by Susan Rice -

How To Clean Your Toilet Without Grossing Out

A whole lot of people tend to freak out or even gross-out when it comes to cleaning their toilet. And seriously, who could blame them! It’s probably the nastiest place that in the entire house especially if you got kids (more problem with boys for sure with all the missing of the target!). When it comes to cleaning your toilet, it’s all just a mental thing mostly. You can clean a toilet in less than about five minutes. All you need it to be prepared and make a routine out of the whole process.  Heres a few steps you need to take to get things going.

Step 1 – Get Your Mind Right

Like I mentioned before. Cleaning a toilet just sounds gross and the whole idea of doing will keep many from actually doing it. Look, if you got kids, you probably changed their diapers am I right? You’ve had to touch the nasties and grossest of all things and dealt with some horrific smells too.  Cleaning a toilet is nowhere near and gross or as time-consuming. First off, all you need is a good set of cleaning gloves to get you going. A thick set of gloves will prevent you from physically having to touch the toilet at all.  Do this before anything else. Grab those glove and put them on. Also, toilets are made of ceramic. Ceramic is probably the least sticky and stain resistant stuff ever! Isn’t a surprise that they chose that for toilets? So whatever is currently stuck on the toilet will come off with ease.

Step 2 – Get Your Gear Ready

All you’re going to need to clean your toilet is those gloves we just mentioned, toilet cleaner, a toilet brush (preferably one with an angled end to it for reaching underneath the bowl), cleaning and disinfecting spray with bleach, and some plain old paper towels. That’s pretty much it. You don’t need anything crazy or even to block off your day for cleaning. All you need is about 5 minutes.

Step 3 – Get Cleaning

Okay, it’s time to get moving and grooving here and slip those rubber gloves on. Start with the toilet cleaner. Spray the toilet cleaner inside the bowl making sure to get deep underneath the rim of the bowl. Let the chemical sit there to help break down all the grime and deposits that like to form up underneath there.  Next, spray starting from the top of the toilet and all the way down and start to whip away everything with your roll of paper towels. Use as many as you need. Make sure you wipe away every part of the toilet. This includes the toilet seat itself and underneath it too. Make sure you wipe the hinges too and if there is any build upon them, use your toilet brush to break it all up and then wipe it away. Make sure you sprayed all the way to the bottom of the toilet and also the base and wipe everything through. Once you’re done, toss all of the paper towels in the trash and move onto the toilet bowl itself.

Step 4 – Clean The Toilet Bowl

As you were spending time spraying and disinfecting your toilet, you had that toilet bowl cleaner working its magic and slowly start to break down all the grime and deposits that can build up under the rim. Use your toilet brush to start to scrub underneath the rim and all around the bowl. Use the water inside the toilet (hopefully you did flush it before you started!) to keep rinsing the brush as you continue to scrub and clean away. Once you are done, flush the toilet once or twice to get all the cleaner off of it. Clean your toilet brush inside the newly flushed water and then let it sit in the bathtub or inside the little brush holder a lot of these toilet brushes come with these days.

That’s it! That’s all it takes to clean a toilet. The more often you do it, the less mess will build up and the faster you can do the job the next time around. Oh yeah, and it will also keep you from grossing out again.

by Susan Rice -

Cleaning Behind Your Range or Oven

There are a few places in your house where you really can’t get down to do some real deep cleaning. Go ahead name a spot for me? There are so few that you could probably count them on one hand. You know, things like the windows and window sills, dryer vents, rain gutters, and a place you don’t really put too much thought into. And that is behind your range or oven.

So here, we’re gonna go through a simple process to clean behind your gas range.

First Thing To Cleaning Behind Your Stove

The very first thing you gotta realize is that pulling out your range is really not all that difficult to do. It’s weird. There are a bunch of people that think that a stove or range is just pretty much “set” in its spot. They think it can’t or doesn’t move. Well, I’m here to tell you that you can move that bad boy outta there anytime you please! they’re designed to move out with ease! All you have to worry about is to make sure is not set into a groove on the floor. Some kitchens have a slight cut out for the range but for the most part, they set the level to the rest of the kitchen floor.

Just get down on your knees to look down there and see what’s cooking down there. They got feet just like a washer. So your first step to cleaning behind your range or oven is to simply pull it out. Don’t worry about the gas line behind it. 99% of them have a flexible supply line that will kinda look like an accordion. Again, it’s designed to pull out.

