House cleaning schedule
If your morning ritual consists of coffee, a shower, and sneezing your guts out, it might be your body signalling you to clean your room. But it doesn’t make sense to change your sheets and vacuum your floors every day. So how often should you be doing these cleaning tasks?
You can easily stay ahead of your morning sinus and keep the sniffles at bay by sticking to a regular house cleaning schedule. Here’s a handy guide to the frequency of cleaning you should abide by and incorporate into your chores.
1. Wipe down tables & kitchen counters – Every day
Most of us are guilty of only cleaning our tables and countertops when there’s a very obvious stain or spill. But our naked eyes can’t see the many specks of dust on the surface of your sit/stand desk, waiting for the right moment to make you go “achoo.”
We’d suggest giving your tables a wipe down every morning, and your kitchen counters every night after dinner. It doesn’t have to be an intense cleaning session with disinfectant; just using a dry antimicrobial cloth would be enough so long as you’re doing it regularly.
2. Changing bed sheets – Every week
It can be tempting to snuggle underneath your sheets immediately after a long day at work. While we’re not blaming you for wanting to nua, you’re most likely going to be carrying all those germs, dust, and goodness-knows-what onto your bed. Let’s not forget all the sweating that happens during the hotter months. Ew!
To maintain proper hygiene and ensure that you’re snoozing comfortably, you should be changing and washing your bedsheets at least once a week. This includes your pillowcases and duvet covers. It’d be handy to have at least two sets of bedsheets in times like this.
3. Vacuum carpets and rugs – Every week
One thing I loved about carpeted floors is the illusion of a clean home. Unfortunately, my vacuum cleaner would always be filled with dust, carpet fibers, and other weird gunk whenever I decided to do some cleaning, and that shattered my fantasy. Yes, our rugs and carpets are dirtier than they look.
If you’re a stickler for cleanliness, you’d want to vacuum any carpet or rug in your home every week at the minimum. The longer you neglect them, the more dirt, debris, and allergens they’ll accumulate.
Health experts have also recommended deep cleaning your carpets and rugs at least once a year.
4. Cleaning aircon filters – Every 45 – 90 days
Believe it or not, your aircon is great at trapping dust and other tiny particles in their filters. While sure, that is their job, if the filters aren’t cleaned regularly they become a breeding ground for bacteria and mould.
Those who have their aircons running all day should aim to clean and service it every 45 days. If you’re more sparing with your usage and only turn it on at night or once in a blue moon, your cleaning schedule can be relaxed to once every 90 days or every three months instead.
P.S. Another sign you should clean your filters is when you feel like your aircon isn’t cold enough.
5. Clean lamps and lights – Once a month
Image credit: IKEA
Another inconspicuous culprit of our allergy flare ups and runny noses are our lamps and light fixtures. Small as they might be, light bulbs, lamp shades and the like can still gather dust. Those pesky specks might then get burnt when you flick the switches on, and the hot air might make them move around your room too.
That’s not to say you die die have to clean your lights every day. Just spare a bit of time once a month to wipe the bulbs with a dry microfiber cloth. For the other parts like your wires, lamp shades and what not, give them a gentle wipe with a damp cloth.
6. Washing pillows & blankets – Twice a year
Dust mites are the worst enemy for anyone that’s sensitive to dust. Unfortunately, the chances of your beloved memory foam pillow and comfy weighted blanket having these tiny creatures is quite high.
On the bright side, dust mites are relatively harmless. But if you have asthma or allergies, you should look at giving your pillows, blankets, and bolsters a tumble in the washing machine every six months. If you really want to guarantee that no more dust mites will bother your sinuses, toss them into the dryer for 15 minutes on high heat before you start a wash cycle.
Frequency for your house cleaning schedule
It doesn’t hurt to spare just a couple of minutes to clean up your home and get rid of all the dust sitting around so you’re not perpetually sneezing. Once you’ve made these cleaning tasks a habit, it’ll get even easier and you will no longer have to live in fear of triggering your allergies at home.
But sometimes cleaning and dusting the surfaces at home might not be enough; the air around you indoors might even be two to five times worse than outdoor air quality, no thanks to pollutants like pollen and bacteria. Pet owners will also know the struggle of cleaning up the fur of their furbabies.
To protect you and your family even more, you can invest in an air purification system like Daikin’s CleAir Streamer Air Purifiers (from $499) that will rid the air around you of any irritants and dust particles even while you’re snoozing.
These air purifiers are able to remove up to 99.97% of airborne influenza viruses, bacteria, allergens, and pollen to ensure the air you’re breathing under your roof is in tip-top quality thanks to the inbuilt and patented Streamer Technology.
This new tech by Daikin generates high-speed electrons that combine with air components to gain stronger oxidative decomposition to break down harmful substances. That includes the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), H1N1, norovirus, fungal allergens, pollen-based allergens, dust mites, dander, and even cockroach droppings.
Daikin’s air purifiers don’t need to be serviced thanks to the Streamer Technology
One air purification unit can clean a room up to 41SQM. You don’t even need to do any cleaning or maintenance on the electrostatic Hepa filter in the air purifiers. The recommended replacement period is 10 years too, so you can rest assured knowing that you’ll have clean air at home for a long time.
Find out more about Daikin’s CleAir Streamer Air Purifiers
This post was brought to you by Daikin.
Photography by: Doreen Fan
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