Guide to Keeping Your House Clean
If cleaning the house seems like one big chore, you’re probably doing it wrong. Before you put off cleaning for yet another month, here are some ways to make housework a comfortable and even enjoyable part of your daily routine.
Start small
If you begin and end each day with a little picking up, you’ll never get swamped with housework again. Keeping a clean house begins with good habits like making your bed every morning and cleaning the dishes while you cook. Nobody wants to navigate through a minefield of yesterday’s mess to make coffee, so never allow yourself to fall asleep with dirty dishes or a disheveled living room
Enjoy yourself
Even the most reviled of household chores can be enjoyable if you have some headphones or a portable speaker. Truth be told, cleaning the house is a hidden source of me time that you’ll eventually learn to love.
For example, if you think vacuuming kind of sucks, listen to an energetic playlist of your favorite songs and sway to the music like nobody’s watching. If you haven’t had much time to read lately, listen to audiobooks and podcasts while you do the dishes. If you’re a parent and miss watching movies and shows without singing princesses, prop up your phone or tablet and use some wireless headphones to do a little binge-watching. Yay for chores!
Simplify your chore list
Rather than making a never-ending list of unattainable projects, break it up into manageable, bite-sized pieces. Get a blank sheet of paper and make four columns: Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly. Everyday chores like making the bed, picking up the house and doing the dishes can go in the Daily column. Chores like vacuuming and dusting can go in either the Weekly or Monthly column, depending on what’s realistic for your lifestyle. Reserve the Yearly column for big projects like cleaning the oven, shampooing the carpet and wiping down the fan blades.
THE LAZY GENIUS GUIDE TO CLEANING YOUR HOUSE
It feels easier to burn it down than to clean it sometimes. So much dust, so little time. Necessary arson, you guys. But even so, in the fire, we’d lose the charts we never checked off and the homemade cleaner that smelled of Easter eggs and sadness.
Know your angles.
Right now, your perspective towards cleaning is likely volatile and antagonistic. Dirt is the enemy, and it’s winning the war. Sometimes, I feel like the dirt in my house is toying with me; it’s a psychological predator.
It feels like we can’t win, so what’s the point? Just pseudo-clean when people are coming over, and let that be the routine, right? Maybe. But if you aren’t in the habit of inviting people over, you might reach arson mode quicker than you’d like
We see cleaning as a utilitarian drudgery, but if we shift our perspective to keeping the home instead of cleaning the house, we allow ourselves the chance to recognize the good parts. Decide what clean means for you, redefine cleaning as replenishing good things, and keep in mind why home is a place you love to be. Those principles along with seven others can reignite an appreciation for the domestic without turning you into June Cleaver.
Prioritize the emotional.
The bigger your house, the more there is to do, but even if you live in a studio apartment, a robust list of cleaning tasks are vying for priority. What do you do first? What’s the most important use of your limited cleaning time?
A Guide to Tipping House Cleaners
If you hire someone to clean your home, you may be wondering: How much should I tip my house cleaner? What about at Christmas? Should you tip even if you’re not happy with the work? These and other questions you may have about tipping house cleaners will be answered in the rest of the article.
What does it cost to hire a house cleaner?
If you hire a house cleaner through a company, you may pay between $20 and $45 per hour. It’s a good idea to investigate more than one cleaning company to compare prices. An individual house cleaner may charge less an hour because they don’t have the overhead that a large company does
How Much to Tip House Cleaners?
To decide how much to tip house cleaners depends partly on the way you employ them in the first place. You might hire a house cleaner directly, or through an agency. Some agencies pay minimum wage, while others pay more and don’t allow tipping.
If you hire a cleaning person directly for a one-time cleaning or if you want them to clean infrequently, tipping between $10 to $20 a cleaning is fair. But, if you hire your home cleaner directly and use them year round, a cash bonus or a gift at the end of the year is appropriate. The bonus should be the equivalent of one week’s pay.