Once You Pull Out Your Range Or Oven, Unplug and Disconnect

Once you realize that you can pull it out, pull it out enough to unplug the power. You will see a valve for the gas line, switch it off. Bust out your toolbox and dig through till you find the needed sized wrench and unscrew the gas hook up. Now you can pull it out all the way! That open area is wide open to work and clean up!

Get ready! you’re going to see some nasty, nasty stuff up against the wall and down the sides of where the range sits. Things like pancake batter, old scrambled eggs, grease and grime and things you cooked up back when you started up that vegetarian diet. It’s gonna be a mess! But hey, ain’t that why we’re pulling it out and cleaning? Let’s get cleaning!

Get Your Cleaning Supplies Ready

The first thing you’ll need to do is grab a broom and get sweeping. The first thing you’re going to want to do is to grab up all of the large debris and crud that’s been sitting under for God knows how long. Next, use every cleaning chemical you can use to spray up along the three walls you have to clean. Use degreasers, bleach cleaners, sponges, rags, and paper towels to scrub and clean everything you can. You might be there a while but it ain’t no big deal. You won’t have to get back there and clean for around a year or so after that.

Time To Get Things Hooked Back Up

Can you believe that there are services that charge $150 to $200 for what you just did? What I mean is, pulling out and disconnecting a range from a wall and setting another one in its place, except you’re just putting the old one right back. You’re a freaking pro now!

Now that the old range spot is sparkling clean, it’s time to put the range back and hook it all up. Slide it slowly back to its spot but not all the way. Use some Teflon tape to reapply it to the threading of the gas line. Use the same wrench you used before to screw the gas line back on. Turn on the gas line. Use a little bit of soapy water and a sponge to spread a little of it on the valve to make sure there are no leaks. Usually, you can smell it, but use this to make sure. Pug it back in and push it all the way back. That’s it! That’s all there is to learn how to clean behind your range or oven. Like I said earlier after you do it once, you probably won’t have to clean it for about a year or so.

Special thanks to Paso Robles House Cleaning for these valuable tips. You can visit them at their website at www.prhousecleaning.com

by Susan Rice -

Why You Need To Clean Carpets Regularly

You are probably not even aware, but the single dirtiest thing in your home may actually appear to be clean every time you look at it. You walk on it. You play with your kids on it. You relax in it. You guessed it, it’s the carpet that covers your entire home. Nothing in your house collects more dust, more pollens, more allergens than the carpet in your home.

 

For this simple reason alone, you should have your carpets in your home professionally steam cleaned at least twice a year. You see, vacuuming alone doesn’t get rid of all that dust, pollen, allergens, and other debris that is buried deep into the fibers of your carpet. By no means, does this mean you should neglect the weekly vacuuming you should continue to be doing, but steam cleaning your carpets two times a year is the best thing you can do for your carpet?

Steam cleaning carpets help break down the deep down dirt that goes deep into the layers of your carpet. When dirt gets deep into the fibers of your carpet they begin to act as a sort of sandpaper that grinds away at the glue and gels that connect the actual fiber to the underlining part of the carpet that it connects to. The longer you wait to really penetrate the fibers with a professional steam cleaning vacuum the more dirt and grim will settle in. The more that stuff settles in, and the more walking, running, playing, and all the other activities that you do on your carpet, the more it starts to break it up and actually loosen up the fibers. This, of course, leads to carpets being ruined sooner than their intended lifespan.

Another huge reason to clean your carpet regularly is due to the fact that the carpet in the home basically becomes a gigantic air filter in the home. It collects dust, pollen, allergens and believe it or not, the dead skin cells that come off of your body. Amazingly, the vast majority of the dust that piles up on furniture is actually the dead skin cells off of the bodies of the people living in the home. It is disgusting, but a real fact of life. Nature, in all of its amazing wonder, has, of course, thought up of a solution. It created little critters called dust mites.

Dust mites are a microscopic organism that feeds on the skin cells that fall off of our bodies. Oh, and these things are everywhere. They are on your carpet, your clothes, your sheets and blankets on your bed, and on your bed eating away while you sleep! As gross as that may sound it really isn’t that bad. They are naturally there and for 99.9% of human beings, they do no harm whatsoever to them.

There is a small percentage that can become allergic to them, or it may seem that way. What that small percentage of people become allergic to is actually the feces that these little buggers drop off! Isn’t that just gross!? It is what it is!

It is what it is!

