The surefire way to prevent disease in your home is to keep it clean at all times. De-germing a house, however, can seem a monumental task – how do you sanitize everything, even from tiny bugs you can’t see? Luckily, doctors, microbiologists, and professional cleaners have worked for years to figure out the best ways to keeping a germ-free house, and we’re here to share those tips with you today.
Keep Up With Kitchens
Almost every kitchen on the planet has some sort of germs in it. From raw meats to dirty dishes, the kitchen is a breeding ground for pests and germs, unless you’re already cleaning it rigorously. Cleaning a kitchen, however, is more than wiping it down every week.
Consider every surface that touches bacteria. Your countertops, for example, can easily become sponges for raw meat juices from your cutting board or carry a layer of grime from dirty dishes. Luckily, this is an easy fix – simply wash your counters every day with soap, water, and possibly an antibacterial cleaner such as bleach, ammonia, or antibacterial wipes.
Your kitchen sink is another area of the house that needs sanitation. First, make sure you’re wiping down your sink every couple of days at minimum. A bleach solution washed around the edges and rinsed down the drain is a great way to disinfect quickly and easily. Your dish sponge is probably germy itself – one common trick for disinfecting a kitchen sponge is to fill it with soapy water and put it in the microwave for a few minutes. Just don’t put a dry sponge in the microwave – that’s a fire hazard waiting.
Sanitize the Bathroom
You already know to expect a bathroom to be disgusting, there’s no getting around it. You can minimize the germ factor by taking a few precautions to heart.
When you flush a toilet, “toilet plume” of aerosolized water floods into the air. Think about all the surfaces in your bathroom, then think about how they’re all covered in this water. One way to mitigate this is to flush with the toilet lid down, but you may also want to hide away certain items, like toothbrushes, in the cabinets when you aren’t using them.
Speaking of your toothbrush, if you aren’t drying it properly – or cleaning it – it’s harboring a massive amount of germs. The human mouth contains more bacteria than almost any part of the body, and that’s making its way onto your toothbrush after brushing. Keep your toothbrush upright in a glass when drying, and there are a couple of ways to disinfect it after a few uses. The easiest way is to dip it into a container of alcohol-based mouthwash.
Wash Up for a Clean Bedroom
There’s no getting around it – you need to clean your sheets. Sleeping in the same sheets night after night means your sheets become covered in oils, dirt, dead skin, and bacteria. The only way to clean them is to throw them in the laundry at least once a week.
Keeping your home germ-free isn’t impossible, but it does take diligence and regular upkeep.
Additional Resources:
https://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20412100,00.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/best-ways-kill-bacteria-viruses-home-2016-3#he-sanitizes-his-kitchen-sponge-after-every-use-4
https://www.famifi.com/3234/4-ways-to-maintain-a-germ-free-home
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/de-germing-your-house-words-to-the-wise/