If you hire through an agency and they only pay minimum wage, a tip for cleaning is appreciated. This is how the house cleaner makes a little extra money. The general rule is to tip between $10 to $20 per service. In fact, most agencies rely on people paying a house cleaner a tip to get them over the minimum wage hump.
Tips & Tricks for Clean Hotel Rooms
Forget uncomfortable beds, poor service, or itchy bathrobes: hotel guests are most likely to be put off by poor housekeeping. guests never expect to be greeted by dirt, hair, or dust in their room, and complaints or negative reviews are understandable if this does happen. And, given that the majority of customers will read online reviews before booking a hotel these days, that can pose a real threat to your business.
Clearly, an effective housekeeping strategy needs to be a top priority for any hotelier. In this guide, we’ll show you how to properly clean your rooms and bathrooms, as well as share some tips for impressing your guests
This guide will cover:
What are the duties of housekeeping in a hotel
Creating a housekeeping strategy
How to clean a hotel room: a step by step guide
How to clean a hotel bathroom: a step by step guide
Cleaning products, equipment, and supplies
What are the duties of housekeeping in a hotel?
Good housekeeping is an invisible service, in that guests only really take notice of it when your team fails to deliver the expected standard of cleanliness. A hotel room could play host to hundreds of different guests each year, but no guest wants their room to feel used, which is why it’s the role of your housekeeping staff to ensure that there is no evidence of any previous occupants, and that every room is completely clean from top to bottom
Creating a housekeeping strategy
If you want your guest bedrooms to be as clean as possible, you’ll need to have an effective housekeeping strategy in place. That means working out how many staff you need to employ per shift and creating a checklist for them to follow in each area to ensure cleaning standards are met.
Point checklist when booking home cleaning services
Deep cleaning your home from time to time is important. Many people opt for these services before a major festival, such as Diwali or Christmas, or a big family event, such as a wedding. And with the festive season coming up, you too may now look to avail of such a service
Expense: While everyone likes to get the best service on offer, the price may at times become a constraint. Different people have different budgets to work with. So, you must take out your calculator, do the math and see exactly how much you want to spend on cleaning activity. House deep cleaning prices depend on several factors, such as the number of rooms to be cleaned, number of cleaners required, type of equipment used and cleaning products or chemicals used. As a result, different home cleaning service providers offer varying rates. So, take some time and compare the best deals available to you. Do speak to at least three cleaning service providers to find the best deal.
Services offered: Next, and very importantly, you have to see what services are on offer. You may have a specific requirement, like deep cleaning beds and couches, or you may need to go in for a complete deep cleaning of the entire house. Check to see what services are offered by the cleaners of your choice. For example, if you are opting for a bathroom cleaning service, you must look for the exclusions and inclusions. Check the fine print to see whether or not the tub cleaning services are included. If you are not satisfied with the package or the individual home cleaning services offered, look for a different service provider.
Time: Next, you should ascertain how much time the cleaners will take to complete the job. You may need to ask them to spread the job over a couple of days if it takes too long or you can choose to have it done all in one day. So speak to the cleaners beforehand to understand exactly how long the service will take. You may need to plan your own schedule accordingly and make the necessary arrangements to fit in the cleaning service in your busy schedule. For example, if you are also planning to get pest control done, the cleaning job will have to be completed prior to that. So, check whether the timing is correct before booking a home cleaning service.
Safety: You must check whether the products used in cleaning the house are safe for your children and pets. Speak to the service provider and ask them about this. These days, most of the products used are safe and free of harmful chemicals. However, there may be a few cleaners who use industrial chemicals to do the job. Be clear about these things and if needed, move your pets and kids to a neighbour or friend’s house for the time being. Also, if any member of the family is allergic to any specific item, inform the cleaners or ask the family member to vacate the house for the duration of the cleaning. If, however, the service providers promise to use only natural and safe products to clean the house, you can have every one stay in the house while the cleaning takes place.