The best way to combat this is by simply steam cleaning your carpets on a regular basis to lower the number of dust mites that breed in it. You will never get rid of all of them. They are actually needed. But minimizing the number that breed will help those that have allergic reactions to them

These are just some of the reasons you should clean your carpet about 2 times a year by a professional carpet cleaner.

We want to give a special shout-out to the folks over at Santa Maria House Cleaning for giving us tips on cleaning. Visit them at www.housecleaningsantamaria.com and if you need house cleaning services in the area call them right up! They’ll be happy to serve you!

by Susan Rice -

Tips to Keep Your Kitchen Clean

Of all the rooms in everyone’s home, there is no room that gets dirtier faster than the kitchen. Here are a few tips to keep your kitchen clean especially after you’ve done a deep cleaning, to begin with.

Tip Number 1 To Keep Your Kitchen Clean –

Always, and I mean always, keep up with your dishes. Dishes pile up in a hurry, especially with a lot of people in a household. The main thing to do here is to always keep up with them. First off, make sure you’ve done the dishes the day before and have placed them all away that morning. Make it a routine. Make it a rule for yourself as well as everyone else living in your house to always rinse of any dish, glass, cup, and utensil that is used and place it in the dishwasher right away. If everyone does this routinely, there should never be a single dish in the sink. At the end of the day, place the soap in and fire up the dishwasher, even if it isn’t full. Next morning, empty out the dishes and put them away and repeat the process. Doing this will eliminate all dirty dishes from ever being in sight.

Tip Number 3 To Keep Your Kitchen Sparkling –

Always wipe down all your counters. We recommend using things like Clorox cleaning wipes or things like it. This includes all the kitchen counters, the stove, the microwave, the table, and things like that. It really doesn’t take much. Do this after dinner preferably as it’s when most of the time that people no longer are going to be in the kitchen (in theory of course!). Wipe down the stove by removing the grates first. Wipe down the front of the microwave and the inside of it. Wipe down all the countertops and table. The reason we want you to use disposable cleaner’s wipes is that it’s a lot more convenient to use and easier to get cleaning right away. With a spray bottle and paper towels, you’ll get lazy and want to put it off till later. The key is consistency. We are all busy. So, by having a cleaning wipe dispenser nearby always make it easy to reach for and get cleaning right away.

Step Number 3 For A Clean Kitchen –

Always sweep up your kitchen floor. Do this nightly before you finish things up in your kitchen. You don’t always have time to mop up the kitchen floor but you need to keep all crumbs, foods, dirt, and grime off the floor. With time, all that stuff can get ground up onto the floor and make it a whole lot tougher to clean later. A simple sweep and pick up things off the floor is all you need to keep your kitchen clean.

Step Number 3 To Keep A Kitchen Clean –

Anything that is pulled out of the fridge, the cupboards, or pantry must always be put back. How many times is something taken out like a box of chips, a box of cereal, a carton of milk or just about anything else and just left out on the counter? Does it get old? Make it a rule that everyone, and we mean EVERYONE must put back what they pulled out. If you allow this, everything is just placed wherever and spread out every which way. It’s unacceptable and leaves your kitchen looking disorganized and messy.

To keep a kitchen clean requires a bit of teamwork and some disciplined rules set in place for everyone in the household. Give it time and the routines will start to flow. Makes sense to do so. You have to do the best you can to keep the dirtiest room in the house the cleanest. These tips were brought to you by our friends over at junkremovalsalinas.com out of Salinas California.

by Susan Rice -

Cleaning Tips To Keep Your Home Nice & Tidy – For Morning People

Keeping your home nice and tidy is really not all that difficult to do. All you have to do is start to create some habitual normal everyday habits. And all you have to do is start with little things. Once you start the little things with keeping your home nice and tidy bigger and larger projects are easier to tackle and take care of. So here’s a quick list of some tips that you can do to keep your house nice and tidy before you head off to work every morning. Set an extra 15 minutes aside every morning and you should be able to get this done.

Making your bed every morning is a great habit to get started with. Nothing starts your day off better than knowing you have a clean crisp made the bed when you come home at night. There is a huge reason why the military is extremely strict on soldiers making their beds every morning. It creates discipline and structure. It also builds up a great deal of pride. Not only that, when you really sit there and think about it, it should only take you about 2 to 3 minutes to get it done. So as soon as you jump out of bed, take the time to make it before you jump into the shower.

