Every single one of us wants to find the fastest and most effective ways to clean our homes, but sometimes there are exactly these cleaning shortcuts that make it harder for us to have the spotless homes we dream of. This is why we want to tell you about some bad cleaning habits you need to leave behind.
Stay with us and get a few tips that will help you clean your home faster and more efficiently. The bad cleaning habits we talk about are habits that generally slow you down or stop you from getting the job done. Some may cause harm to your home, so you need to know about them!
If you start by changing one or two bad cleaning habits every week, you’ll quickly be on the path to a cleaner home, leading to you having more time for things you like.
1. Cleaning the bathroom with a single disinfectant wipe
If you want to be quick and just do a little clean-up in your bathroom, please avoid using just one disinfectant wipe to do this. Look at that little square, and now look at your bathroom. Do you think that a single wipe has enough disinfectant to clean everything from your toilet to your sink?
Now, we don’t say that using disposable disinfectant wipes is a bad idea, but using one wipe for cleaning a larger space is one of the bad cleaning habits you should avoid. Instead, you can use more wipes to get the job done, and everything will be alright.
To be efficient, the wipe or cloth should contain enough disinfecting moisture to keep the area wet for a minimum of four minutes. When your wipe is no longer wet, you are just spreading bacteria from one place to another.
2. You don’t store the cleaning products properly
Every time you start cleaning, you spend more than needed trying to find all of the supplies and tools that you need, and after you have found everything you need, you already feel tired.
If this is something you can relate to, then you have to know that this is one of the most common bad cleaning habits, but don’t worry because it is easy to change.
Gather the cleaning products that are necessary for each part of the house and keep them nearby. Bathroom supplies can be stored on a shelf or beneath the sink in a compact plastic box. If you have both downstairs and upstairs bathrooms, create two supply baskets.
Store dusting and furniture cleaning equipment and products together just in case you need them quickly. Of course, all laundry goods should be carefully stored in the laundry area.
A quick tip: We know that those clear plastic bottles look amazing when you see them on the shelf, but they are not suitable for many cleaning products. For example, hydrogen peroxide and chlorine-based bleach lose their strength when placed in sunlight.
3. Not taking care of wet towels and letting shower curtains bunch up
Do you want to spend less time cleaning mildew from the bathroom or in the laundry room trying to have fresh towels? Then you need to hear about this one of the bad cleaning habits!
If you usually take a bath and leave all of the towels that you have used somewhere on the floor in the bathroom in a pile and also do not take care of the shower curtain, you should stop doing this. We say this because leaving them like this will prevent them from drying properly, which will lead to some problems.
Your shower curtain might deteriorate faster, and your towels might start to smell funny. To avoid this, you need to make sure that you leave things dry. Always leave a few inches on both sides of the shower curtain to make sure that the air circulates. This will reduce mildew and humidity.
Now let’s talk about those wet towels. Leave them on the floor, and they can give your bathroom a mildewy odor and even attract pests like silverfish and ants.
Closing the curtain on the shower shortly after each use allows the water to dry faster and prevents mildew formation. Also, you can easily get a second or third use out of those damp towels by hanging them to dry. Remember that this also reduces your laundry load.
4. Dusting is the last step of your cleaning routine
If you usually dust after you vacuum, try avoiding it from now on since it is one of your bad cleaning habits and, in the end, will make you spend more effort cleaning your home. When you clean a room, you need to do this from top to bottom, allowing dust to fall to the floor and be cleaned up or vacuumed away.
Back in the day, people used to clean dust because vacuums didn’t have HEPA filters, but that is not the case anymore.
Also, remember how a single antibacterial wipe can’t properly clean a whole bathroom? The same thing is true with a disposable duster. If you haven’t dusted in some time, get a new duster. Whenever the old duster you’ve been using becomes gray, just change it. You’re no longer collecting dust at this point; you’re simply moving it around.
5. Cleaning with dirty tools
This list of bad cleaning habits can’t be complete without this one. This happens more than you would expect, but it is something that clearly drags down the quality of our cleaning process.
But just think for a second about it. How would you expect to have a clean house when all of the tools you are using are not so clean?
Your clothing will smell bad if the washing machine has an odor caused by bacteria buildup in detergent residue. When your vacuum bag or its filter is clogged with dust, it will no longer vacuum effectively, and the examples can keep going.
This is why, after every use, you need to take care of all of the tools and utensils you use when cleaning your house. You should also clean them if you want a spotless home.
6. Not cleaning your fridge
Go to your fridge and take a look inside. Are you going to eat all of the food that is stored there? If not, it would be a good idea to throw that food away because it just sits there and occupies space in your refrigerator.
If you know that you and your family don’t like to eat leftovers, then stop hoarding them in the fridge. Besides taking up space, keeping food in improper conditions will create a perfect place where mold and bacteria can develop. We are sure you don’t want that in your fridge, and this is why we are telling you that this is one of the bad cleaning habits you should avoid at all costs.
Every time you eat something and you are ready to put it back in the refrigerator, take a few moments and decide if you plan to eat it again. If the answer is no, then toss it away.
Try to keep your fridge clean and tidy, and next time you have to clean it, you will see that things will go so much faster. Don’t let this task become bigger than it should.
In case you need a new duster, this one might help you: Swiffer Dusters Heavy Duty Extender Handle Starter Kit
You should also read: 4 Shocking Reasons Why Your Dishwasher Isn’t Draining
