dropper through a cut pacifier and you can use it for easily giving medicine to your toddler.
• Shopping made easy without the kids. Draw out your child’s feet onto a plain paper and then you need not to take the child to the shoe shop. Just show the paper (with the tiny feet traced on to it) to the shopkeeper and they can give you the exact size shoes for the kid.   
• Some parents also use identification bracelets when they go shopping with small children. This will be of great help to get notified if your child gets stranded.
• How to avoid your toddler slide around with the toys when you give her/him a bath? Put a laundry basket in the bathtub and let your kid sit inside it so that the toys won’t flow away. It’ll then be easy bathing your baby as it plays with the toys. 
• An intelligent way to indulge your children in the home cleaning chores is to give them the internet password only after they finish the given cleaning tasks! This will also save your teenagers from internet addiction!

Need some professional help with your home cleaning chores? Call the most reliable Select Cleaning service on 0800 000 907 for your free quote now. Their home cleaning is of the best quality, and the pricing is very competitive too - Now available in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga and Hamilton.

Nine Important Cleaning Mistakes to Avoid

Majority of New Zealanders now resort to hire quality home cleaners on a regular basis even though they sometimes try do-it-yourself cleaning practice. Narrated below are some common cleaning mistakes people tend to do due to negligence or ignorance. After explaining the mistakes, SelectCleaning experts have given the correct cleaning procedures too.

1. Mixing cleaning products can be dangerous. For example, if you mix two cleaners which have ammonia and bleach as ingredients, a poisonous gas will be formed – and it’s life threatening if you happen to inhale it.  
2. Never clean your non-stick pan in the dishwasher. If you do so, it’ll affect the pan’s seasoning, thereby disabling the non-sticking quality.  
3. Using abrasive cleaners to remove tough stains on porcelain tile and bath tubs will dull their smooth finish.
4. Some of us don’t know that coffee grinders and BBQ grill also need regular cleaning. All traces of crusty bean debris can be completely removed by whizzing uncooked rice or stale bread in the coffee maker, and thereafter washing with water. Vinegar can be used to remove bad odour. Scrub each grill grate with crinkled aluminium foil while it's still warm to remove those charred black bits. This is necessary to kill bacteria growth also.
5. Some are ignorant that fridge and freezer need spot cleaning on a weekly basis and thorough cleaning once every quarter at least. 
6. A few people mistakenly use window cleaners on television and computer LCD screens, which can harm the electronic surfaces. Same way, cleaning with paper towels or tissues can also damage the TV or computer screens because of the presence of wood fibres. Instead, use a microfiber cloth along with approved LCD or IED screen cleaners.
7. Cleaning the windows when the sun is hot? Another mistake! And the result: your glass cleaner will evaporate faster due to the sun’s heat, which may cause spot marks. Good to do the window cleaning when there is no hot sun shining at the windows; that is, choose a cloudy day.
8. Oven cleaning mistakes: Some times we neglect to clean the oven. Sticky and greasy food particles, chunks, and spills may have been left behind in the oven from previous cooking. They get even more baked-on when you cook the next time. This can affect the smell and taste of the newly baked food. Apply the baking soda and vinegar cleaning method to make your oven clean and sparkling.  Add some water to a cup of baking soda to form a thin paste. Apply this paste thinly to the walls of the oven after removing the racks. Ensure that you do this when the oven is still warm.Take some vinegar in a spray bottle and spray it over the baking soda paste on the oven walls. The bicarbonate of soda and vinegar will react, thereby cleaning the oven walls. Let the paste stay there for some time and remove it using a damp rag.  The chemistry here is that the mixture of baking soda and vinegar helps to break down the sticky grease and grime in the oven, which can then be easily removed with a rag.  
9. Ignoring the common touch points in the house: Some common items such as the remotes, computer keyboards are handled by everybody in your home contain more harmful bacteria and dirt than you thought. They need a disinfectant wipe at least every week.Similarly, door knobs, hair combs, water taps, handles of appliances and such things which can be described as the most-touched areas in your home are severely affected by the germs. Failing to understand this and not giving them frequent disinfectant wipe is another cleaning mistake we tend to commit.

For a free cleaning quote, you can now call the Select Cleaning home cleaners on 0800 000 907. They service 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. 

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.

Easy Home Cleaning Tips to Manage Extra Load during the Holiday Season

With family and friends visiting during the holiday season causing more foot traffic in your home, you have to be vigilant to maintain cleanliness and put the house in order.

DIY Home Cleaning Tips

Floors: Never use sponge mops on ceramic-tiled floors, instead they can be easily cleaned with warm water after vacuuming or washing the floor to remove dust and grit.

Cabinet doors: Your kitchen cabinet doors and handle knobs also require thorough cleaning. They shouldn’t be safe place for the germs.

Oven: Give your oven a quick spray of oven cleaner and let it stay there overnight. Give it a quick wipe down the next day to get the baked on stuff come off easily.

Refrigerator: Use baking soda and water solution (2 tablespoons of baking soda and a quart of warm water) to clean inside of your fridge. Avoid using detergents to clean the refrigerator as the food items may absorb them.

Bath tub cleaner: Mix equal quantities of vinegar and warm water and fill it in a spray bottle. Now spray this solution liberally over the baking soda you sprinkled on the tub. Wait for sometime as the mixture bubbles fully. Now scrub the area with a sponge till the mixture forms a paste over the bath tub surface. Wait for another 15 minutes and then wipe and rinse to see that the dirt and stains are thoroughly cleaned to your satisfaction level.

Scrubbers: The sponges or scrubbers you use to wash hard-to-clean pots and pans can harbour large colonies of harmful germs. Some people even discard them before the expiry date, but you can easily sanitise them by heating for two minutes in the microwave.  

Mirror and ceiling fans: Clean your mirrors using some vinegar and old newspaper; save the bucks for buying glass cleaners and paper towels.  Take an old pillow cover and slide it onto the blade of a ceiling fan, and then wipe the dust off the blade inside the cover. So, the dust won’t fall in your face.

Labels on dishes: Use a cotton pad soaked with rubbing alcohol to remove sticker price tags off dishes and other glassware.

Clean your iron: Sprinkle some common salt powder onto the ironing board. Switch on the iron with steam option off. The dirt on the hot iron will stick to the salt and thus your iron will become perfectly clean. Another option is to put some cream cleanser on a thick wet towel and to run the hot iron over it so that the cream absorbs all the dirt.

Select Cleaning Advantage

Busy professional couples, the elderly, and larger households where cleaning is a tedious task, can enjoy free time by calling us to help with their housework. Many people want that their homes should be always clean and tidy, but they don’t have the time to maintain perfect hygiene on their own. This is where a domestic cleaner can step in. How comforting it would be to come to an absolutely spotless home after work on a Friday! You can spend the weekend relaxing and planning your favourite things.  

To make sure that our clients get the best service always, we have employees who maintain the role of overseeing workers and handling feedback from customers.

If you have pets, it’s good to introduce them to the cleaner so there won’t be any safety issues.

Our eco-friendly house cleaning products are very safe for your kids and pets, and we guarantee a spotless house every time we clean. You’ll see that the kitchen and bathroom or whatever cleaning you ordered will be cleaned thoroughly, and you’ll have a fresh-smelling home.

Scheduling a home cleaning service and paying online is so easy with Select Cleaning Company. Regular customers also get attractive discounts on home cleaning.