Tag: Cleaning

September 16, 2015

8 Ways to Allergy Proof Your Home

Whether you have a pet or not, there is dust-free light at the end of the tunnel! You’re not alone, either – allergies affect more than 20% of Americans. In this post, we’ll go over specific ways to free your home of allergens so you and your family can finally breathe cleaner air. Here are some trusty guidelines to get the allergy proofing started.

1. Lay down doormats.

In each entryway of your home, lay down two doormats – one on the inside and one on the outside. This helps prevent allergens from being tracked inside. Another alternative is to have your family and guests remove their shoes when they enter your home. Otherwise, allergens are just spread around.

2. Upgrade your vacuum cleaner

If you don’t have one already, make sure your vacuum cleaner has a HEPA filter. These are specifically made to trap particles as small as 0.3 microns. Basically, they’ll be able to capture the majority of allergens.

3. Replace air filters

Remember to always clean or replace the air filters in your heating or cooling system as often as required. You can refer to the manufacturers’ instructions regarding when to change them and how often.

4. Beware of mold

Minimizing mold, especially in your bathroom, is one of the most effective ways to lessen allergens. With more than 100,000 species of mold in the world, the last thing you want is for your bathroom to turn into a war zone. Clean regularly and remind yourself to dry off surfaces that collect standing water. Also, it’s important that your bathroom has good ventilation. Every few years, you should replace any broken tiles and re-caulk sinks and tubs. This keep mold from growing behind the walls.

5. Say bye-bye to drapes

Consider switching from curtains to blinds or shades because they hold much fewer allergens. However, if you insist on having drapes, make sure they’re machine washable since those are easier to keep dust-free.

6. Get an air purifier filter

From cooking fumes and cleaning vapors to dust and pet dander, there are so many different types of particles that can pollute the air inside your home. Air purifiers can be very effective in helping reduce allergens in the air, but just make sure you stay away from those producing ozone. We recommend using one with a HEPA filter.

7. Use a hygrometer to measure humidity levels

By investing in a hygrometer, you’ll discover the exact moisture levels in your home. Take a measurement in each room and if the reading is above 60 percent, you may consider using a dehumidifier. High humidity can lead to mold growth, so this is your best tactic to prevent that.

8. Ditch the carpet

Carpet does a great job of trapping in countless allergens, so it’s a good idea to replace your carpeting with hardwood or linoleum flooring. If that’s not an option, use low-pile carpeting instead of high-pile. Be sure to vacuum at least once a week and shampoo your carpet frequently.

Source: Mayo Clinic, This Old House

March 29, 2013

Cleaning House: Secrets of a Truly Deep Clean

Deep cleaning your house is that top-to-bottom, take-no-dust-bunny-prisoners, mother-in-law-quality cleaning that truly maintains the value of your home. Here are frequently overlooked areas that a little spit and polish wouldn’t hurt.

De-bug the light fixtures

See that bug burial ground within your overhead fixtures? Turn off the lights and carefully remove fixture covers, dump out flies and wash with hot soapy water. While you’re up there, dust bulbs. Dry everything thoroughly before replacing the cover.

Vacuum heat vents and registers

Dirt and dust build up in heat vents and along register blades. Vents also are great receptacles for coins and missing buttons. Unscrew vent covers from walls or pluck them from floors, remove foreign objects, and vacuum inside the vent. Clean grates with a damp cloth and screw back tightly.

Polish hardware

To deep clean brass door hinges, handles, and cabinet knobs, thoroughly wipe with a damp microfiber cloth, then polish with Wright’s or Weiman brass cleaner ($4). Dish soap shines up glass or stainless steel knobs. Use a Q-tip to detail the ornamental filigree on knobs and handles.

Replace grungy switch plates

Any amateur can wipe a few fingerprints off cover plates that hide light switches, electric outlets, phone jacks, and cable outlets. But only deep cleaners happily remove plates to vacuum and swipe the gunk behind. (OK, we’re a little OCD when it comes to dirt!) Make sure cover plates are straight when you replace them. And pitch plates that are beyond the help of even deep cleaning. New ones cost less than $2 each.

Neaten weather stripping

Peeling, drooping weather stripping on doors and windows makes rooms look old. If the strip still has some life, nail or glue it back. If it’s hopeless, cut out and replace sections, or just pull the whole thing off and start new. A 10-ft. roll of foam weather stripping costs $8; 16-ft. vinyl costs about $15.

Replace stove drip pans

Some drip pans are beyond the scrub brush. Replacing them costs about $3 each and instantly freshens your stove.

March 25, 2013

8 Dirty Secrets in Your Home

The weather has been beautiful lately and most public schools in the area are out on spring break. How are you spending your spring break? Are you vacationing with your family or having a stay-cation at home? We are gearing up in our house for spring cleaning. I am going to post 2 articles this week about deep cleaning your home. I hope you get as inspired as I have.

