Last Updated on November 18, 2020
Germs are our common invisible enemy. They can be pretty much everywhere – and they sure are, which means that they are also inside our homes. We must be careful because germs are always looking for an opportunity to invade our organism and make us sick.
From the moment we go outside in the morning, we are already collecting thousands and thousands of these microscopic critters. At the end of the day, they inevitably return home with us in our clothes, shoes, handbags, smartphones, and any other type of object we carry.
This is one of the reasons why it is important to keep the house clean. But is a usual household cleaning routine enough?
You might think you have the best household cleaning products and the perfect cleaning skills. However, when you clean a surface, you are simply removing the germs and “throwing” them elsewhere. There is only one way to keep your house free of dangerous germs: by disinfecting it properly. That is, by actually killing them.
Here’s the best way to disinfect your house.
1. Kitchen
The kitchen is the most sensitive area of your house when it comes to cleaning. That’s where you prepare your food and where you eat it.
So you need to take several hygiene precautions to keep the germs away and stay healthy. There are two different things to take into consideration: the kitchen surfaces and the food preparation tools.
Surfaces: first of all, it is important to mention that you should avoid as much as possible touching any surface while you are preparing food. This is the most effective way to prevent the contamination of handles, cabinets, and other objects with food bacteria such as salmonella or E. coli.
All you have to do is put all the essential products near you before you start cooking.
To disinfect hard surfaces, you can use disinfectant wipes. This is the most convenient way to do it, but it might be a little expensive because you will need a few wipes to disinfect the entire kitchen – it’s also not an environmentally friendly option.
Alternatively, you can use a homemade cleaner-disinfectant solution: simply mix three teaspoons of bleach in one gallon of water. Apply it and wait five minutes before you rinse it and let air dry.
Food preparation tools: you must be extremely careful and not use bleach or products that contain bleach to disinfect food preparation tools (or areas like kitchen countertops and food preparation boards).
Use any bleach-free surface disinfectant or wash the tools in the dishwasher at a high temperature and with a disinfectant detergent.
2. Living room and bedroom
These are probably the places where you spend most of your time – and they are probably also the places where you spread most of the germs you carry in your hands.
To disinfect the dirtiest hard surfaces such as door handles, light switches, and armrests, a multi-surface disinfectant cleaner is a valid option.
Spray it directly on the surface and wait a couple of minutes before wiping the liquid it with a clean microfiber cloth (or just let it dry naturally if you can). For other surfaces such as pillows and couch cushions, you can use a disinfectant spray.
Washing your hands properly and regularly is the most effective way to prevent the germs from reaching the items and surfaces inside your house. Therefore, the best cleaning products to kill germs are simply soap and water.
3. Electronic devices
Electronic devices are simultaneously the objects that have the most germs and the most difficult ones to clean since we need to be very careful not to damage them. Think about smartphones, for example. We take them everywhere, put them down on any surface, and we are constantly touching them. They’re a real germ paradise.
You can disinfect your smartphone, laptop, keyboard, remotes, headphones, and mouse with 70% isopropyl alcohol wipes. Just give the devices a good wipe and allow them to air dry.
However, great care must be taken when cleaning the screens. Manufacturers add a protective coating to the screen to prevent it from scratching and collecting grease to make the device waterproof in the case of smartphones. Using harsh cleaning products might damage that protective coating and ruin your screen.
4. Bathroom
This is the section of your house that should be disinfected more often, and choosing the right products to do so is the easiest part. There is a huge range of specialized products for all kinds of bathroom surfaces, and the vast majority of then are powerful enough to kill almost all germs.
Toilets: strange as it may seem, the toilet is far from being the surface that contains the most amount of germs in your house. But it needs a deep cleaning every week to stay that way.
Use a toilet bowl cleaning product with bleach and scrub the inside surface of the toilet with the toilet brush. Don’t forget to clean the lids with an old toothbrush and wipe the porcelain with a cloth.
Other surfaces and floor: a regular bathroom disinfectant product can be used on most surfaces: counters, tubs, showers, and floor. Use a considerable amount of liquid to make sure the surfaces get quite moisty and let them air dry.
Please note that the toothbrush holder is actually the dirtiest item inside your bathroom – so make sure you wash it at least three times a week to keep germs away from your toothbrush. Also, remember to change towels and wash carpets regularly.
5. Clothes
Your regular laundry routine is already effective enough and will indeed kill most of the germs stuck on your clothes. But if you want the peace of mind of knowing for sure that everything you wash is completely free of germs, you can buy a laundry sanitizer.
Just buy one that doesn’t contain bleach, as it might damage some types of fabric. We all know how frustrating it is to ruin our clothes during laundry.
