You know that feeling when you’ve just finished cleaning and you’ve sat down on the couch to relax, and from the corner of your eye, you spot it – a dust bunny under one of the cabinets in your living room.
And now you have to peel yourself up off the couch, grab the dustpan and brush, or even worse, the vacuum cleaner, so you can eliminate that dust bunny. Otherwise if you leave it, it’s just going to annoy you.
We’ve all got an Achilles heel when it comes to cleaning the home – perhaps it’s not actually a weakness, rather it’s an area of the home that you easily overlook or miss when you’re in cleaning mode.
So, to make sure you can avoid forgetting any areas of your home, we’ve put together a list of places in the home that people commonly forget about when they are cleaning.
Keep reading if you want to remember all of the nooks and crannies to clean in your house.
10 areas we forget to clean in our homes
1. Door Frames and Sliding Door Tracks
Whether you have glass or wooden doors, sliding doors or hinged doors, chances are that you remember to clean the actual door itself. Especially when you can see grubby fingerprints on the panels of glass or wood panels.
However, it’s super easy to overlook the actual door frame itself. If you look closely, you’ll probably start to notice handprints and bits of grime along the side parts of the door frame – and if you have a teenager that enjoys their new growth spurt, you might also notice handprints at the top of the door frame too.
If you have sliding doors, then it’s almost important to keep an eye on the door tract. This is a great place for dirt and small stones to accumulate, which can make it harder for the doors to slide properly. It’s also a place where pests might find themselves at home too – especially if you live in somewhat damp or humid locations. Sliding door tracks can easily build up with mould and moss when left uncleaned.
2. Door Knobs and Handles
Sticking with doors, another part of the home we easily forget about when cleaning is door knobs. You might notice marks here and there on the top parts of the knob, but it’s important to make sure you’re checking and cleaning all around the door knob and behind the handles too.
It’s not just knobs and handles on doors, but also on cabinets around the home, particularly in the bathroom and kitchen. Many handles have overhanging or intricate designs, which can make it more difficult to see the build up caused by people touching the knobs and handles, so make sure, before you finish up cleaning, to wipe them down – even if they don’t look dirty.
3. The Dishwasher
If you’re lucky enough to have a dishwasher, then you know the joy and convenience of the wonderful device. However, your dishwasher is only as good as it is clean.
How do you clean a dishwasher? Well there are a few key parts to check. The racks and dishwasher floor should be clear of food scraps and debris, and the drain and filter need to be emptied and cleaned regularly too.
We recommend checking the drain and filter for food scraps and debris at least once a week. You can also combine this with a quick vinegar and dish detergent soak of the filter. You can do this in your kitchen sink.
We also recommend doing a vinegar wash in your dishwasher. This is where you run a cup of white vinegar in a microwave safe bowl on a rack in your dishwasher on a short, hot cycle.
This will help to remove grease that may be in your dishwasher, and to also reduce and/or remove any foul odours too.
You don’t need to use any fancy chemicals or cleaning products to keep your dishwasher clean and healthy.
4. Toilet Brush and Cleaning Brushes
We tend to use a lot of tools for our cleaning, like brushes, sponges, and cloths, but it’s quite common to overlook cleaning these tools. One of the most overlooked cleaning accessories we all use is a toilet brush. It’s easy to do – we use it for cleaning so it’s easy to think that it’s clean.
However, a toilet is obviously exposed to some serious germs and bacteria, so it’s extra important to ensure that it is clean before it and after it is used.
It’s not just the toilet brush that needs cleaning though, it’s its holder too. They should be disinfected – which could be with a spray or cleaning product of your choice.
In addition to cleaning it regularly, we suggest keeping a small amount of disinfectant cleaner in the receptacle part of the toilet brush holder. This will allow the brush to be exposed to the disinfectant and help to reduce the chances of illness and cross contamination of germs.
5. Controls on ovens, stoves, dishwashers and other household items
It’s so easy for dirt and grime to build up on the small knobs and controllers of the items in your home – especially those in the kitchen.
