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Active families need a haven to unwind after hectic work schedules – A clean home! These home cleaning tips and techniques can save your weekend!
Our home is our refuge to escape from the pollution and the grime of the city. When we return home, we expect it to be a place to put our feet up and relax. We don’t want to brush; polish, wipe and dust all weekend!
With everyone pitching in, the house is clean and hygienic and the family is happy and healthy.
Here are 10 shortcuts to make home cleaning a breeze.
Divide your cleaning efforts into small chores so that it’s not overwhelming. Clean a little portion of the house daily – the living room, dining room or other frequented areas cleaned regularly, reduces the weekend burden.
These are dust magnets as they are often the first point of contact when entering a home. Strategically placed foot mats both outside and inside the house can help cut down on the amount of cleaning that needs to be done. Vacuuming, sun-drying and brushing down your carpets and rugs, help to rid it of fibres, pet dander and urine, particulate dust and lint. This will ensure that your spaces are allergen free and healthier. For busy families, a professional cleaning service can really help you to keep those mites at bay – you don’t have to do it all yourself!
Tiles and stone surfaces need a lot of maintenance and can be a tough task to handle. Freshly brewed tea is great for cleaning floors. Just boil a couple of tea bags in one litre of water and let it cool. Dip a soft cloth in the tea, wring out the excess, and use it to wipe away dirt and grime. Buff dry with a clean, soft cloth.
Having less means less to clean! Get rid of anything that you haven’t used for six months– should be long enough to decide whether you are going to use something. Put away unnecessary items clogging your dressing table or nightstand. Think of hotels with their empty spaces like tables and sideboards – a clutter free space is calming and airy too.
Hard to clean dry stains can be removed easily if surfaces like gas stoves, slabs and tables are sprayed with a bit of cleaning spray. Let the spray sit a bit. Dust around the rest of the place and come back to swiftly wipe those nooks and food ridden crannies.
Our most used and loved pieces of home furniture whether leather or upholstered are the ones that need most maintenance due to body oils, perspiration, and regular wear and tear. Take a clean, damp rag to wipe clean. Products that contain detergents can actually damage your leather instead of cleaning up the spills you intended, causing long term damages. You can also get periodic polishing done by a professional to maintain expensive furniture as well as save your time.
The first step to a clean bedroom is making everyone, including children responsible for making their own beds regularly. Dust the mattresses and beds and vacuum them weekly. Decide on a weekday to sun dry them and stick to your schedule. Blankets and duvets need to be aired out but get them dry-cleaned and disinfected regularly to maintain hygiene and save time.
The places around the house which are touched very frequently like handles, faucets and flush handles should be cleaned daily with a disinfectant, especially if you have guests over. One member of the family can take this up as a daily 5 minute to-do routine.
If you work from home, did you know that your home office could be one of the filthiest places? Chances are you are eating, drinking, sitting and navel gazing all in this little space. When you wind up your work, wipe your mouse, computer and office furniture with a handy disinfectant. Dust once a week.
We do love our pets dearly but they increase our cleaning tasks. Restricting pets from some areas of the house can help, but dog hair has a way of getting around! Regular vacuuming is your best bet here – or get professional help to really get a thorough cleaning.
This post is supported by ChemDry, the world’s leading carpet and upholstery cleaning company, now offering their services in Chennai, India.
Whether it’s part of your regular cleaning routine, or because your family has young children, allergy sufferers or pets, it is important for you to maintain a clean and healthy home. Chem-Dry will give you peace of mind with their services including the much needed Carpet & Rug Cleaning, Upholstery Cleaning, Mattress and Curtain Care, Pet Urine Odour Removal, and Leather Care.
Chem-Dry’s system originated in the USA in 1977 when a revolutionary carbonated solution that not only cleaned beautifully, but was also safe and non-toxic, was formulated. The exclusive Chem-Dry process generates natural CO2, uses 1/5th of the moisture compared to other cleaning processes to produce millions of tiny, effervescent bubbles, which dissolves dirt and stains actually lifting dirt to the surface for extraction.
To learn more about ChemDry visit www.elitechemdry.in
And to book a cleaning service, you can call them at 9025 388 388.
Inderpreet Kaur Uppal is an author and freelance editor for fiction and nonfiction based in Gurgaon, India. She is a post-graduate in human resources management and has worked as a lecturer for management, corporate read more...
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If you want to get back to work after a break, here’s the ultimate guide to return to work programs in India from tech, finance or health sectors - for women just like you!
Last week, I was having a conversation with a friend related to personal financial planning and she shared how she had had fleeting thoughts about joining work but she was apprehensive to take the plunge. She was unaware of return to work programs available in India.
She had taken a 3-year long career break due to child care and the disconnect from the job arena that she spoke about is something several women in the same situation will relate to.
More often than not, women take a break from their careers to devote time to their kids because we still do not have a strong eco-system in place that can support new mothers, even though things are gradually changing on this front.
No law in the country recognises enabling the rapist to walk free after marrying the survivor. However, in reality, it is something that families and communities often push for.
In the same week where the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, 11 May, saw a split decision on the constitutionality of the marital rape exception, another equally reactionary decision was handed by a divisional bench of the Supreme Court when they set aside the conviction and sentence of a man who had repeatedly raped his 14 year old niece
The facts of the case are simple. The accused, K Dhandapani, enticed his 14 year old niece with the promise of marriage and raped her several times. The family came to know of the offence when the girl became pregnant, and a case was lodged against him under the Protection of Child from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. After trying his case, in 2018, the Sessions Court found him guilty on all three counts, and convicted him and sentenced him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment. The accused appealed to the Madras High Court which upheld the conviction and the sentence in 2019.
The girl gave birth in 2017, before the case came up in court. Despite the pending case against him, he continued to have sexual relations with the girl, and she gave birth to her second child at the age of 17.