We use the bathroom several times a day, to wash our face, take a shower, brush our teeth, or to do our private business. Since this is the case, how often do you find yourself cleaning this well-used part of the house? In a week? In a month?
The general consensus is, you should clean your bathroom at least once every week, or more often than that, if you like to bathe more than once daily. And we’re not talking about a simple wipe-down or mopping. A deep clean of the bathroom must be performed as often as you feel you should. And that’s only reasonable because according to Soakology in the U.K., there are at least 764 bacteria per square inch of the bathroom floor which is not even the dirtiest part of the room by a long shot. There can be fecal bacteria and mildew lurking on the walls, the glass, faucet handles, and in the grout.
Below, we’re going to give you tips for bathroom cleaning based on how much dirt and bacteria you might want to get rid of. Remember that if you ever don’t feel like cleaning you can always hire a company like maid service Tucson to do the job for you. Just because it looks clean to you doesn’t mean it’s free of harmful germs waiting to touch your skin!
But before that, here are the cleaning essentials you should prepare.
Tools for Cleaning
We all want a clean bathroom. After all, maintaining cleanliness keeps illnesses at bay and is one way to keep everyone in the house strong and healthy. If you keep neglecting to clean the toilet, this can later lead to diseases that might even land you or someone you love in the hospital!
Make sure you keep these items in the house:
- baking soda
- purpose cleaner
- toilet brush
- glass cleaner
- dawn dish soap
- scrub sponge
- cleaning cloths
- bleach
- scrub brush
- white vinegar
- mop
- spray bottles
- protective gloves
- face mask
Tips for Cleaning Bathroom Areas
Floor
Since we already mentioned it, let’s start with the floor. Based on a 2014 study published in the Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal, only 15 percent of the bacteria cultures found on bathroom floors are actually fecal in nature. Most of it are skin-related or came from the outside. It might be a good idea to keep shoes out of the bathroom altogether and to always keep your dirty laundry safe in a hamper. It’s not good to keep your bathroom damp because bacteria loves moisture. Every time you step out the shower and leave a trail of water, make sure to mop the floor. See to it that you dry your bathroom mats out in the sun. And if it wasn’t already part of your system, do yourself a favor and close the toilet lid before you flush.
How to do it
If you have a tiled bathroom floor, the good news is you don’t have to look further than your kitchen cabinet for a cleaning agent. White vinegar will do just the trick. But before you get down to do some scrubbing, remove any loose objects that might stand in your way. Even if you have a washing machine, get it out. It’s important to ensure you deep clean even up to the hard to reach areas. The grout will definitely harbor a lot of soap scum and mildew.
To create your cleaning solution, you can mix vinegar and your preferred cleaner in a bucket of warm water. Just pay attention to chemicals that shouldn’t be mixed together! And do not forget to wear gloves. Once you are satisfied that all the surfaces you are concerned with are thoroughly clean, it’s time to give it one last wipe to ensure that no water is left behind.
Toilet
You might be surprised, but according to Soakology, the porcelain throne might actually be the cleanest part of your bathroom. The toilet seat, that is, because according to them it can be covered with up to 295 bacteria per square inch. That’s just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of bacteria that can be found in your toothbrush! Only the light switch has less bacteria than a toilet seat, with about 217 bacteria per square inch.
As you might expect, deep in the porcelain bowl, there can be a shocking presence of up to 3.2 million germs as well. This fact might be enough to make you zoom off to the bathroom now to start toilet cleaning, but before you do, here is how to clean your toilet step by step. Just to make sure you don’t miss any of those millions of germs.
How to do it
Choose your toilet cleaner, even white vinegar will do here as well. Pour some into the toilet bowl and let sit for up to 15 minutes if you like. During that time, apply some purpose cleaner on the exterior of the toilet, because these surfaces are also hiding a lot of fecal bacteria! You can use a sponge to scrub it including the toilet seat. With that done, you can now swish the earlier solution you poured into the bowl all around the interior with a toilet brush until you are satisfied that your porcelain throne is absolutely clean!
The Bath
Whether you take a bath standing up or sitting down, it doesn’t matter, because tub or shower, the drain is the hottest site for all the bacteria! And this only makes sense because we go to the bathroom to clean ourselves and the drain is where all the water goes carrying with it millions of germs from our body.
How to do it
You can’t use ordinary soap to remove the germs in this area. If you have a bathtub, the best way to do it is to use bleach or bathroom cleaner to disinfect the tub and especially the drain. You can also spray some white vinegar and hot water solution if other options are unavailable. Afterwards, you can wipe the surfaces dry using a microfiber cloth.
If you use a shower, don’t neglect to scrub clean your walls (even glass ones), the shower doors, shower head, the shower curtains and liners. These can also be hotbeds for germs especially the shower curtain which can retain a lot of moisture and soap scum.
Sink
Still according to Soakology, the bathroom sink is another site where bacteria love to congregate. For every square inch, there can be as much as 2,733 of those invisible microbes.
Just like at the bath, we go to the sink to wash ourselves using water, releasing germs not just from our hands but also from our mouths after we brush our teeth. That’s why it is just as important to make sure we clean our sinks just as much as we clean our toilets. Don’t wait until there are visible stains before you find the time to do it.
How to do it
At one point or another, you will probably experience a blocked sink in your life. But don’t despair, there are tried and tested ways to fix this. You can use a simple mixture of vinegar and baking soda to clear that blockage in no time! You might even feel like you’re doing a little science experiment with all the fizz that you create. Let it sit for a few minutes and once that fizzing is almost gone, you can wash it all down with some really hot water. This also does the job of killing those germs hanging about.
For some really problematic stains, you can try using some lemon juice that you can leave on the area from 20 minutes up to half an hour. When you return, you can use a sponge to scrub these spots away before using dry cloth to wipe your sink clean.
Make It A Habit
If all our filthy factoids have still not convinced you that cleaning your bathroom is essential, maybe you just need some help! After all you don’t have to do it alone. Try to make this cleaning habit an enjoyable activity for yourself and the whole family. You can get everyone to take turns so that no one person does all of the heavy lifting.
As they might say, “A clean bowl must be everybody’s goal!”
Photos from Pixabay
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