Are You Making These 10 Cleaning Mistakes

Are You Making These 10 Cleaning Mistakes? I expect that you probably don’t spend your days and lose sleep at night thinking about cleaning and it’s forgivable because you know what that’s my job so in this article I’m gonna go over ten of the biggest cleaning mistakes that I hear people making and I’m going to explain to you from an expert who does think about cleaning / standpoint how to not make those mistakes anymore.

If you have a hard time admitting when you make a mistake there are many rules and regulations that companies have to abide by when they put out a cleaning product plus they want to make sure that when you receive it you’re actually using it in the way that they intended for you to use and what that means is that’s the way that they formulated it and the way that they’ve tested it so companies can’t be held responsible if someone uses their product incorrectly and ruined something so if you pick up a new cleaning product or something that you’re a little bit unfamiliar with it is worthwhile to just flip over the bottle or the package quickly read the instructions and make sure you understand where you’re supposed to use it and how you’re supposed to use it that way you won’t be at risk of ruining any surfaces or spending extra time cleaning something that you wouldn’t otherwise have to hide you let the product do the work for you especially around cold and flu season there seems to be this panic around disinfecting everything and I need to tell you guys everything need not be disinfected in your home.

If you’re in a public space like a hospital a mall an amusement park a school things like that yes proper disinfection methods must be done they have to use very specific products and follow very specific protocols because they’re managing the public’s health when you are at home in your own space with your own germs aside from things that come in like a cold off the flu something like that where you will do special cleaning for that to get rid of it or if there’s an accident say a cat throws up or a child does something in the corner that shouldn’t have happened in that corner sure you can clean it up using proper disinfection methods but on a regular basis soap and water is gonna do the trick if not soap you can use vinegar you can get rid of most stains and dirt using very basic things and that’s what cleaning is all about disinfecting on the other hand is killing harmful bacteria but remember our bodies need a lot of bacteria so that we can stay healthy so you don’t want to kill everything unless there’s a germ that’s come into your home gotten everybody sick yeah go ahead and bring out the disinfectant or if there’s meat juice on your kitchen counter you’re gonna need the disinfectant everything else soap and water a little bit of vinegar and whatever have you that should solve the problem.

Before I got into the cleaning world I had no plans when it came to cleaning I would just go into a room and then start cleaning things randomly I’d spend so much time I’d leave more frustrated than when I started and my results were terrible this is one of the reasons why I tell you guys I hated to clean because I just didn’t know how to do it once I got into cleaning started the business and started doing these videos I realized that understanding how to clean and then having a cleaning plan which is what I now call my free wave system if you guys have been watching clean my space for a while or you’ve read my book you know all about the wave system but essentially it tells you to have a method to your cleaning madness once you nail those three waves and you repeat them and you get familiar with them enough times in your home or in the spaces that you’re cleaning it will totally change the way that you clean no more will you be approaching a room with frustration and sadness you’ll be approaching it with meaning you’ll get your cleaning done quickly you won’t waste time and your results will be better.

Lot of us who don’t understand how to clean something properly in the first place rely upon the cleaning hack to solve the cleaning problem really the approach should be you should know how to clean something properly and then you should find a way to hack it or do it quicker or easier which is really what a hack is if you approach something with that hack mentality first and foremost and you look for a shortcut you’re never going to get the results that you want rather if you know how to clean something and then you look for ways to shave time off or find a more efficient way to do it or a more efficient product or tool that indeed is a cleaning hack and that will save you time, there are often questions about how long to spend cleaning a bathroom or I’ll read what some of you guys do when you are cleaning your bathroom and I hate to say it but I think sometimes you’re over cleaning and that’s actually a good thing because I’m giving you permission to do less work there you go you can have it the most important thing is to know how to clean your bathroom and we have lots of articles on that topic.

