As the days slowly get longer and Winter has truly set in, you will be finding yourself at home even more - which makes a thorough winter clean ever more important.
After all, with all the dust and dirt your home has collected during the Festive Season and at a time of Covid-19, a mid-winter spruce will work wonders for your home and your health. The EPA also estimates that indoor air quality can be five times more polluted than outdoor air.
Here is a checklist to help you breathe easy the remainder of this season. You can tackle this checklist yourself or hire some local help, like Magical Maids. We can help tackle as many or as few of the items as you would like.
1. Wash and Disinfect Garbage Bins and Wastebaskets
You’re going to be inside for the most part of winter with these germ creators, so now’s a good time to clean them thoroughly. Take them outside where you can blast the insides with a garden hose, then add disinfectant. An environmentally safe way to sterilise these grime collectors is to use vinegar mixed 50/50 with water. Regular bleach is an effective disinfectant (one part bleach to six parts water), but we prefer environmentally safe. Let the garbage bins sit for an hour, then pour out the contents and scrub the insides with a stiff bristle brush to remove any residue. Rinse and, if possible, let the wastebasket dry in direct sunlight, which also helps eliminate bacteria!
2. Wash and Disinfect Toilet Brush Holders
Yes, this sounds like a job for the professionals, but of all the places in your home, this has to be the dirtiest, so it is a great idea to give it a thorough clean. Take the holder and the brush outside, and spray wash thoroughly with a garden hose. Immerse the holder and brush in a bucket of hot water mixed with one of these solutions:
1 part bleach to 6 parts water
50/50 mixture of vinegar and water
Let everything sit in the solution for a couple of hours, then rinse the holder and brush with a hose and place in direct sunlight to dry
3. Turn Over Furniture and Hoover
You might shift furniture around every once in a while so that you can hoover the floor, but there’s another side to the story — the furniture underside. Tilt upholstered chairs and couches back (much more comfortable with two people) to expose the bottoms. The dust covers tucked underneath furniture can catch dust bunnies, so vacuum them off and be careful not to press too hard on the fabric to cause damage.
4. Clean the Tops of Doors, Trim, and Artwork
Tables and countertops aren’t the only household items with horizontal surfaces. Just about everything in your house has some kind of flat surface where dust and dirt will nestle, often unnoticed. You’ll want to clean the flat top edges of interior doors, trim, including baseboards and chair rails, artwork, and mirrors. Don’t forget electrical wall plates, wall-mounted smoke detectors, CO detectors and thermostats, upper kitchen cabinets, light bulbs and light fixtures, computer monitors, and last but not least, the books on your shelves.
5. Hoover Behind the Fridge
Your fridge coils should be cleaned periodically so that it operates at peak efficiency. The object is to clean the condenser coils. Here’s how: If the condenser coils are on the back of the refrigerator, then pull the unit out completely and unplug it while you work on it. Brush or hoover the coils to clear of dirt and debris as well as any dirt and dust on the floor. Also, check to make sure your freezer vents are clear. Freezers circulate air to reduce frost, but piling up too much stuff in front of the little gill-like vents inside your freezer blocks their business. If the condenser coils are on the fridge’s bottom, you’ll need to clean them from the unit’s front. Unplug it while you work on it. Remember to put down a cardboard piece before moving the fridge so that grit under the wheels doesn’t scratch your kitchen floors.
6. Prep Your Entryway
Keep winter’s slush, dirt, and grit at bay by making your entryway a dirt guardian. Get a boot scraper (around £20- £35). Add a chair or bench for taking off boots, and have a boot rack for wet footwear. Put down a tough coir outdoor doormat (range around £30 upwards) for cleaning footwear.
7. Clean Windows
By some estimates, dirty window glass cuts daylight by 20%. That’s a lot less light coming in at a time of year when you need it to help chase away winter blues. Clean windows inside and out with a homemade non-toxic solution of 1/4 cup white vinegar to 2 cups of water, then wipe clean and polish using microfiber cloths.
8. Clean Ceiling Fan Blades
Those big blades on your ceiling fan are great at moving air, but when they’re idle, they’re giant dust magnets — dust settles on the top surfaces where you can’t see it. Out of sight, maybe, but not out of mind. Here’s an easy way to clean them: Take an old pillowcase and gently cover a blade. Pull it back slowly to remove the dust. The dust stays inside the pillowcase, instead of all over the floor, the furniture, or worse, your hair!
Happy cleaning!
Magical Maids
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