Cleaning is hard and dirty work, but someone has to do it. If that someone is you, there’s a good chance you’re like many others out there who have their list of tasks that they don’t mind too much and the ones that they leave until they absolutely cannot be ignored any longer. While it may not make it any more fun to get those dreaded duties done, the following tips will at least make it easier to accomplish things like tile and grout, kitchen and carpet cleaning.
Carpets
There’s no getting around the fact that carpet cleaning takes time, effort and money, and this is why it often goes neglected. Pulling out the vacuum might be a breeze, and it’s probably a weekly chore that you handle without too much complaint, but maintaining clean carpets goes way beyond vacuuming. If you have more than one room with carpet, heavy foot traffic, children and/or pets and carpeted stairs, getting your floors really clean may feel like a hopeless cause. That’s why this particular responsibility should just be left in the hands of a professional carpet cleaner at least once a year. You can rest assured the job will be done thoroughly by an experienced technician that will cover all the nooks and crannies, lift stains you thought would never come out and cost less than renting a low quality machine.
Toasters, Ovens and Microwaves
Toasters, ovens and microwaves experience a lot of use daily. After all the meals and snacks that are prepared in each of these appliances, it’s necessary for them to be periodically decrumbed and washed out no matter how gross it is revisiting remnants of dinner from a couple days ago.
For toasters, you can easily dump the crumbs out, and for toaster ovens, it helps to heat water in a container at 350 degrees in the oven to soften up anything that needs to be scraped out. Cleaning the inside of a conventional oven will be less difficult if you think ahead and use foil lining under the layers for all the crumbs and extra food particles to land, and when it comes to the racks, consider leaving a bowl of ammonia and a pot of hot water on the top and bottom racks overnight to loosen up caked on food before attempting to scrub them clean. If you look in your microwave and see signs of food splatter, it’s well past time to put a bowl of lemon water and cut lemons into the microwave and turn it on for five minutes to allow all the gunk to break down before you start wiping it out.
Refrigerators
Tackling the areas underneath and behind the refrigerator are likely to make you cringe just thinking about it. Who knows what’s under and back there? Unfortunately, it has to be done since the accumulation of dust can inhibit your fridge from working properly and eventually end up ruining the finish on the floor as well. Pull the refrigerator out from the wall and get back there with an inexpensive coil brush to remove dust, and then vacuum and mop the floor with a suitable solution.
Tile and Grout
Tile looks really nice when it’s clean, but when it starts to show evidence of dirt, mildew and stains, it’s another story. Scraping buildup off of tile and grout can be a nightmare since most things tend to soak in with grout being such a porous material. The best approach to tile and grout cleaning is to not put it off for long periods of time and to have a sealer applied to keep liquids from penetrating through to where it can’t fully be dried out.
These are some of the most important but also dreaded household chores for a lot of people, but if you stay on top of your carpet cleaning, prevent tile and grout buildup and routinely clean these parts of the kitchen, it will make the work much less distressing for you in the long run.
