Five Cleaning Resolutions for Keeping your Home Clean Longer's featured image

Not everyone loves to clean. And if that’s the case, here are cleaning resolutions (yes, it’s already New Year’s Eve, tomorrow) that will make your life easier, and your house cleaner.

Shoes Off, No Exceptions: Make it a rule for everyone to remove footwear at the door. This alone will cut down the amount dust and dirt in the home by quite a bit. We track in dirt every time we walk into the house. Provide shoe racks or mats at the door to collect the extra debris.

Put Cleaning Supplies where you need them: Make it easy to clean by putting the cleaning products you like to use in a grouping in each room. For example, leave a fixture cleaner, bleach cleaner and window cleaner in your bathroom.  Make it a habit to clean surfaces at the end of every day.

Shortcut to Cleaning your Toilet Bowl: Prefer to avoid cleaning the toilet? Include Alka-Seltzer tablets in your bathroom cleaning product collection. Drop two tablets into the toilet bowl and let the acidic effervescence do the dirty work for you. It will take just a few minutes to dissolve, and when the fizzing stops, swish the toilet brush around, flush and you’re done.

Magic Duster: Hate vacuuming? Keep dust at bay with this quick trick. Put on rubber gloves, wet them lightly and then rub your hands over your furniture, blankets, and your pet’s favourite lounging spots – you can even try this trick on carpeted stairs too. The loose fur will come off and stick to the gloves instead.

No-mess Fridge Liner: The next time you clean your refrigerator, line the shelves of your fridge with plastic wrap before placing everything back in. Then when there’s a spill, you can just peel away the mess. You can do a similar trick on the top of bookcases and high kitchen cabinets – these areas get dusty quickly, so line these surfaces with plastic wrap or wax paper – then instead of having a heavy layer of dust to remove, just peel up the paper when it’s time to clean!