Clean Your Home’s Most Touched Areas | Bond Cleaning in Canberra

15Dec2022

How to Clean Your Home’s Most Touched Areas

By : Angelina

Listeria, Coliform and Salmonella are permanent residents on high-touch surfaces and fixtures in your home. Household germ studies found germs thrive more on warm and moist surfaces than cold ones meaning your kitchen, bathroom and laundry room have dirtier spots than the rest of the house. If you fail to routinely clean and disinfect most-touched points in your home, your family is at risk of contracting frequent viral & bacterial infections. Most-contacted areas are common spots that every household member touches. Thus, regular sanitation is crucial to living a healthy & productive life. If you hire a professional house or end of lease cleaning service in Canberra, they will clean and disinfect common contact points. Besides taking professional assistance, you must sanitise these areas every day. Here’s what you will need and tips for cleaning your home’s most touched areas.

Necessary Cleaning Supplies

Invest in microfiber products like cloths, towels and mops on hand at all times to sanitise any household surface or fixtures. Additionally, get the following supplies,

A multipurpose organic soap or a mild washing liquid

A versatile disinfectant

Rubbing alcohol (70-90% isopropyl)

Sponges and brushes

Vacuum cleaner

Steam cleaner (optional)

Avoid Harsh Products & Tools

Since most high-touch areas need sanitising daily or multiple times a day, it is essential to use mild cleaner and disinfectant. Using harsh products and tools will cause rapid deterioration of surfaces/fixtures & pollution of your home’s indoor air. Therefore, avoid commercial cleaners with strong ingredients like ammonia, bleach, sodium hypochlorite, PERCs etc. Additionally, never scrub with steel wool, scouring pads, wire brushes etc.

Identify Common Points of Contact In Your Home

Finding common contact points in your house is easy because you touch them multiple times a day. Here is a list to give you a better idea of the most-touched areas in your home.

Countertops and slabs in high-traffic areas like the kitchen, bathroom & living room

Switches, switchboards, buttons, remote controls and keypads

Handles, knobs, rails, bars and faucets

Floors, carpets, upholstery and rugs

Bedding

Observe your home to find other high-touch spots to ensure they are cleaned and disinfected correctly.

Never Disinfect Before Cleaning

Disinfectants kill germs on surfaces and objects, but if they are laden with dust particles or grime, then the solution won’t work. Physical contaminants will shield the germs, and your efforts will go in vain because the affected will neither be clean nor disinfected. Professional cleaners who offer cheap end of lease cleaning Canberra usually use a two-step process for sanitising dirty areas. They clean first to remove pollutants and then disinfect to eliminate illness-causing pathogens. Therefore, make sure to wash or wipe surfaces with a cleaning solution. You can use soap & water, which will eliminate most contaminants. Leave the cleaner on the affected area for 1-3 minutes to get the best results.

Disinfect Correctly

Professionals performing house or end of lease cleaning in Canberra always disinfect precleaned surfaces to eliminate bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes. You must do the same, but here’s how to do it correctly.

Never wipe a surface or fixture immediately after applying disinfectant because the product requires time to break the proteins and fats of microbes.

Apply disinfectant on a common point of contact and let the solution dwell for at least 10 minutes before wiping.

Reapply if the solution dries before the dwell time is over.

Vacuum & Steam Clean Rugs, Carpets & Upholstery

Cleaning and disinfecting methods for hard surfaces and fixtures don’t work for carpets, rugs and upholstery. Contaminants and germs are embedded in these things’ fibres, which is why vacuuming works best for cleaning them. After vacuuming, you can steam clean the fixtures to kill bacteria, viruses and mould spores. Steam reaches a temperature over 300°C, enough to kill microbes instantly upon contact. Thus, steam cleaning is one of the best and most eco-friendly disinfection methods. Note: If you are ending a tenancy, get the carpets cleaned by professional end of lease cleaners in Canberra to get your bond back without dispute.

Wash Bedding Frequently

Bedsheets, pillow covers and comforters accumulate sweat, dead skin cells, bacteria, dust mites, and other contaminants. Since you use them daily, washing and disinfecting them after a few days or every week is essential. Use a mild detergent and fabric-friendly disinfectant to sanitise bedding completely. Avoid mixing detergent and disinfectant. Wash the bedding, then run a cycle with water and disinfect before rinsing the bedding completely. Ensure the water is warm/hot and every cycle lasts at least 10 minutes.

Endnote

The risk of contracting infections from high-touch points is always high, which is why you must clean and disinfect them every day. You can hire professional cleaners in Canberra at the end of a tenancy to sanitise your rental property. However, use this guide to sanitise the most-touched areas in your home like a pro and ensure household members remain healthy.