House And Office Cleaning

Keeping window blinds clean not only helps to have a better-looking room, but also prolongs their life. Yet, it’s an activity that most householders keep postponing for no specific reason. Some may not be aware of a few of the fast and easy ways of getting rid of all the dust and dirt that continues to gather there, till one day they can’t escape this cleaning anymore.

You can prevent accumulation of dust by periodically cleaning the blinds with the aid of your vacuum that generally comes with a soft brush attachment. In the absence of the above said attachment, you can clean them manually. Wear an old pair of socks or cotton gloves on your hand and wipe the slats. You will find an old paintbrush very handy or removing the dust on the blind slats.

Follow some of the suggestions here to clean the blinds easily and quickly:

Vinyl or Metal Blinds –Here’s the easiest way to do it. Fill your bathtub with water and add mild soap to it. Transfer your blinds to the bathtub and wipe them off with a soft cloth. Observe the precaution of keeping a towel at the bottom of the bathtub lest the metallic blinds should spoil its surface. Another quick way is to use a water hose for spraying them with water, rinse clean and leave them out in the open for drying.

Wood Blinds – Periodic maintenance of hardwood blinds will make them look beautiful for years. You can vacuum them with a soft brush attachment, or wipe them clean with a soft cloth or lamb’s wool mitt. You may clean the blinds while they are still hanging or take them down for the purpose. An easy way to clean the surface of each blind is by tilting the slats down, leaving them slightly open and then clean the each slat.

Use furniture polish for unpainted wooden blinds, shades and shutters. These blinds should never be cleaned with water, solvents or abrasives.

Fabric Blinds –Make use of your vacuum and its soft brush attachment for getting rid of the dirt, dust and cobwebs from such blinds. For further cleaning, refer the manufacturer’s instructions.

First, clean the window blinds with a solution of water and mild dishwashing detergent. Then, rinse them thoroughly and hang for drying up. You may remove excess of water by rolling them in a towel before hanging them out to dry.

Window blinds on one hand add to the décor of your room, allow you to control the amount of light entering your place, and yet maintain your privacy. Periodic cleaning of window blinds prevents building up of dirt and helps them to retain their beautiful looks for many years. Follow some of the suggestions above to maintain their looks for a long time.

Homeowners generally consider cleaning the outside of the windows during springtime or the approaching fall season. But now, modern design of windows allows their convenient and easy cleaning. Some of the windows are so designed that their exteriors can be cleaned from within the house. Manufacturers employ fold down method for such windows and it was introduced in early 90”s.

Windex or some other similar kind of a cleaning agent is used by most of the people for this purpose. But all cleaning agents necessarily have to have either ammonia solution or vinegar that performs the cleaning action.

For cleaning traditional type of a window that slides down from the top, you should start from its top followed by its top back. Having finished that, you push the window back in its right position and then work on its lower half. You should start cleaning the outer side of the bottom half of the window and then come to finish its internal side. These windows often have window screens and don’t forget to remove those before you start working.

You may come across vertical roll out windows like Anderson. Here again, you need to remove the screens before getting started with window cleaning. Making use of the handle, roll the window to open it the most. An easier way of cleaning such windows is to start from its outer side by sticking your hand thru the gap between the window and its wall. Then, roll the window to its closed position and wash the inner side of the glass. You may have big windows that can’t be opened. You will be required to clean them from the outside by spraying a cleaning solution and wiping it off with a sponge.

A ladder will necessarily be required for cleaning of big windows located at higher levels. Cleaning the windows of high-rise buildings or apartments poses problems and call for the services of professionals. Such jobs are usually executed by window cleaning companies, which have skilled manpower for doing the needful.

While hiring professional services for cleaning of windows, you should always insist on getting references and recommendations of others.

Cleaning of kitchen needs extra effort and extra attention too, for the simple reason that you store your edibles there and cook and eat food in the same place. Another factor that calls for this extra effort is the traffic it bears, day after day.

I give below my plan of action for maintaining a clean kitchen. However, before getting started, I may share some of the housecleaning tips with you.

Put together all the cleaning materials that you might need for cleaning of the kitchen. It’ll be smart idea to invest in a basket or container of appropriate size that can hold all cleaning materials in one place. Keep this basket in a protected place, out of the reach of kids. Finding a place within the kitchen or close to it is very helpful. For handling all those chemicals in the cleaning agents, use of rubber gloves is necessary to provide protection to your hands. These chemicals could harm your skin. You should also be looking for natural cleaning agents for cleaning of kitchen.

A thorough cleaning of the kitchen is quite tiresome. I spend two days for this job. This is how I go about it:

I take up more difficult part on the first day. This includes cleaning of the oven, stove and the refrigerator. The second day I would devote to cleaning of walls, ceiling and the kitchen cabinets. Simultaneously, I also separate the items that I need from the ones that can be discarded. And, at the end I take up the floor.

Refrigerator Cleaning:

The cleaning effort here is not demanded by its size alone, it’s also the means of storing food safely.

Oven Cleaning:

Cleaning of ovens is no more a tough job, thanks to the improvements carried to cleaning agents and their containers. Scrubbing is not required so frequently.
Ceiling and Walls:

Now, we come to the ceiling. You just can’t help to avoid having cobwebs in the ceiling and the top corners of your walls. The most effective tool for the purpose is your broom.

