12 house cleaning tips that will save time and money

House cleaning is one of the most important tasks you have to do for yourself. It is good for your mind and your body. It will improve the quality of the indoor air, kill almost all the germs that are responsible for many different health problems, help you sleep better, and if you don’t want to do it for yourself – do it for your children!

If you don’t believe us you can ask an expert in house cleaning. Or, you don’t even have to go that far! You can ask anyone working for this industry. They should know the best since they are the ones professionally responsible for cleaning some of the dirtiest places in our homes. Take carpets for example – according to Ryan Sullivan, former general manager at a popular cleaning company from Battersea Rise, “a carpet may hold up to 200,000 bacteria per square inch. This is why the maintenance schedule is very important when it comes to carpets. Maybe it’s even more important than the material or the length of the fibers.”

But, no matter how important the cleaning process is, it is time-consuming and it costs money. Certain cleaning tips can cut both, the cost and the time you need to complete the cleaning of your home.

Dirty carpets and gum

You should vacuum your carpets twice a week and have your carpets professionally cleaned at least once a year. Don’t try cleaning your carpets on your own because you don’t have all the necessary equipment for that. However, what if you’ve just cleaned your carpet and one of your children accidentally spit a chewing gum onto the carpet? It is stuck and doesn’t want to come off.

You should use ice. Just grab a few ice cubes and press them against the gum for 30 to 45 seconds. Once the gum is frozen solid just use a spoon or a fork to lift the gum up and then use scissors or a knife to cut the carpet strands as close to the gum as you can.

Learn how to schedule

You have to schedule the time you need to clean down to the minute. Don’t do one thing on Monday, and continue cleaning the rest of the same room on Thursday. And since this is a series of tasks you are doing for yourself and you don’t have a boss that would normally stand behind your back, you should be your boss. Decide how long you are going to spend cleaning before you even start. Give yourself about 15 minutes to vacuum, twenty minutes to clean the tiles, etc.

Make your own glass cleaner

This trick will save you some money. Simply pour 4 liters of warm water into a bucket, add 100ml of vinegar, and 1 teaspoon of dishwashing liquid. You can also pour this mixture into smaller plastic spray bottles and save it for some other future use.

A toothbrush as a useful tool for your window tracks

You can get a tick amount of grime built up around the frames of your windows. You usually can’t get to these areas with a simple cloth and/ or sponge. Try using some old toothbrushes to solve this problem. This is the perfect size for cleaning out those small tracks and crevasses.

Prepare your turf before you start vacuuming

You should make sure that the room is ready for the vacuuming. You don’t want to break your vacuum cleaner as soon as you start cleaning, do you? Small plastic objects can shred up your vacuum, breaking apart pieces of plastic in its interior. You should pick up anything that isn’t dust, dirt, or hair before you start vacuuming.

A small fix for the vacuum cleaner

Some vacuum cleaners simply stop picking up like they once did. This doesn’t have to be anything serious. You don’t have to buy a new vacuum. There is a simple fix for this. The belt sometimes gets loose and it starts causing the rotating brush spin slower. You can replace this belt and the vacuum will perform better.

Dust before you use your vacuum cleaner

When doing your house cleaning dust the room before vacuuming so you can vacuum up the particles that float into the air as you work and settle on the floor.

Don’t let distractions distract you

If you keep answering your phone all day long, watch TV, check your emails, etc. you will end up failing at all the tasks you had planned.

Bathroom wall tiles

We sometimes completely forget about the bathroom tiles when cleaning our bathrooms. And these tiles are famous for the stubborn stains that simply don’t want to come off. You can remove almost anything with store-bought cleaners that are often very expensive; however, this doesn’t have to be the case. You can make a low-cost, homemade stain remover just for tiles.

To make a homemade stain remover for tiles just mix 1 part liquid dish soap, 2 parts water, add an equal part of heated vinegar, and pour this mixture into a spray bottle. Once you cover the problematic stains with this solution, leave it to break down the grime before you start scrubbing. It should need only a couple of minutes.

Toilet bowl and vinegar

This is a house cleaning activity you must hate. It sometimes, for some people, looks like their toilets never stay clean. It’s a reality for the people who live in areas with hard water. Mineral content in that kind of water forms colored deposits in toilet bowls making them look dirty even though they are cleaned regularly. These minerals start pouring down from the rim of your toilet bowl and make your toilet bowl look dirty.

All you need are a bottle of white vinegar, toilet cleaner, paper towels, gloves, and a toilet brush.

The trick is to somehow leave the white vinegar over that mineral content that is hiding underneath the rim of your toilet bowl. Just grab a few paper towels and soak them in white vinegar. Make sure those paper towels are wet but not soaked. Tuck those paper towels underneath the rim of the toilet bowl and continue adding until the entire rim is covered. Leave it be like that for a couple of hours and then remove the paper towels. Scrub the area with a toilet brush and your favorite commercial toilet bowl cleaner.

Depending on how dirty the toilet bowl is, you will have to repeat this process a couple of times.

The shower head

Showerheads can get covered in grime very quickly. This will cause water blockages. To solve this problem just fill a clear bag with warm water, vinegar and lemon and tie the bag around the nozzle of your shower. Let it stay there for an hour or so. This mixture will soak in and remove any dirt.

Homemade microwave cleaner

You don’t want any chemicals to end up in your food when cleaning your house. This is why you shouldn’t use any commercial cleaners when cleaning your microwave. Just make a mixture of cut-up lemons, cider vinegar, and water. Pour this mixture into a microwave bowl and place it in your microwave on full power for several minutes. Leave it like that to steam for 10 minutes inside the microwave. It will remove the stink and soften up all the residue so you can easily wipe it away.