Number two – Wash Your Dishes

Once you’re in the kitchen eating breakfast and getting things ready to go to work, load up your dishwasher with all of your dirty dishes. Clean out the sink and hand wash any dishes that did not fit in the dishwasher. Clean out your sink and fire up the dishwasher so all of your dishes are nice and clean when you get home from work. Nothing feels greater than coming home to eat dinner and cook up a meal on nice clean pots and pans.

Number three – Take Out Your Trash

Here’s an easy one, take out your trash. Look every morning at every trash can in your home and see if they need to be thrown out. If you follow this routine every day then you probably won’t have much to throw out. Grab the tiny trash out of your bathroom, your bedroom, and throw it all in with the kitchen garbage. Take out the trash, set up a new cartridge bag, and you’re good to go. This is always a great idea since sometimes garbage can start to stink up your house if you leave it in there too long.

Number four – Get Rid Of All Your Junk Mail

This probably goes hand-in-hand step number 3. Every day that you come home you probably check your mailbox and inside every mailbox in the United States of America, it is absolutely loaded with junk mail. One of the worst habits we all have is that we bringing this junk mail and set it on the coffee table or kitchen table. We tend to let it start to pile up and before you know it you got a mountain of junk mail you got to go through. So every day, go through all of your mail and quickly discard all junk mail and all mail that you don’t need anymore. This starts to create a great habit.

So those are some quick and simple steps you can start to take to keep your home nice and tidy every morning before you head off to work. Now, these steps are designed for those individuals that consider themselves to be “morning people”. If you are not a morning person and more of a night owl then all you have to do is to sort of following these steps in reverse. Except, of course, making your bed. Until next time, keep where you live nice and tidy.

This post was brought to you by our friends over at the Cleaning Services in Santa Maria, CA. You can visit them and learn more about their cleaning techniques at www.cleaningservicessantamaria.com

by Susan Rice -

Common Misconceptions about House Cleaning Services

What motivates you to do what you do? What motivates you to seek professional services? The truth of the matter is that there are different reasons as to why we choose to hire professional home cleaning services. The obvious reason is usually to ensure our homes remain tidy and neat. The difference lies in the motivation. It’s important to note that people have incorrect notions and perceptions about professional home cleaning companies.

You’ll get to hear many things about these professionals and their service. Probably there’s something you heard from a friend, and it has been keeping you away from hiring home cleaning services for a couple of years now. You know that your home needs to be cleaned by professionals, but you’ve been hesitant all this time due to some of the reasons listed below. It’s time you learned the truth and started enjoying the benefits of working with a professional cleaning service. Here are the common myths you’ll hear about home cleaning companies.

Hiring a Professional Home Cleaning Service is Costly

If you were to start counting or taking statistics of the number of home cleaning companies out there today, you’d be surprised. We have many cleaning companies offering professional home cleaning services. You’ll find different companies offering services at varying prices. Some will charge you high while other surprisingly low. It all depends on the quality of service being offered. Note that there are other companies that wait to scam on unsuspecting customers. If you want to get professional and quality home cleaning services at a reasonable cost, do your research well. Get recommendations or search the internet and see reviews. Get it right in your research.

My Valuable Items Will Be Broken or Go Missing

A friend might have hired the wrong professionals who ended up getting away with her valuables or even breaking some of them. As mentioned. You must hire a reputable home cleaning company if you want to get quality services and safeguard your home. Remember these companies rely on their reputation, and there’s no way they’ll mess up with your property or valuables. A reputable company will provide you with insurance and a money-back guarantee to ensure everything works out fine without damaging your items.

Home Cleaners Use Toxic Cleaning Products

In most cases, such statements will come from someone who was either scammed or hired someone who purported to be a home cleaner. Professional home cleaners use eco-friendly options for cleaning homes, and they won’t damage your property. They can also use your preferred product if you want.

Home Cleaning Companies Usually Cut Corners

This may sound true for those who hired freelancing cleaners. As already highlighted, all you need to do is to hire the right individual for the job. Once you’ve hired the person, provide him with a cleaning checklist to ensure every area is cleaned well to your satisfaction. It’s important that you discuss in detail what you need.

Home Cleaning Services are Meant for Lazy People and is a Luxury

Hiring professional services has nothing to do with luxury. When there’s an electrical fault in your home, you’ll need to look for an electrician. When you need your home deep cleaned, look for a professional cleaning service. That’s how it works. Understand that there’s nothing luxurious about having a professional clean your home. It’s also has nothing to do with being lazy. Your busy schedule doesn’t allow you to clean your home properly. That where professionals come in to help.