How Often Should You Clean Your House

Feeling overwhelmed with keeping your house clean? Not sure whether you are doing enough?

How often you clean your home will vary, of course by…

Number of people living in your home.
Pets or no pets.
How much time people spend at home.
Where you live.
Your personal tolerance level for dirt and mess.
Any health issues, allergies etc.

How Often Should You Clean Your House?

House cleaning is important for several reasons. It is important for aesthetics, your house just look better when it is clean.

Also removing dirt regularly prolongs the life time of the structure, furniture and décor of your home.

For some of you, the most important reason though, is improving your health or that of family members as well as preventing sickness. Think of the importance of dusting for asthmatics!

Cleaning For Health

There are several areas in the house that should be cleaned often to kill and remove bacteria and molds.

In the kitchen, the following items need cleaning often, either as they are used or an daily basis.

Cutting boards
Coffee maker
Refrigerator, especially areas in contact with uncooked and unwashed food
Kitchen sink and bench tops

Other areas in the home that we may not think about, but need weekly cleaning are:

Bathroom and toilet light switches and door handles
Refrigerator handles
Stove knobs
Microwave handles

The best way to clean light switches is to get a damp soft cloth or antibacterial wipe and wipe them clean.

How Often Should You Dust?

If you have the time, a weekly or fortnightly dust right before you vacuum and mop is a good idea! Use a feather duster or damp cloth.

Have people in your home who are allergic to dust mites? Then weekly dusting is a non-negotiable. Otherwise how often you dust depends on how quickly your house collects dust on surfaces.

Do a quick check in each room by running your finger along a surface. Window sills or the top of drawers or a dresser are good for a dust check. If you are picking up a lot of dust it may be time to get dusting again.

I have found in our house that most surfaces need dusting every 2 to 3 months. (Ok by this time there is a good build up of dust and it is very satisfying to wipe it clean.) Open display shelves in the kitchen I try to dust about every 6 months because it involves taking everything out to wipe them down.

How Long Should You Spend Cleaning Your House Each Day?

How much time do you want to spend cleaning your house each day? For most of us, that’s not much time at all!

Whatever the size of your house and the number of people and pets living there, don’t spend more than a hour cleaning each day.

Here’s some ideas of what to do each day:

Laundry

I do a load of washing every day, including hanging it out and putting away if its dry. Alternatively, you could have a washing day once or twice a week.

Bed linen is changed as needed or about once a month.

Dishes

Dishes are done 2 to 3 times a day. We don’t have a dishwasher. If I want to get them done quickly, I put a timer on for 10 or 15 minutes and see if I can get them done in that time.

At the end of they day hubby make sure all the dishes are done and the sink is clean. It’s so much nicer being greeted by a clean kitchen in the morning than a sink full of dirty dishes!

Tip: Dry the sink, including taps. There is something lovely about looking at a shiny, dry sink!!

Kitchen benches and dining table are wiped as needed. Surfaces get cleared of clutter by the end of each day or everything gets put back in its spot.

The kitchen floor is swept every few days and mopped and vacuumed once a week.

Tip: Don’t have time to mop your whole floors? Grab a damp cloth and do a spot clean. Simply wiping off the dirty marks can make the whole floor look cleaner.

Bathroom

Bathroom gets cleaned once a week though the sink is wiped down every day as it gets wet.

Tips: Keep cloths handy under the bathroom sink to wipe it down when it wet. A quick 30 second task!

Towels are washed about every 2 weeks.

Bedrooms

I make the bed every day! Kids are responsible for making their own beds. We are working on consistency with this one!

Kids are responsible for tidying up and vacuuming their own rooms.

Outside Jobs

I aim to sweep outside the front door ~~once a week~~ when it is dirty I find that if the front entrance to the house is clean (no piles of leaves and spider webs), life feels better!

Dirty hand prints and pet paws on the glass sliding door are similar. Looking at clean glass lifts my spirits! While a grubby glass back door feels like a constant reminder that there are jobs I need to get to. And really wiping the glass down is a 3 minute job.

How many times a year should you deep clean your house?

More Helpful Resources

Linda

Thursday 25th of April 2019

Cleaning requires a certain amount of time. Organizing is time consuming. But if cleaning and organizing is done together it helps ease the pain. Decuttering the clothes closet, not so easy, you have feeling you everything you own. I have found that if I try to wear the items that has not been warn on a while, then if I hate it, or don't like the way it fit or looks. I keep the feeling alive until I to the laundry then I donate the item or throw it out. I kept a kitchen trash big handy in the closet for the donations. One more thing gone. When the bag is full I put it in the car, the back seat not the trunk ( because out of site out of mine). Then I drop the bag off at the donation box.

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