Apart from employing professional house cleaning services, many Singaporeans are still religiously looking out for ways to keep their loved ones safe. Surely, the age-old adage rings true: better safe than sorry.
But before you begin the endeavour, making sure that you don’t take the wrong approach is of paramount importance. Why? Simply because tackling cleaning duties requires lots of investment – from money to effort and time, to name some. While we all tend to cut corners at times, it’s worth noting that improper cleaning and disinfecting habits can inhibit your ability to get the job done efficiently. On a more consequential note, they can also lead to irreversible damages to your health and properties in the long run.
Lucky for you, our cleaning experts have put together 8 tips on how to clean and disinfect the right way. Read on.
1. Getting the frequency right
Clearly, at the base of cleaning lie important health safeguards. But given that cleaning is not an easy task (especially when you are doing it alone), how can you then find a neat answer to the question of how often you should be cleaning?
As a general rule of thumb, here are the recommended cleaning and disinfection frequencies for homeowners:
| Area | Frequency |
| Common high touch surfaces | 3 to 4 times a week |
| Other surfaces | 2 times a week |
2. Colour code your cleaning cloths
Cross-contamination is known as one of the biggest culprits of infection spread. To effectively minimise the risks of cross-contamination, we strongly recommend all homeowners in Singapore to adopt a colour coding programme.
There are no “set in stone” guide to colour coding, but here’s what we do as part of our house cleaning services:
Blue – General surfaces such as the countertop, sofa, shelves, cabinets, etc.
Red – Washroom area
Green – Areas where food is handled and prepared, such as kitchen, dining tables, coffee tables, etc.
Yellow – Common high touch surfaces such as door knobs, light switches, remote controls, sofa arm rest, etc.
3. Employ microfiber cloth
Yes, you’ll be surprised to find that not every cloth make the cut when it comes to cleaning. Invest in a microfiber cloth – and you’ll notice all the difference.
Built with super-fine microfibers, these cloths have an incredible amount of surface area to lift and ‘hoover up’ dirt. So, ditch the regular ones and make microfiber cloth your cleaning staple.
4. Make time for pre-cleaning
To effectively disinfect or sanitise an area, the first step is to remove the dirt and other organic matters from the surface. How can you do so? By pre-cleaning the surface with soap and water before spraying disinfectant onto the cloth!
Note: Do not wipe in a circular motion when cleaning, as you’re essentially shoving the dirt around. The right way to go about it is to perform a “sweeping motion”.
5. Work from clean areas to dirty areas
Here’s a recommended plan of attack to housecleaning: always start from the least-soiled (cleanest) spots before progressing to the most-soiled zones.
his helps to ensure that you’re not transposing more contaminants into the cleaner areas.
6. Never leave your food items exposed when disinfecting
While this appears to be a no-brainer, many homeowners tend to overlook the fact that they’ve got consumables such as fruits, exposed tea bags and opened snacks packages lying around the premises.
Improper use of cleaning supplies can lead to deleterious effects on you and your loved ones, so be sure to keep all consumables away before spraying on disinfectant.
7. Keep the surface visibly wet for the full contact time
Contact time (also known as wet time), is the period where the disinfectant is required to stay visibly wet on a surface to demonstrate efficacy. This contact time can vary greatly per product.
Most disinfectants found off-the-shelves in Singapore require a full 10-minutes of surface contact time, whereas the ones that our professionals utilise during our disinfection services can do the job in just 3-minutes. Anyhow, be sure to check out what’s stated on the product’s packaging.
Over to you
Now that you’ve gotten the gist on how to clean and disinfect the right way, it’s time to work your way through these cleaning tips!
