10 Household Items People Forget to Clean

Many people pride themselves on being good cleaners. Yet, there’s a world of difference between good cleaners and professional cleaners.

Professional cleaners have a system that ensures there are no items they forget to clean. Most people don’t use such systems, so they routinely forget certain household items need cleaning. Let’s see how many of these items you also miss.

In this article:

• Cleaning supplies
• Soap dispensers
• Washing machine
• Utensils tray
• Dishwasher
• Handles, doorknobs, and light switches
• Pillows
• Mattresses
• Curtains
• Toilet brush handles
• Conclusion

Cleaning supplies

We use cleaning supplies to clean our homes. But how often do we remember to use cleaning supplies to clean our cleaning supplies? The answer is “never”.

This means that, ironically, cleaning supplies are one of the dirtiest spots in your home. The good news is there’s an easy fix – remember to clean your cleaning supplies every once in a while.

Start with the items you use the most, such as mops, brooms, and dusters, and then move on to cleaning containers. End on a high note with the bottles that contain your cleaning detergents. 

Soap dispensers

Liquid soap is a great convenience. But the soap dispensers are one of the things we forget to clean. Which is not great, considering we usually touch them with dirty hands.

There’s a simple solution to this. Pour some white vinegar and lemon juice at a 1:1 solution in a spray bottle and use it to clean your soap dispensers. You can use recycled paper towels (or any towel of your choosing) to wipe them clean.

This solution will disinfect your soap dispensers. It’s a good idea to do this if not fortnightly, then at least once a month.

Washing machine

The washing machine continues the tradition of things we use to clean something else but we forget to clean them.

If you don’t want to go through the hassle of manually cleaning your washing machine, you can use cleaning tablets and run an empty cycle.

Some people use white vinegar for this. While it seems like the more natural solution (and we always support natural solutions when possible), in this instance we need to object. Using white vinegar to run an empty cycle in your washing machine can damage it in the long run. This is one harmful cleaning myth people still believe.

Utensils tray

The utensils tray is in the unique position to house all of your utensils. This means the only time to clean it is when you remove all utensils (which you almost never do).

As a result, your utensils tray houses all sorts of germs and dirt. It doesn’t matter how well you clean your utensils when the tray is dirty.

You need to clean it at least once a month. The good news is, it’s relatively easy to do. Remove all utensils and clean them in the sink with warm, soapy water. If you don’t have a big enough sink, you can use your bathtub or a large water container.

Dishwasher

The dishwasher is an awesome innovation that saves a ton of time. However, if you don’t maintain it properly, it’s going to create more problems than it solves.

Dishwashers are prone to bad odours because they’re dealing with food. As such, it’s important to clean the filters regularly. The other thing you need to pay attention to is the spray arms.

You can easily remove the filters and spray arms so to clean and/or replace them. If you’re not sure how to do it, check out YouTube for tutorials of your dishwasher’s make and model.

After that, the only thing left to do is run an empty cycle with a cleaning tablet.

Handles, doorknobs, and light switches

Handles, doorknobs, and light switches are among the household items we touch the most in our homes. We don’t even think about it. In fact, we touch them so much we barely even notice.

This doesn’t mean they don’t get dirty and don’t need cleaning, though. The only problem is we often forget this tiny detail. We need conscious effort to clean and disinfect those surfaces on a regular basis.

The lemon juice/white vinegar solution should work here like a charm. Simply spray it on a microfibre towel and wipe all the handles, doorknobs, and light switches in your home.

Pillows

Putting your head on the pillow every night signifies the end of the day and time for a well-deserved rest. However, what you may not realise is you’re actually putting your head on a collection of tiny organisms called dust mites.

These mites are the reason you may be sneezing or even why you’ve developed house dust allergies. One of the ways to reduce their numbers is to regularly clean your pillows according to manufacturer specifications and to use a pillow protector.

Mattresses

Mattresses host dust, dirt, and dust mites even more than pillows. To make matters worse, they’re not as easy to clean. To get rid of all that rubbish in your mattress, you need upholstery or mattress cleaning.

This means you either need to book professional cleaning services or rent an upholstery cleaning machine and do it yourself. One option will cost you money and the other will cost you time and money. It’s not ideal, but it’s a good idea to go through this process of mattress cleaning at least once or twice a year.

Curtains

The only time people pay attention to curtains in most cases is while they’re picking them. After that, they hang them and forget about them.

It should come as no surprise curtains rarely get the cleaning attention they deserve. The good news is that most vacuum cleaners have a curtain cleaning attachment. You can get away with vacuuming your curtains every once in a while, but you need to wash them at least once a year. Perhaps during spring cleaning.

Toilet brush handles

No one likes to think this. Toilet brushes are so low on the cleaning pecking order, I debated with myself whether to include them or not. This is exactly why I decided to include them.

You should disinfect your toilet brush at least once a month. You can use the disinfection solution you use for other surfaces.

Conclusion

It’s to forget to clean many household items. That’s why professional cleaners use lists – it’s a lot harder to forget something once you have it written down.

No one will judge you if you forget to clean certain parts of your home – it happens to the best of us. But it’s something you can easily fix. And, if cleaning gets overwhelming, you can always give us a call and book a cleaning service in London.

Author: Atanas Dzhingarov

Hi, I’m Atanas - brand consultant and writer. I’m helping Samyx Cleaning create the best cleaning company blog on the Internet. Join us on our journey and learn how to live a cleaner, healthier, happier life in the process.