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Haley's Cleaning Hints

Green This! Volume 1: Greening Your Cleaning

Sink Reflections

Green Clean: The Environmentally Sound Guide to Cleaning Your Home

A scented candle won’t fix everything.

Housecleaning shouldn’t just be an annual affair. Regular maintenance not only makes your home a healthier and more relaxing place to live—it also saves you a lot of money and effort in the long run. So grab a dust mop and learn about:

Time-saving cleaning tricks and tips for every room in your home
Tools and supplies that make any tidying task a breeze
Secrets to dusting and cleaning your walls, floors, and windows

Household Cleaning Basics

Whether you’re caring for a space that’s 5,000 square feet or 500, the fundamental reasons to keep it neat and clean are the same.

Why Keep a Clean Home?

A good-looking space can bring pleasure to the eye and peace to the mind. It can also prevent health problems and save you money later on.

Household Cleaning and Health

A dirty home is more likely to cause illnesses and/or injuries than a clean home.

Bacteria: Bacteria thrive wherever dirt and moisture are present. By keeping your house clean, you rob bacteria of the conditions they need to survive. You also reduce the likelihood of household bacteria making you or your family sick.
Allergens: Household dust is a perfect home for dust mites, which can cause or aggravate allergies and asthma. Eliminating dust drastically reduces these and other household allergens.

Household Cleaning and Cost Savings

Whether you own or rent your home, keeping it clean can save you money in the long run.

If you own your home: Protecting your floors, countertops, walls, and all other surfaces against damage reduces the amount of money you’ll spend on regular maintenance and repairs. In addition, potential buyers value well-maintained homes, and the owners of such homes may be able to fetch a better price if and when the time comes to sell.
If you rent: Most landlords charge a cleaning fee based on the condition in which renters leave the rental property. Keeping a rental clean means you won’t have to spend as much time or money cleaning up before you go. You also won’t have to pay your landlord an excessive cleaning fee.

How to Speed Up Your Cleaning Routine

Though keeping a clean home is important, it doesn’t mean that the cleaning process should take forever. To clean your home quickly, follow these guidelines:

Get the right tools: Cleaning goes more quickly if you use the proper tools (see Household Cleaning Tools).
Don’t clean what isn’t dirty: Clean sinks, toilets, and food-prep areas thoroughly, but feel free to skip other areas in the house if they are already in good shape.
Clean one room at a time: Rather than doing one task in all the rooms of your house (such as vacuuming), you’ll be more efficient if you clean room-by-room, moving on to the next when you’ve finished the last.
Work top to bottom: If you mop the floor before dusting the ceiling, then all the dust you’ve removed from the ceiling will land on your newly mopped floor. Cleaning from top to bottom ensures that you won’t have to repeat any steps.
Clean regularly: The longer you wait to clean, the more difficult the task will be. It takes only a few seconds to wash a dirty dish right after you use it, but it takes longer to wash after the food on it has dried. If you clean on a regular basis, you’ll spend less time doing so in the long run.

Follow a Cleaning Routine

Not all cleaning tasks require the same amount of time or regularity. The following schedule will help you focus just the right amount of attention on each cleaning project in your home.

Daily Cleaning Tasks

Clean food-prep areas
Eliminate clutter (put away shoes, toys, and bags; gather up and throw away any trash)
Make beds
Sort and file mail and other paperwork
Wash dishes
Wipe counters