The recent outbreak of the coronavirus has gotten us all thinking more seriously about what we can do to protect ourselves and our families. Your own home is a good place to start. Here are some tips on how to best protect your home from germs and contaminants.
If you have someone in the home that is ill, make sure to clean all the surfaces that person touches. The flu virus can live on hard surfaces for 24 hours, so make sure surfaces are disinfected often during the illness. Even if you are just in a preventive mode and no one is sick in your home currently, it is just as important to keep all your surfaces cleaned regularly. Pay special attention to bathrooms.
Touch points are any of the areas that get touched often during the day. Make sure to use a good disinfectant solution to clean door knobs, light switches, faucet handles, kitchen and bedroom cabinet knobs, TV remote controls, phones, computer keyboards and stairway railings. In the bathrooms, clean all counters and tub, shower and toilet, including the seat and handles. The kitchen is where your food comes in contact with the kitchen surfaces. Clean and disinfect all cabinet handles, fridge and oven handles as well as the fixtures, counters and sink.
The best way to disinfect is to wipe the surface and let it stay wet for several minutes and air dry. Do not use the same cleaning cloths from room to room. This will prevent cross contamination.
One area that often gets forgotten is kids’ toys. Wipe down toys and wash in the dishwasher whatever is dishwasher safe. The touch points in the kids’ rooms are more abundant than in adult bedrooms. Kids tend to handle everything, including walls and doors. They roll on the ground and jump on the bed, so pay attention to kids’ traffic areas including walls, doors, bedframes, toys, mirrors and drawer handles.
In the bathrooms, change towels often, use paper cups, isolate the toothbrushes from each other, clean and sanitize the wastebaskets along with the entire normal bathroom cleaning routine.
Some other basic tips are to air your house out often by opening windows, keep dirty clothes picked up and laundered, dust furniture often, wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 minutes, keep trash cans emptied and clean. Whenever possible, use disposable products such as paper towels, disinfectant wipes, bleach wipes, paper cups, etc., so they can just be thrown away after use.
Our homes should be a safe, healthy place for us to retreat to each day. We wish you all a healthy spring. QCBN
By Lucy Leyva
Lucy Leyva is the owner of Prescott Maid to Order.
Leave a Reply