Keeping your home clean and organized can be a daunting task, especially with a hectic work or school schedule. But having a weekly cleaning list of essential items to tackle can make the process much simpler and more manageable. Here are some must-do tasks that you should consider adding to your weekly house cleaning list.
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7 Focus Areas Recommended For Your Weekly Cleaning List
We all like a clean house, but when considering all of the cleaning tasks, what are the things that you should tackle weekly? Vacuuming? Bathroom cleaning?
Follow our task list to see what items should be on your weekly cleaning checklist:
- Laundry
- Appliances
- Furniture
- Mirrors
- Carpets/rugs
- Floors
- Bathrooms
Weekly Laundry – Don’t Forget Bedsheets
When discussing laundry that needs to be washed weekly, there is more to it than clothes. You may have your schedule for washing your clothes, and having separate baskets for lights, darks, and whites will help speed it along by sorting ahead of time. But what about your sheets, towels, and blankets?
Due to sweat, dead skin cells, and dust mites, bed sheets are recommended to be washed weekly. Even though you are clean when you dry yourself off with your bath towels, towels absorb a lot of water and may remain damp for hours, making them a perfect breeding ground for unwanted bacteria. It is recommended to wash your bath towel after three uses.
Wipe Down Appliances
It is important each week to wipe down all of your kitchen appliances, as well as your kitchen counters. Make sure you clean them of all food particles, fingerprints, splatters, and spills. You can utilize our DIY Disinfectant Spray recipe and some microfiber cloths to clean your appliances quickly and safely.
Recipe for a DIY Disinfectant Spray for Kitchen
It is essential to have a disinfectant spray for the kitchen counters to help protect you against any food-borne illnesses.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups tap water
- 20 drops of tea tree oil
- Two tablespoons of regular white vinegar
- ½ teaspoon liquid dish soap
- Spray bottle
Directions:
- Pour the 2 cups of tap water into the spray bottle.
- Add 20 drops of tea tree oil. With its natural antifungal abilities, tea tree oil can eliminate salmonella, E. coli, shigella, and staphylococcus.
- Add two tablespoons of regular white vinegar to the spray bottle. Vinegar’s acidity is effective in eliminating germs and slowing microbe growth.
- Once the water, tea tree oil, and white vinegar have been added, shake the bottle well.
- Add ½ teaspoon of liquid dish soap to raise the cleaning ability. Shake again, and your disinfectant spray is ready to be used!
Dust All of Your Furniture
Dust is more than an unattractive nuisance; it can damage your furniture due to its abrasive nature. Each week, use our DIY eco-friendly dusting spray with microfiber cloths to remove the dust rather than spreading it around.
Aside from dust being cosmetic and dangerous to your furniture, it is also a health issue. If you have allergies or respiratory problems like asthma, keeping your environment as dust-free as possible is critical.
Recipe for DIY Eco-friendly Dusting Spray
Rather than use a commercial dusting spray filled with chemicals, use our simple recipe with items you can find around the house:
Ingredients:
- 1 cup white vinegar
- ½ teaspoon olive oil
- 3 cups water
- Spray bottle
Directions:
- Pour all ingredients into the spray bottle.
- Shake well.
Streak-free Mirrors
We recommend cleaning them weekly to maintain the cleanliness and appeal of all reflective surfaces like glass, including mirrors. Once they are dusted, clean them with a streak-free glass cleaner and a soft microfiber cloth. Tip for the eco-friendly and inexpensive cleaning solution to achieve streak-free glass and mirrors, you can dilute over-the-counter available medicinal alcohol with two parts water.
Vacuuming Carpets and Area Rugs
If you have pets, we recommend vacuuming multiple times per week. Although you may do it more often, ensure you vacuum all the carpets and area rugs once a week. All the dust, dander, and hair from your home’s human and pet inhabitants love to collect in the carpet fibers. Multiple studies have shown that clean carpets reduce allergies or other respiratory illnesses.
Hardwood, Tile, and Vinyl Flooring
We recommend cleaning any hard surface flooring weekly. Your first pass should be sweeping or vacuuming to collect dirt, debris, or hair. Once you have removed all of this, you can mop using the manufacturer-recommended cleaner for the surface. You can always use low ph (low acidity) cleansers like dishwasher soap to be safe on your hard surface floors.
Bathroom Cleaning
It is imperative to make sure you fit bathroom cleaning into your weekly checklist. This will typically take up the most significant amount of your time. Scrub your shower and tub, clean your toilet and sink, and wipe down all surfaces.
What Should Be Covered in Weekly Bathroom Cleaning?
Bathroom cleaning is the most significant part of your weekly cleaning regimen. So what is the most streamlined manner possible?
- Surfaces
- Sink
- Shower/Tub
- Toilet
- Floor
Clean All Surfaces
Remove everything from the bathroom counters so you can easily wipe them down. If you have anything on top of the toilet tank, take that off before you begin your bathroom cleaning.
Wash The Sink
Wash out the sink using your DIY disinfecting spray and a soft cloth. Make sure to wipe down the faucets and handles and remove any hair from the drain.
Spray the Shower and Tub
Once again, use your DIY disinfectant spray and saturate the sides and bottom of your shower and tub. Allow it to remain in place for 10 to 15 minutes, and then, utilizing a scrub brush, quickly remove soap scum and grime.
After you have done this, using a handheld shower head, spray water over the walls, sides, and bottom of the shower and tub to remove the cleaner. If you do not have a handheld shower spray, fill a bucket with water and, starting from the top, pour water down the walls to remove all of the cleaning sprays.
Easily Clean the Toilet
Finally, clean the toilet. Wipe down the tank, the outer bowl all the way to the floor, and then the lid. Remember to clean the top and bottom of the seat and then focus on the inside, from right beneath the rim to the hole in the center. We all love to see a toilet sparkle!
Mop the Floor
Your final bathroom cleaning step will be to clean the floor. Vacuuming is an essential first step, so make sure to do that to get up hair and debris before mopping. Once you have mopped, your bathroom cleaning is done!
Keeping your home clean doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you break down tasks into smaller chunks that you can tackle each week. And remember that consistency is key when it comes to maintaining a healthy living environment for yourself and your family! By including tasks such as dusting surfaces, cleaning out the refrigerator, vacuuming/mopping carpets/floors on your weekly house cleaning list, you will make sure that your home remains tidy without feeling overwhelmed by taking on too much at once.
If weekly cleaning does take up a lot of your personal time, reach out for a consultation with a local professional house cleaning service. Pure House Cleaning, a network of local, Seattle-area house cleaning service professionals, is ready to help make your home sparkle with eco-friendly cleaning products and dedicated effort!
Happy cleaning!