But essentially you don’t have to go in with the heavy-duty products and the rubber gloves in the mask and the dish and then that and the disinfectant and the killers like you don’t have to do all of that business to clean your bathroom each and every time because remember it’s not like you’re getting sick and doing your business all over the floors and the counters and in the sink in the shower you’re really not it’s just more a matter of managing the soap scum that builds up in your shower in your tub making sure that you’re disinfecting very specific areas in the bathroom and that you’re shining and polishing things and once you have that in place so you’re not panicking about the germs and over cleaning the bathroom you can actually relax a bit and spend less time doing the dirty work now stainless steel is sort of like skin if you abrade it it’s gonna get scratched the difference is our skin heals stainless steel will not there are ways that you can repair stainless steel in fact you can get stainless steel repair kits online it’s pretty straightforward to do once you have the materials in hand but why would you go out of your way to scratch your stainless steel only to have to repair it what a waste of time just don’t use anything abrasive what I use do but I in the past because I don’t do it more I used a microfiber cloth generally just all-purpose cleaner or a little bit of vinegar or every elements of rubbing alcohol got my marks out and I was good to go.

I want to make a distinction here there is a big difference between masking and odor and killing the odor causing bacteria at the source masking the odor is putting on deodorant killing the bacteria at the source is taking a shower and cleaning under your arms imagine if you decided to never take a shower again and instead just use deodorant all the time that’s exactly what people do when they’re using air fresheners or fabric refreshers in lieu of cleaning a surface for a prolonged period of time now if you’re using it every now and again that’s one thing if you’re using it because you walk into a room and you feel like there’s this smell and I can never get rid of it so I’ll just spray this thing and hopefully the smell will go away that’s where you’re making your cleaning mistake instead you have to find this source of the odor causing bacteria whether it’s a piece of upholstery a pair of shoes and old rugs whatever it is that’s causing the odors and generally it’s a soft surface although it could be you know something that’s spilled in your kitchen like sour milk under your refrigerator you have to find the cause of that odor you have to clean that odor and then you won’t have that smell anymore when companies market appliances cleaning appliances like dishwashers vacuum cleaners or washers and dryers they are marketed to perform all kinds of different cleaning tasks that will save us so much time in so much effort and so much cleaning painting but you know what if we’re not reading the manuals and figuring out how to use those appliances we might as well not spend the money and get the most basic ones because frankly if you’re not sure how to activate the turbocharged washing power on your dishwasher or how to get that sanitary cycle going in your washing machine why bother having the function the the reason these companies have designed these extra features for you is so that you can use them and clean less they’re doing us a favor but we have to be complicit in this relationship as well we have to read those manuals and figure out how to make these she’s hung for us so if you are not acquainted with your washer dryer vacuum cleaner or dishwasher do yourself a favor get the model number go online find your manual I just had to do this for my dishwasher when we film that how to clean your dishwasher article last week figure out exactly how your appliance works.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again all cleaning products are not created equal and even though I talked so frequently about using an all-purpose cleaner because it is kind of this general sell for cleaning it can’t actually do everything it can’t be everything to everybody all the time there are specialty products that exist or different cleaning recipes if you’re into the DIY thing which you probably are because you like clean my space there are different recipes for and different products for different things and if you use an all-purpose cleaner on a surface where say you’re trying to clean glass and get rid of streaks the old purpose cleaner is actually gonna put soap on a very reflective surface where you’re gonna really struggle getting that glass clean so if you don’t understand what the products intended use is you’re gonna actually struggle with getting your surface cleaned properly and in some very rare cases you can even damage a surface if you’re using an all-purpose cleaner where you shouldn’t be for example a leather couch that’s unfinished please don’t ever do that make sure or or untreated wood same thing make sure that any surface that you’re cleaning you understand what the limitations are what you need to clean that surface affected effectively and efficiently I was going to say effectively which is not a word don’t even look it up now your ten tips closer to achieving expert status in your cleaning and that brings me to this week’s comment question which is when you’ve cleaned in the past what have you damaged because you’ve cleaned I will tell you guys because I’m honest and I have no problem saying it when I first started cleaning one of the mistakes I made and this was in my home so don’t worry was I moved a piece of furniture when I was cleaning the floor without having casters or felt sliders on the bottom and I scratched the wood  it sucked but you know what it was a reminder it was a battle scar and now I don’t make that mistake anymore.

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