This is a photo essay about the 8 dirty secrets your home.

http://www.houselogic.com/home-advice/maintenance-repair/dirty-secrets/

March 15, 2013

10 Clever Uses for Hydrogen Peroxide

When it’s time to clean, have your trusty green cleaners at the ready — baking soda, vinegar, castile soap — plus another ultra-cheap gem: hydrogen peroxide. You can use it anywhere, and can’t beat the price: A 16-oz. bottle only costs a buck.

Here are 10 ways you can use that ubiquitous brown bottle of 3% hydrogen peroxide to your home’s advantage:

In your kitchen

1. Clean your cutting board and countertop. Hydrogen peroxide bubbles away any nasties left after preparing meat or fish for dinner. Add hydrogen peroxide to an opaque spray bottle — exposure to light kills its effectiveness — and spray on your surfaces. Let everything bubble for a few minutes, then scrub and rinse clean.

2. Wipe out your refrigerator and dishwasher. Because it’s non-toxic, hydrogen peroxide is great for cleaning places that store food and dishes. Just spray the appliance outside and in, let the solution sit for a few minutes, then wipe clean.

3. Clean your sponges. Soak them for 10 minutes in a 50/50 mixture of hydrogen peroxide and warm water in a shallow dish. Rinse the sponges thoroughly afterward.

4. Remove baked-on crud from pots and pans. Combine hydrogen peroxide with enough baking soda to make a paste, then rub onto the dirty pan and let it sit for a while. Come back later with a scrubby sponge and some warm water, and the baked-on stains will lift right off.

In your bathroom

5. Whiten bathtub grout. If excess moisture has left your tub grout dingy, first dry the tub thoroughly, then spray it liberally with hydrogen peroxide. Let it sit — it may bubble slightly — for a little while, then come back and scrub the grout with an old toothbrush. You may have to repeat the process a few times, depending on how much mildew you have, but eventually your grout will be white again.

6. Clean the toilet bowl. Pour half a cup of hydrogen peroxide into the toilet bowl, let stand for 20 minutes, then scrub clean.

In your laundry room

7. Remove stains from clothing, curtains, and tablecloths. Hydrogen peroxide can be used as a pre-treater for stains — just soak the stain for a little while in 3% hydrogen peroxide before tossing into the laundry. You can also add a cup of peroxide to a regular load of whites to boost brightness. It’s a green alternative to bleach, and works just as well.

Anywhere in your house

8. Brighten dingy floors. Combine half a cup of hydrogen peroxide with one gallon of hot water, then go to town on your flooring. Because it’s so mild, it’s safe for any floor type, and there’s no need to rinse.

9. Clean kids’ toys and play areas. Hydrogen peroxide is a safe cleaner to use around kids, or anyone with respiratory problems, because it’s not a lung irritant. Fill an opaque spray bottle with hydrogen peroxide and spray toys, toy boxes, doorknobs, and anything else your kids touch on a regular basis. You could also soak a rag in peroxide to make a wipe.

Outside

10. Help out your plants. To ward off fungus, add a little hydrogen peroxide to your spray bottle the next time you’re spritzing plants. Use this helpful chart to determine the ratio of hydrogen peroxide to water for your types of plants.

February 6, 2013

Green Clean Your Refrigerator 3 Cool Ways

We all love the look of stainless steel refrigerators—until they’re plastered with greasy, grimy fingerprints. Inside, the problem is less about shine than it is about fragrance, namely foul food odors that linger long after the food is gone. And then there are the sticky shelves. Fortunately, you can green clean your refrigerator safely and effectively using environmentally safe cleaning products you make yourself.

Green clean your refrigerator’s exterior

Commercial surface cleaners can run upwards of $10 a bottle, especially those designed specifically for stainless steel appliances. Commercially sold green cleaners are no cheaper. Try this solution instead: Add a few drops of a natural dishwashing liquid such as Mrs. Meyer’s ($4.50 for 16 ounces) or Method ($4 for 25 ounces) to warm water. Use the solution to wipe away refrigerator fingerprints, remembering to follow the steel’s natural grain.

Green clean your refrigerator’s inside

To green clean the interior of your refrigerator, whip up a batch of non-toxic solution by combining equal parts vinegar and tap water. To boost the solution’s cleaning power, warm it in a glass bowl in the microwave. At $4 for a 64-ounce jug of food-grade vinegar, you can mix up big batches for just pennies. In contrast, commercial green cleaner like Seventh Generation sells for about $5.

Keep the inside smelling fresh

You can’t top good old baking soda, aka sodium bicarbonate, for absorbing nasty food odors. The naturally occurring substance in baking soda neutralizes the odor-causing acids in the air, rather than simply mask them. At about a buck a box, it’s tough to beat. Save money by buying the baking soda in bulk. You should plan on swapping out the box every three months.

