The Most Important Things And Items To Disinfect In Your Home

What are the most important items to disinfect at home?

1. Kitchen: Surfaces and Utensils
2. Living Room: Furniture and Floors
3. Bathroom: Towels, Knobs, and Mats
4. Laundry Room: Clothing and Jewelry
5. Bedroom: Sheets and Pillowcases
6. Home Office: Electronic Devices

The rapid rise of the COVID-19 pandemic has made a large number of individuals more cautious of their surroundings. Although cleaning is a part of maintaining any home, there are high-touched items that need to constantly be disinfected to prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses. What are high-touch items? These are the objects and surfaces that are handled frequently throughout the day. The best way to further minimize your risk and exposure to COVID-19 is by disinfecting items in your home. Read on for more!

How To Clean Your Home Safely

Before you get into cleaning and disinfecting your home, you should make sure that you are safely and responsibly approaching your methods. To clean safely, here are 3 things to do and take note of:

• Make sure you wear rubber gloves. This can protect your hands from germs and drying chemicals. Make sure that you keep a separate pair for doing the dishes.
• To avoid recontaminating or reinfecting your objects and surfaces, make sure you rotate your cloth for each item and area you clean. Use new ones if needed.
• Wash your hands thoroughly once done.

Kitchen: Surfaces and Utensils

You’re going to be spending much more time in the kitchen during this quarantine period. It would be for the best to prepare your meals in the safest way possible, especially if you’re bringing in groceries coming from the outside. Any area where food is prepared and consumed should be cleaned as well as disinfected.

Other high-touch areas in the kitchen include refrigerators and freezer doors. You should also clean their handles and any other handles you tend to have contact with such as drawers, microwaves, and ovens. Make sure to run over the insides of your shelves and drawers as well.

If you have a sterilizer on hand, now is the time to maximize it by sterilizing your plates, cups, and utensils. If sterilizers aren’t available at home, running utensils through hot water would also effectively eliminate viruses and bacteria.

Living Room: Furniture and Floors

Your living room is one of the most visited areas in your home. You can hold movie marathons with your family during the quarantine or even play board games. Whichever way you use the area, cleaning the space thoroughly will help you prevent viruses from spreading to you and other spaces of your home as well.

Before disinfecting your living room, make sure to clear out all the clutter to give you room to clean. Thoroughly dust down your floors before proceeding to disinfect. Linens like draperies and curtains can be steamed down or put in the laundry. Ensure that you are taking proper care of your couches and chairs as well.

Bathroom: Towels, Knobs, and Mats

Your towels are an ideal site for droplets of COVID-19 to stay alive. The virus stays longer on wet surfaces than on dry ones. Because of this, it is important to disinfect wash towels more frequently, especially if a member of your family needs to run errands outside during the day. Aside from this, don’t forget to clean and disinfect your taps, handles, knobs, soap dishes, bathroom mats, and floors.

If your kids enjoy bringing their favorite toys in the bath, disinfect them with a natural disinfectant such as alcohol or vinegar afterward. Soft toys can be laundered in the washing machine as well.

Laundry Room: Clothing

Now is the time to be more mindful of your laundry items. These are items where droplets are likely to be transmitted through. Wash your laundry under warm water and add disinfectant to aid in killing germs. Make sure that they are thoroughly dried before using and wearing. Other wearables to consider are your watches, jewelry, and shoes. These are the items that are likely to come in contact with germs so disinfecting these with a non-abrasive disinfectant will help you greatly.

Bedroom: Sheets and Pillowcases

Your bedroom is your sanctuary. This is where most of the items from your normal day end up. Wash and disinfect your pillowcases and bed sheets more frequently since the droplets may tend to stick to the materials they are made of. Subsequently, disinfect your light switches, bedside lamps, handles on drawers, curtain pulls, and remote controls.

Home Office: Electronic Devices

Working from home? Your laptops, keyboards, and phones are some of the most used items during work from home. Other than that, since you’re going to be spending more time at home, your TV, remote controls, and touch screen devices are also more used than ever. Rubbing alcohol is a way to disinfect these items without risking water damage as it evaporates and dries up quickly. If you have microfiber cloth, give it a good spritz of alcohol and rub them on your electronic devices and accessories.

In addition, your air conditioning and electric fans can also be a carrier of not only germs but also allergens that can attack your immune system. Disinfect these appliances accordingly.

Key Takeaway

Disinfecting items in your home is one of the best ways to minimize your exposure to COVID-19. These high-touched surfaces are in need of proper care, especially in these times. Prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses in your home by following the disinfecting tips above!