Think about it – when you’re cooking, chances are you’ve got a bit of food here and there on your hands, even if you don’t notice it, you might have juices from the meat you’re preparing or some other food matter on your hands. You then use various knobs and buttons on your stove or oven, and that food matter is transferred there.
But, because these areas are usually very small and a little bit fiddly, they are so easy to forget that they are there, let alone that they need to be cleaned.
We recommend that you give the knobs and controls on your oven or stove top a quick wipe down when you’ve finished cooking.
6. Power sockets and light switches
Just like the knobs and controls on your oven, stove, and appliances, another small and easily overlooked area of your home that we not only guarantee that you’ve forgotten to clean but that it definitely needs to be cleaned, are the power sockets and light switches in your home.
Because we only fleetingly touch these areas, it might be easy to forget they even exist, however, we tend to touch these things quite a lot – and try as we might, our hands are grubby vessels for transferring dirt and grime all over the joint.
Take a look at your light switch now – it might be hard to see from a distance, but if you get closer, you’ll probably notice some smudges, maybe even some built up grime. Same goes for your power sockets and any switches on your lamps too.
7. Remote Controls
Another day another type of button/switch/controller – and this time, it’s the remote control for your television (or any other electronic gadgets).
If you live alone, you might have slightly less to worry about, but realistically, the remote control is passed around and touched by pretty much everyone who lives in your home – and even guests.
It’s small and it’s a heavily used item in any home, making it the most ideal germ carrying and transferring vessel in your home.
When you’re doing a clean, give your remote a quick wipe down too – just remember to not use too much moisture on it as you don’t want to ruin it.
8. Curtains and blinds
The curtains and blinds in your home usually happen to be near quite a substantial opening in your home – usually at a window or door. This opening is a link to the outside world, and therefore a link to dust and allergens that find their way into your home.
The build up of this dust can make people unwell and if you don’t clean them regularly, it could also permanently change or stain the colours of your blinds or curtains.
If you have blinds in your kitchen, it’s particularly important to clean them regularly as they can accumulate grease and oil from cooking, which also makes it easier for dust and grime to cling too.
Depending on the fabric of your curtains or materials that your blinds are made of, you may have to be careful about your cleaning method, however if you dust regularly, a simple wipe down or vacuum may be all you need to do to keep them clean.
9. Skirting boards
Similar to door frames, skirting boards are easily overlooked. While they don’t usually suffer the same handprint and fingerprint grime and build up as door frames, they still get a lot dirtier than you may realise.
Dust can easily build up on them, they can become scuffed from moving furniture or shoes bumping into them, and they can even get dirtier when you’re busy focusing on cleaning the floors. For instance, if you’re mopping the floors, it’s easy for the mop strings to flick the skirting boards and leave them dirty from the debris on the floor.
If you give your home a weekly dust, make sure you add skirting boards to your dusting checklist.
10. Underneath furniture
Now, we’re not saying that every time you clean that you need to move all of your furniture to vacuum, sweep or mop underneath it, but it is a good idea to take measure of the furniture in each room of your home and see which ones an easily fit a vacuum or broom underneath and which ones you can see the floor underneath of. It’s also important to check which ones you can see underneath when you’re sitting and standing. The last thing you want is to be able to notice dust bunnies when you’re relaxing on the couch.
And when you do big cleans every few months, make sure to move the furniture around (if it is safe to do so), to clean underneath and make sure you haven’t lost anything important under them either.
Hire a cleaner who won’t forget these areas
If you’re short on time on your hands or just can’t get the house as clean as you would like it, then put the job in the hands of a professional domestic house cleaner from our team here at Pristine Home.
Our cleaners are well trained and highly experienced, knowing exactly where the nooks and crannies are. They won’t overlook or forget any of the areas we’ve talked about today, nor any others.
Our professional house cleaning services are available all over Sydney and there are lots of different types of cleaning services available too, including regular domestic house cleaning, one-off cleaning services, end of lease and moving out cleaning, and even room specific cleaning options too.
You can book a Pristine Home clean online here or by calling us on 1300 375 275.
