Monthly Archives: April 2021

Home and office cleaning

A Breath of Fresh Air: Allergy & Asthma Cleaning Tips

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It’s spring cleaning time again! And although most people associate this yearly ritual with doing “a full sweep” of their home from floor to ceiling to get things fresh and ready for the warm weather months, there’s actually a very good reason beyond just neatness and cleanliness to pull out the mops and wring out the sponges: eliminating your home of allergens, particularly for those suffering from allergies and asthma. Spring cleaning is about health and hygiene, too!

Luckily, we no longer have to beat our rugs with a broom or air out our linens over a clothesline or tie rags to poles to wash down the walls like our grandmothers did. These days, we have an array of convenient and affordable products and tools at our disposal to help us swiftly and successfully dispose of allergy- and asthma-inducing agents, including disposable wipes, replaceable wet/dry mop cloths, spray disinfectants, lightweight vacuums, and rentable steam cleaners. So set aside a weekend to attend to a top-to-bottom spring cleaning to keep your household both sanitized and safe.

Here are some tips to make the best use of your time in the most targeted areas, starting with two things to keep in mind: (1) make sure the cleaning products you use aren’t allergy or asthma triggers themselves and (2) if you’d rather keep that weekend to yourself, call in a professional company to tackle your spring cleaning for you!

  • Ceilings: Take advantage of extension rods and poles to wipe down your ceilings and loosen the dust and cobwebs lurking in corners and crevices. You don’t have to capture every last bit with your mop or vacuum attachment—you can sweep up anything that falls to the floor later.
  • Walls: Next, proceed to your walls, using a dampened dust mop to wipe them all clean, starting from the top and swiping downward. Again, you can later vacuum up anything that falls to the floor.
  • Nooks & Crannies: Now it’s time to manually reach wherever and whatever you didn’t already capture—spaces behind furniture, in back of the refrigerator, the backs of the shelves in your curio cabinet. You know where those pesky areas are that stay hidden but should still be accessed every now and then!
  • Carpets & Floors: Vacuum all wall-to-wall carpets, area rugs, and throw rugs thoroughly to suck up all the loose debris that’s been collecting in them all winter. If you have wood or tile floors, it’s time to fully mop them. Thereafter, do touch-up vacuuming and mopping weekly to stay on top of everything your family walks upon.
  • Curtains: Once a year, you should remove your curtains and wash them. If that’s not practical or possible for heavy drapes, use your vacuum’s attachments to reach into folds and pleats, where dust is often trapped and overlooked. If heavily soiled, it’s worth a trip to a professional cleaner’s to breathe new life into your window dressings.
  • Linens: Once the curtains are drying, keep the washer running for all your bedding linens in every room. This includes cleaning pillows, mattress pads, and bedskirts. Dust mites love to hide there, so before reassembling your bedding, consider purchasing dust-mite-proof covers for your pillows and mattresses.
  • Knickknacks: All the little things that make a house a home? The statues and figurines, the picture frames and pottery, the souvenirs and collectibles? They can be BIG dust collectors. Turn on some tunes and wipe every single piece of bric-a-brac down with a dust rag or damp cloth. Vinegar works great on glass surfaces.
  • Windows: Save the biggie for last so you can look forward to looking both out of and into your home through gleaming windows once your annual deep cleaning is done. This requires cleaning your windowpanes inside and out since smudges and buildup collect on each side. And don’t forget to remove the screens and hose them down too, getting off all the pollen and outdoor pollutants.

Spring cleaning is a big effort, but it has a big payoff—especially for your family’s respiratory systems. You can do it yourself, or you can call in some experts to help. We’d be happy to be at your service!

Home Services Enterprise  |  301-674-9564  |  www.homeservicesenterprise.com

House cleaning

Cleaning Tips for the Working Professional

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If you’re one of the many professionals juggling a demanding career while still trying to maintain all the demands of home and family, you know how tight time can get and how exhausting an endless list of chores can be. Weekends and after-hours are often filled to the brim as well, and sometimes something’s just got to give, right?

All the more reason to streamline and prioritize wherever you can. You can’t always have dust-free shelves or sparkling appliances or pristine lines on newly vacuumed carpets … but you can concentrate on a few areas and a few tasks that will make the most impact in your house and go the longest way toward longer-term peace of mind and fulfillment.

Here are some ideas of “big ticket” items that will give you a large sense of accomplishment and noticeable, measurable results:

Area of Focus #1: Organize Your Closets. Don’t underestimate just how much lighter and brighter you’ll feel if you finally get those closets in order, particularly your own. Your mornings will go smoother, dressing will be less stressful, and clear open space will replace cluttered and crammed rods and shelves if you devote one solid chunk of time to organizing your bedroom closet. You know those beautiful shoes you’re never going to wear again because they kill your toes? That suit that’s never coming back in style, that dress you haven’t worn in 10 years, those pants you’re never going to fit into again? Time to chuck it all! Sell items of value online, bag up wearable items that can be donated to shelters, charities, or even your friends, and just toss what needs tossing. Clear your closet of anything and everything you don’t actually wear and enjoy—old ratty pajamas, faded tights, pilly sweaters, sneakers with cracked soles, shirts with stains or missing buttons. Out of your closet means out of your way and off of your mind! Forever.

Area of Focus #2: Give Bathrooms a Deep Clean. The least-liked cleaning chore of them all is actually the single-most powerful step you can take to get your house spick-and-span on the foundational level. It’s no surprise that the bathroom holds the most germs, bacteria, mildew, and soap scum in your home. So attending to just this room alone goes a long way and makes a huge difference in all the others. When you scour fixtures and scrub tiles once in a while, you can do touch-ups with cleaning cloths in between, so it’s worth taking a deep dive now so you can just maintain later. The good news? At least the bathroom is the smallest room in the house—make a concentrated effort on Saturday morning and then take the whole rest of the weekend off!

 Area of Focus #3: Move the Furniture. Even when you mop, even when you vacuum, you’re not really getting your floors clean until or unless you move the furniture and big items out of the way to get underneath. Take this extra step to banish the dirt and the dust bunnies from flying around so that what you see and what you don’t see is all fresh and clean. These hidden areas are usually overlooked during routine cleaning, but making this extra effort once a season should be all that’s needed.

Area of Focus #4: Have Your Carpets Professionally Cleaned. And speaking of hidden bothers … Lurking dust mites and a wide array of irritants and allergens take hold in your carpets, draperies, and upholstery and stay there until you forcibly remove them. Investing in a professional steam cleaning (particularly after the winter season) won’t just freshen your whole home, it will literally clear the air, keeping your pets and family members breathing much easier and more healthfully. Again, you don’t have to do this often to get a big bang for your buck!

If you start with just these essentials, the smaller daily stuff won’t seem as overwhelming and you can tackle them in smaller steps, in smaller bursts of time. Want some help? Give us a call today to find out what we can do assist all your cleaning and organizing needs:
Home Services Enterprise  |  301-674-9564  |  www.homeservicesenterprise.com