We all thrive for a home that is overall fresh, tidy, and presentable enough to please a visitor. As most people can say, “The way you run things around your home speaks most of your personality and character.” As not everyone could agree, it is still essential to keep the home tidy as practicality to stay away from pests and the sickness that they may bring.
What to do to tidy up?
To avoid exhausting yourself from cleaning up your home all at once, the need to organize and manage your time and resources will provide your perfect accessibility to a cleaner home environment without even stressing out.
A clean and stress-free home environment is achievable as long as you consider these key tips to do to tidy up:
1. Take out the trash daily.
Whether you are living alone or with someone—there is no denying that trash can creep out from the bin and overflow. We could not take this for granted. Aside from the fact that it reeks of bad smell, the rotting garbage especially in the kitchen or in the bathroom can create nasty fluids or moisture that is a favorite environment for molds and bacteria to grow. How to avoid this? Take out the trash daily.
By simply taking the trash out either nightly or in the morning, you can avoid these horrifying living conditions:
Cockroaches – These crawly bastards will scavenge from the trash, giving them enough source of food and water to infest your kitchen or bathroom.
Mold and mildew – Garbages that may contain perishables and biodegradable are a perfect breeding ground for mold and mildew that may cause sickness and can be very harmful for health.
Odorous Smell – Of course, since we are dealing with the rotting trash, foul and bad odor will prevail especially for areas in the home that don’t have enough airflow or sunlight.
Bacteria – Aside from keeping your home tidy by taking out the trash, you can also make it free from bacteria and germs that may be exposed through the air and surface.
You may not wish for these living conditions to ruin you. By fulfilling these garbage duties can go a long way in maintaining your home to be pest-free and tidy.
2. Keep the sink and the kitchen counters clean dry.
Humidity and moisture is the favorite recipe to invite cockroaches inside your homes. Dark and humid areas are suitable for them to live and survive, as well as the accessibility of water—especially in used sinks or counters—for them to drink when they are thirsty.
Beware of ants and cockroaches
As per the previous entry, pests like cockroaches will thrive from garbage, the next recipe for this disaster is the availability of water. Now looking back at the kitchen and bathroom, both can become ideal places for pests to linger in these areas of the home first. Aside from cockroaches, pests like ants, rodents, mosquitoes, and flies will colonize and infest areas in the home where water is most accessible.
To avoid this: Make it a habit to wipe the kitchen sink dry after using and keep the counter clear from spillage or food scraps to avoid pests and of course, to tidy up.
3. Don’t forget your linens and curtains.
Linens and curtains are always present around the house and could be a breeding ground for dust mites if taken for granted. The walking closet is in check, the shoe rack is may also be planned quaintly on top, but the storage for linens and pillowcase might be stored in a different room or some storage that may also occupy a huge space for heavy duvets, comforter, sheets, or even pillowcases.
- First, these linens have to be stored in an enclosed space that is not exposed to sunlight to avoid dust mites from dwelling.
- Second, make sure your storage is clean and air-tight to make sure you are changing fresh linen.
- Finally, regularly wash and change them to avoid minor to severe allergic reactions, breakouts, and even skin disease to dust mites that congregate on dirty sheets.
4. Store food properly
As food can become an attraction to pests, it is essential to keep our groceries, left overs, and food scraps to be tucked in a place that is less likely to be accessible for pests. Here are helpful ways to achieve this:
- Regularly clean and clear out unnecessary food in the pantry
- Secure airtight bags and containers.
- Seal unfinished snacks or meal leftovers.
- If you plan on eating it later, store it in the fridge and reheat soon.
- Segregate your spices and grains in mason jars or airtight containers.
5. Keep your bathroom dry and odorless
Since deep cleaning the bathroom can become a tedious process, we call for ways that can make it easy for us to maintain and keep up a fresh and nice bathroom to meet our senses. Here are ways to make a cool dry place to seek comfort:
Proper ventilation – Make sure to have a window or a ventilation system that exhausts indoor air to the outdoors.
Allow sunlight and airflow – If you have a window, regularly open it to let the sunlight and airflow penetrate and keep the place dry and cool and not warm, humid, and stinky.
Lid the bin – Sanitary products in the bathroom must also have a bin that has a lid to avoid contaminating the air from bacteria and odor.
Deodorize – Either you store charcoal in one corner, you can also try some disinfecting spray to keep it fresh.
Keep the toilet clean – No, you don’t just close the lid or spray some air freshener. Just a minor scrub and regularly keeping the toilet clear and clean can make a huge difference in eliminating bad bathroom odor.
6. Maintain the lawn.
After the interior of the home, never forget the lawn and yard on the list to seal the real deal. A well-maintained lawn and backyard can go a long way for the following reasons:
Mow once every two weeks – Not only does it look presentable, but it keeps the backyard pests like mosquitoes and bugs from dwelling around the bushes.
Keep the lawn from flooding – Bad design of the gutter or just the lack of dry creek bed in the landscape can greatly affect this. A swampy lawn can also highly attract pests and a breeding ground for molds and mildew.
Naturally, repel pests with plants – Here are plants that may also help you drive away these annoying pests using natural remedies:
- Chamomile – repels flying insect
- Lavender – repels moths, scorpions, water scorpions, fleas, and flies, including mosquitoes
- Oregano – repels many pests
- Rosemary – repels cabbage looper, carrot fly, cockroaches and mosquitoes, slugs, snails, as well as the Mexican bean beetle
Design a lawn with a slope – Here’s a secret, for you to be able to keep a healthy growing grass, you should not allow water to be stuck and overwater your grass. So, the technique is to create a slope to allow gravity to keep the water going to keep your grass and to keep your lawn from mildew bacteria.
It’s a daily thing.
It’s no denying that maintaining a home could be tedious and many may have broken down at some point in their lives because of an underlying situation that has been neglected which later hunts us in the future. By organizing your things more often, by religiously doing 1 chore at a time daily, or by simply dividing the cleaning duties to other house members can lessen the weight on your shoulders.
Remember as one wise man had said, “Cleaning and organizing is a practice, not a project.”