Get rid of the cobwebs on the walls and the ceiling with the help of a broom.

But, how do you get rid of the cobwebs that get attached to the broom? Simply surround the end of the broom with a sufficiently long piece of cloth, which may be thrown away at the end or could be washed.

You may be relieved to know that better substitutes are available for the broom. They named these as: cobweb eliminator and the telescoping duster. One of these days, go online to check these out. They help cleaning of the areas at higher levels.

Let’s come to the cleaning of walls. You’ll need to use an all-purpose cleaner dissolved in a bucket of water and a rag or a sponge.

Wet the sponge with the solution in the bucket and wipe the whole wall. Start from the bottom and move upwards. Finally, rinse the wall with another sponge dipped in water.

Proceed the same way to clean all the walls of the kitchen.

Cleaning Kitchen Cabinets:

Empty all you kitchen cabinets and execute dusting of the whole area with a duster.

After a satisfactory cleaning of the cabinets, neatly arrange all the stuff back in the cabinets.

Cleaning the surface of kitchen cabinets is made easy by using a kitchen cabinet crème, a cleaner and polisher that clears all the grime deposited on the surface of the cabinets.

Cleaning the floor:

At the end you have to clean the kitchen floor. Generally, sweeping followed by mopping gives the desired results.

Cleaning a Kitchen: Maintenance

Having spent so much of you time and effort for cleaning the kitchen, you should consider its maintenance.

Sit down on the kitchen table with a pen and paper and make a schedule for cleaning the kitchen. Certain things need to be cleaned daily. For instance you will be required to remove trash and wash dishes on a daily basis. Similarly, you may plan to broom the floor on alternate days while mopping may be scheduled for once or twice a week, depending on the circumstances and periodic cleaning of kitchen equipments and accessories like refrigerator and oven.

The tendency of most of the homeowners to use garage for storing of all the unwanted or infrequently used household items, prompted designers and manufacturers to develop special organizing systems for the garage. Having a garage organizer facilitates convenient storage of tools and other items.

You get racks to hold mops and brooms, whereas specifically designed closets can have shovels and garden tools. Then you have bike holders that may be installed on the wall or fixed to the ceiling, keeping floor free for other uses. However, before you start organizing your garage, its cleaning is a must.

First remove the car from the garage and then the rest of the items hanging around there. Mere sweeping of the garage is not sufficient. Use a pressure washer on the floor and walls and see them coming back to their natural color. Painting of the concrete gives a neater look to the floor and may act as a sealant too.

Now, take an inventory of all the items and discard all the unwanted items as this leads to a better-organized garage. Now install all the organizing systems. Once every item has been assigned a place, it becomes so convenient to locate things. That helps to keep unnecessary irritation and stress at bay. You will soon begin to appreciate how it helps you save time in locating a tool for a petty job, which otherwise might be left undone for the inconvenience of locating a particular tool.

A clean and well-organized garage makes a man feel good. Men feel as if this part of the home is their personal domain. An organized garage with neatly kept and labeled tools prompts them to further their hobbies and execute small DIY projects in a pleasing manner.

Let there be no doubts that the man of the house likes to take refuge in a neat and organized garage where he often loses track of time. But, somebody has to strive and put in little effort to bring a garage to that level!

The best places of choice for mildew to grow are the bathtub and the shower. Yet, you can adopt measure to keep these areas clean.

1. Clean your bathtub and shower at regular intervals.
2. Make the area as inhospitable for mildew as you can.

An easy way of keeping the bathtub and shower clean is to spray the tiled walls of the bathroom with mildew remove and leave it there for nearly fifteen minutes. In the meanwhile you may go ahead with the cleaning of the toilet.

By the time you come back to the bathtub and shower, the mildew remover has already done its job. Yet, there could be some soap scum, dirt and residual mildew that needs to be wiped or scrubbed off.

It will be helpful to have these tools and material at hand before starting the process of scrubbing.
- A Rinse Ace Sprayer With Valve
- Tub and Tile Cleaner
- Decalcifying Gel – for removing deposits of lime and calcium that get built up inside the showerhead and reduce the flow of water.

* In a bucket make a solution of water by adding tub and tile cleaner to it.
* Use a bathtub stopper. It prevents a build up in the drain causing it to clog up.
* Make use of rubber gloves to safeguard your hands.

Now, we are ready to get started.

You start by spraying water on the tiled shower walls and the bathtub by using a rinse ace sprayer. You start scrubbing only after water has been sprayed well all over the area. With the help of the tile and tub scrubber softly scrub away the dirt and scum that might have remained unaffected by the mildew remover.

Once you are satisfied that the shower walls and the bathtub have been scrubbed, take a rag, dip the same in the bucket and wipe the exterior of the bathtub. Now, rinse with a clean rag soaked in clean water and wipe the exterior of the bathtub once again. You are almost there, just spray down the shower walls and the tub to ensure that the residue caused by cleaning and scrubbing is removed.

Once you are finished with that, remove the bathtub stopper for cleaning it in the sink. Using a dry rag, wipe off the remaining moisture from the shower and bathtub to let it dry completely.

Finally, put a Sani-Clean Stick into the tub drain to keep it clear.