Organising your winter clothes

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Now that the Summer is getting closer (fingers crossed) it is time to think about how to organise your wardrobe and make space for your summer clothes while getting rid of the winter ones.

Here are some tips for keeping your winter clothes in good condition until next season:

 

1- Always wash coats and clothes before putting them away. Moths are attracted to dirty, sweaty clothes so make sure that every garment is clean before putting them in your wardrobe.

2- Use a fabric bag to protect your clothes from dust and moist. If you have one of those vacuum bags, make sure the garment is properly folded to avoid creases.

3- If you are hanging the clothes, use proper hangers, not those plastic ones we usually get from the shops when we buy new clothes. Wooden hangers are the best ones to hold heavy coats in shape for months.

4- Never use plastic bags to store clothes as this creates moisture.

We know that wardrobe organising would be easier if we had the space for it, but what are your tricks to keep your wardrobes in order? Share with us!

New increase on the minimum wage

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The government has accepted the independent Low Pay Commission’s recommendations for this year’s National Minimum Wage rates.

As from 1 October 2012, the adult rate will increase to £6.19 per hour. On the other hand the rates for 18-20 and 16-17 year olds will remain the same.

In this time of uncertainty and tough economic environment, the increase has been welcomed by Cleaning businesses.

Ironing tips

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Ironing is one of those daunting cleaning tasks that usually gets left for the last moment. At the end of the week most people will put themselves in front of a mountain of dried and wrinkled clothes that will take ages to iron.

 

It is because of this that I could venture our first ironing tip will be: Do not leave it for too long! To iron a shirt nicely can take up to 7 minutes; so if you have a big pile of shirts, work trousers, jumpers and the lot, you could end up with 2 long hours of ironing… and a strong backache at the end.

Here are other tips to help you with your ironing:

– Read the labels! and follow instructions on your iron. Most “accidents” happen because we do not follow what manufacturers recommend.

– Organise your pile: Iron the clothes that require low temperature first, then medium and finally hot. This way you won’t need to wait for the iron to reach the correct temperature.

– For thick garments, iron the inside first and then the outside.

– Iron your shirts when they are wet (specially if they are 100% cotton) and put them on hangers to avoid wrinkles (make sure you button the top button to get the correct shape on the shirt).

– Use a reflective ironing board cover to save time while ironing.

– Clean your iron regularly and do not leave water inside the iron after use to avoid limescale deposits damaging your clothes.

Do you have any good ironing tip that would like to share? Let us know!

Health risks of perfume

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Last month we talked about toxins in cleaning products and how to avoid them. Although having a clean environment is very important for most of us, there is a tendency these days of people worrying also about which chemicals we use when we clean our homes and how dangerous they are for our health.

 

In this sense, I think it is important to talk about the perfume we find on our household chemicals.

Before 20th century perfumes were made from natural ingredients (e.g. lemon, lavender,…). As soon as fragrances started to spread and popularised they were started to be made of synthetic ingredients to make them more affordable.

Did you know that 95% of the chemicals used to make only one fragrance are synthetic nowadays? They are usually derived from petroleum, including toxins capable of causing health problems, from allergy reactions to cancer.

Perfume can be found in lots of our regular household products, from cosmetics to cleaning products. And many of the ingredients used to create that perfume are harmful to our health. Here are some of the products that you will need to be concerned about:

– Phthalates: These are used in perfumes and air fresheners; they are endocrine disruptors and can cause hormonal abnormalities, thyroid disorders and reproductive problems.

– VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds): These again can be found on perfumes, air fresheners, disinfectants and deodorizers. Common names for these are: propane, ethanol, formaldehyde. These are reproductive toxins, neurotoxins, liver toxins and carcinogens.

The symptoms of exposure to this toxins can include: headache, nausea, asthma or allergy attacks, dizziness and many more.

If you would like to avoid products containing these toxins, the best course of action would be to inform your self. Read your cleaning products’ labels and avoid chemicals with fragrances; a clean home doesn’t need to smell of anything in particular.

Spring Cleaning in Easter

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According to an ancient tradition, the three days after Palm Sunday are devoted in many countries to a spring cleaning of the whole house, to get ready for the great feast. This tradition is a custom taken over from the ancient Jewish practice of a ritual cleansing and sweeping of the house in preparation for the Feast of Passover.

So if you haven’t done any spring cleaning yet, now it’s time to start thinking about it before Easter Holiday arrives and finds you looking for the hoover still!

Easter is traditionally a family holiday, and we suspect that you may be having a lot of visitors in your home during these bank holidays. So here are the must do’s of cleaning before the troop comes knocking on your door:

1- Clean the kitchen. Give it a good shake, clean it top to bottom and don’t forget the oven and the fridge! Most probably you will be doing a lot of cooking these days…

2- Clean the living room. Vacuum, dust and polish furniture.

3- Tidy the garden! Get your garden ready for the Egg Hunt for your little ones; remove dead/dry plants and mow the green.

4- Laundry bed linen and towels. Get them ready for all your guests; take advantage of the sunny days we have now to hung them outside and let them embed the sun.

If you don’t have the time or patience to get your home ready for Easter Holidays, then call Amy Cleaning for a great spring cleaning that will leave you only with the hard chore of buying the chocolate eggs!

What can I tell my cleaner on the first day?

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Here at Amy Cleaning we consider quite beneficial to always arrange a meeting with your domestic cleaner before s/he starts cleaning on a regular basis. Your requirements and expectations as a client can be very different from those of your neighbour, friend or any person you cross on the street; and this is the main reason why it is essential that you pass on this information to your cleaner before the work starts on a regular basis.