January 24, 2013

12 Simple Home Repair Jobs to Lift You Out of Winter’s Funk

Accomplishments — even little ones — go a long way toward a sunny outlook. Fortunately, there are plenty of easy, quick home repair chores you can do when you’re mired in the thick of winter. For max efficiency, make a to-do list ahead of time and shop for all the tools and supplies in one trip. On your work days, put the basics in a caddy and carry it from room to room, checking off completed tasks as you speed through them.

What to look (and listen) for

In each room, look around and take stock of what needs fixing or improving. Focus on small, quick-hit changes, not major redos. Here are some likely suspects:

1. Sagging towel rack or wobbly toilet tissue holder. Unscrew the fixture and look for the culprit. It’s probably a wimpy, push-in type plastic drywall anchor. Pull that out (or just poke it through the wall) and replace it with something more substantial. Toggle bolts are strongest, and threaded types such as E-Z Ancor are easy to install.

2. Squeaky door hinges. Eliminate squeaks by squirting a puff of powdered graphite ($2.50 for a 3-gram tube) alongside the pin where the hinge turns. If the door sticks, plane off a bit of the wood, then touch up the paint so the surgery isn’t noticeable.

3. Creaky floor boards. They’ll shush if you fasten them down better. Anti-squeak repair kits, such as Squeeeeek No More ($23), feature specially designed screws that are easy to conceal. A low-cost alternative: Dust a little talcum powder into the seam where floorboards meet — the talcum acts as a lubricant to quiet boards that rub against each other.

4. Rusty shutoff valves. Check under sinks and behind toilets for the shutoff valves on your water supply lines. These little-used valves may slowly rust in place over time, and might not work when you need them most. Keep them operating by putting a little machine oil or WD-40 on the handle shafts. Twist the handles back and forth to work the oil into the threads. If they won’t budge, give the oil a couple of hours to penetrate, and try again.

5. Blistered paint on shower ceilings. This area gets a lot of heat and moisture that stresses paint finishes. Scrape off old paint and recoat, using a high-quality exterior-grade paint. Also, be sure everyone uses the bathroom vent when showering to help get rid of excess moisture.

6. Loose handles or hinges on furniture, cabinets, and doors. You can probably fix these with a few quick turns of a screwdriver. But if a screw just spins in place, try making the hole fit the screw better by stuffing in a toothpick coated with glue, or switching to a larger screw.

Safety items

You know those routine safety checks you keep meaning to do but never have the time? Now’s the time.

7. Carbon monoxide and smoke detectors. If you don’t like waking up to the annoying chirp of smoke detector batteries as they wear down, do what many fire departments recommend and simply replace all of them at the same time once a year.

8. Ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlets. You’re supposed to test them once a month, but who does? Now’s a great time. You’ll find them around potentially wet areas — building codes specify GFCI outlets in bathrooms, kitchens, and for outdoor receptacles. Make sure the device trips and resets correctly. If you find a faulty outlet, replace it or get an electrician to do it for $75 to $100.

9. Exhaust filter for the kitchen stove. By washing it to remove grease, you’ll increase the efficiency of your exhaust vent; plus, if a kitchen stovetop fire breaks out, this will help keep the flames from spreading.

10. Clothes dryer vent. Pull the dryer out from the wall, disconnect the vent pipe, and vacuum lint out of the pipe and the place where it connects to the machine. Also, wipe lint off your exterior dryer vent so the flap opens and closes easily. (You’ll need to go outside for that, but it’s quick.) Remember that vents clogged with old dryer lint are a leading cause of house fires.

11. Drain hoses. Inspect your clothes washer, the dishwashers, and the icemaker. If you see any cracks or drips, replace the hose so you don’t come home to a flood one day.

12. Electrical cords. Replace any that are brittle, cracked, or have damaged plugs. If you’re using extension cords, see if you can eliminate them — for example, by replacing that too-short lamp cord with one that’s longer. If you don’t feel up to rewiring the lamp yourself, drop it off at a repair shop as you head out to shop for your repair materials. It might not be ready by the end of the day. But, hey, one half-done repair that you can’t check off is no big deal, right?

June 28, 2011

Agent of the Month: Cathy Nichols

Cathy Nichols

Agent’s Choice:

Please come out and support the free Movie In The Park nights put on by the Pike County Parks & Recreation Authority.

June 24 – Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2

July 29 – Rio

August 26 – TBA

The movies will be shown on the lower football field at the Pike County Parks & Recreation Complex located at 35 Twin Oaks Rd., Zebulon, GA. Concession will be open or you may bring a picnic along with your lawn chairs and blankets. Inflatables and face painting will be available for a charge. Gates open at 6:30pm and the movie will begin around 8:30pm.