Cleaning Tips

Things dirtier than your toilet seat!

 

The toilet seat is not often thought of as one of the cleanest of things in your house! However, it is likely to be one of the things that gets cleaned the most. There are some things which could actually be dirtier than your toilet seat that could also do with a little more regular attention. For example:

Your chopping board – there is 200 times more fecal matter on the average chopping board than a toilet seat!

Your carpet – 4,000 times more bacteria on your carpet than on your toilet seat.

Your purse or wallet – 10 times dirtier than the toilet seat.

What about your mobile phone? Or your keyboard?

Clean homes with Diamond Home Support – let us give you back the time in your life.

Clean Your Shower Curtain in a Few Easy Steps

 
  1. First, soak the curtain in a bath, or large tub of water with biological washing powder mixed using warm water to activate the powder.
  2. Leave the curtain to soak for as long as possible, even overnight, so that it loosens any deposits and makes scrubbing the hems and edges with an old nail/tooth brush, that much easier.
  3. Once it has had a good soak, put your shower curtain into the washing machine – remember to check the curtains washing label for any special instructions – so that it can be cleaned properly. You might like to add a towel or two to help agitate the load. This will help dislodge any stubborn dirt from the curtain.
  4. Try adding a small amount of white distilled vinegar to the wash or final rinse to help deodorise the curtain and serve as a disinfectant.
  5. And for those shower curtains that can’t be washed in the machine, spray with a cleaning solution, wipe down and then rinse.

Get Stains Out of a Chopping Board

 

Some chopping boards quickly start to stain. One neat way to help get rid of those stains is to cut a lemon in half and rub the cut half over your chopping board. That will help to remove stains and smells. If you need a bit more clout try sprinkling with salt or baking soda first. Then rub with the lemon and wash thoroughly afterwards.

For help around the home try Diamond Home Support.

Single Male Cleaning Tips!

 

As a single male, living alone, Diamond Home Supports’ South Lincolnshire area manager, Tim Stoodley, is no stranger to the trials of male cleaning. Here he outlines all the time saving tips he’s built up over a decade of single living.

I’m a man, that means I like things simple, easy and trouble-free and any life-hacks that allow me to make my life just that bit easier, are always a winner with me. We’re known to be simple creatures after all.

The biggest shock of my adult life was moving into my own flat, after the initial excitement and weeks of takeaways subsided, the novelty quickly wore-off and dust started to settle. Quite literally. Mummy was no longer around to change the beds or hoover the floor and a weird black mould was developing in my bathroom. It became apparent that the cleaning fairies were in fact, a lie, and that this ship was going to need some man-loving if it was to be whipped into shape.

As a twenty-something, time is of the essence for me and over the years, through my work with Diamond Home Support and some self-creation, I’ve developed six top tips to help any single man (or woman) breeze through their cleaning routine. Effort is still required, but these hacks might just save a little bit of elbow grease.

1) Paper towels are your microwaves best friend! As a singleton, your microwave will be the main source of nutrients and it’s important therefore, that it is kept clean. One little trick I learnt quite quickly was to place 10 kitchen tissues in a stack on top of the turntable. Every time you use the microwave, you remove a kitchen tissue. This protects the turntable and keeps it clean and gives you ten whole nights of ready meals before it needs a proper clean.

2) Use your bathroom extractor fan or crack open a window when you’re showering. Bathroom mould is a pain-in-the-rear to get rid of. Prevention is most definitely the best way to help this cause, and ventilation is often overlooked as a mould-preventing tool. Two seconds opening a window will save hours of scrubbing and expensive mould-removers.

3) Find your getting hard-water stains in your toilet bowl? The solution to a spotless ceramic throne is easy. Once a month, simply pour down a bit of distilled white vinegar (available in most supermarkets). Leave it overnight and flush! The power of this magical chemical is not to be underrated.

4) Yucky spills and stains make emptying the bins and thankless and disgusting task. The simple solution here? Buy a box of tumble dryer sheets, place a couple in the bottom of the bin and hey presto! The sheets will suck up any nasty smells and liquids and are conveniently already placed in the bin ready to be thrown out.

5) Use an extension lead when vacuuming. It sounds simple, yet nobody does it! If you find you have to keep unplugging and plugging in the vacuum as you move from room-to-room, why not just run an extension lead behind your hoover?! Simple, but effective time-saving ninja skills.

6) Decide how long you’re going to spend cleaning before you start. Next, divide your time into chunks – 15 minutes to vacuum and perhaps the same again at the sink, and so on. Now that you have a timed target, you’ll find you work that bit harder. Also, if you absolutely hate a job – cleaning the bathroom, for example – knowing you’re going to spend just 10 minutes in there may make you feel less bothered about tackling it.

You can check our more time-saving skills on the Diamond Home Support, South Lincolnshire Facebook page – facebook.com/diamondhomesupportsouthlincs, or on Twitter @DHSSouthLincs, or web page http://diamondhomesupport.com/local-offices/south-lincolnshire/