Here are some ideas on what to talk about with your new domestic cleaner on the first visit:

1- Explain what needs to be done in the house. I know, some people may think “it’s just cleaning what s/he has to do”; but it may be that you don’t want your domestic cleaner to clean the fridge every week or do the washing up. Explain her/him what you expect  to be cleaned and how often; this will avoid confusion on a later day. Check the task sheet on our web to help you out.

2- Show cleaning products, and most importantly, where you keep all the stuff. So, domestic cleaners are not magicians. They know how to use a hoover, but they don’t know where you keep yours; so it would be better if you can show them around the house and tell them where and how to keep everything after each use. And if they will need to use your washing machine or iron, just give them a quick lesson on how to use it (we all remember how crazy we got the first day we used our state of the art-do-it-all-digital washing machine!).

3- Rubbish collection. It is part of a domestic cleaner’s job to get all rubbish out at the end of the cleaning job, that we know. But you will need to explain her/him where to put it, if s/he needs to do recycling, on which day your council is collecting the rubbish and so on.

4- Keys and alarms. We all have our tricks to open the main door to our home and we may need to show this to our new cleaner if we don’t want her/him to get stuck outside the house on her first day of cleaning. So show her and let her try her new set of keys and let her practice with the alarm code while you are beside her; that will give her confidence and you will avoid major problems in the future.

5- Specific requirements. We talked about the “What to do” but here at Amy Cleaning we believe the “How to do” is even more important. If you want your domestic cleaner to take her shoes off when entering the house, tell her; if you are an organisation freak and don’t want her to touch the papers you usually leave on the desk, then tell her; if you want her to start by cleaning the bedrooms instead of the kitchen, tell her. Explain your new cleaner what you like and dislike with no fears; believe me, they will appreciate the honesty as it will make their jobs easier.

Share with us! what other information you would consider essential to communicate to your cleaner on the first meeting?

How to clean your home avoiding cleaning products toxins

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All of us love a clean house and when we get in the mood of cleaning, we do it with such an energy that sometimes we end up cleaning too much. Yes, you heard it right, too much. There are several experts these days warning us of the “dangers” of a sterile environment; houses that are clean top to bottom, with no sight of dirt, can make your immune system non responsive; therefore there are more possibilities of developing allergies.

What can we do to make sure our home is clean without converting it into a sterile bubble?

1- Clean often: Do you remember how long it took you to get rid of that tomato sauce stain? If you leave dirt for later chances are you will need to use strong products to scrub it out. If you wipe clean as you go, in most situations a damp cloth would be enough to clean the area in question.

2- Do not use antibacterial products: These are linked to allergy reactions if used in excess. Antibacterial chemicals contain triclosan, which is a pesticide and an endocrine disruptor. So in fact, you could be causing more harm than good when using them.

3- Use chemicals with no fragrance: Perfume on cleaning products is made of hundreds of chemicals, some of them dangerous to your health. If you want to freshen your home, open windows, buy fresh flowers or bake a cake!

4- Do not over do it: When you clean, use only as much cleaning product as you need, no more. The less you use the less toxins you will spray into the air.

These are simple steps to help you take care of your family’s health while cleaning your house. Like with everything, go step by step, try to clean with a mild detergent; if it doesn’t work then try something stronger, but if it works your job will be done with no harm caused.

How to reuse your old newspaper

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Baring in mind that an average person in the UK gets through about 83 pounds of newspapers per year, I wonder how many of those people are actually recycling their papers.

I found a great article about the re-uses of your old newspapers that could make you click with your more natural self.

 

Here are some of the best tips:

1- Newspaper is great to clean windows and glass around the house as it helps leave the surfaces without smears (just remember to get those really old-yellowy newspapers as the new ones will leave ink marks all over).

2- Newspaper is a good deodoriser; if you put a a sheet of crumbled newspaper inside wardrobes or suitcases they will absorb any bad odours.

3- Damp a sheet of newspaper to clean up broken glass; you will easily take those small particles of glass that usually gets shuttered all over the floor.

Check this to find more ideas on how to use your old newspapers!

House Cleaning made fun

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House cleaning is always seen like a hard chore for most of us adults. This may be the cause for not being able to make our children embrace the cleaning with open arms.

Have you ever found difficult to teach your children that clean = good? Do you think it is a mission-impossible to make your kids clean their bedroom and do the washing? I may have found the answer to your prayers…

HighScore House is a website and ipad app that will guide your children through the process of cleaning chores while earning points that will lead to rewards (of your choice).

It has a special “parents section” where you could add tasks, change rewards and settings. Once these are set up, your children will be able to check their progress and how close they are from getting that well deserved prize!

Try it out and let us know your thoughts!

How to eliminate toilet smell

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Bad odour in the toilet is a problem that every one finds appalling; no matter how much or how good you clean the smell of urine is still there!. A lot of our domestic cleaners at www.amycleaning.co.uk have shared with us the different methods they use to get rid of any smell in toilets and bathrooms; from strong chemicals to lime-scale removers to green cleaning methods.

 

Here is the green way to get rid of that nasty smell on the toilet:

Put a paste mix of baking soda and lemon juice around the bottom of the toilet seat and let it sit for about 15 min. Then spray with vinegar (the chemical reaction will make it look like a fizzy drink) and wipe it clean with a damp soft cloth.

Remember to spray with vinegar all around the toilet, including walls and floor, as urine can be sprayed everywhere.

This is a quick an easy way to make your toilet cleaner than ever!

Have you got any other tips for an odour free toilet?