For a lot of us, the day when we first moved out of our homes and set up on our own, in a flat or by ourselves, was a long, long time ago. But back then, we didn’t give much thought as to what we would need in the way of cleaning equipment for our new place to live. We probably thought more about our musical equipment and maybe a computer game or two.
The Basics
If you were doing it all over again (or if you’re about to do it for the first time) and set up a new home from scratch, what cleaning tools are absolute must-haves? Here are our suggestions for what you can’t do without (unless you hire a professional cleaner to come and do the lot for you, of course!).
Vacuum Cleaner
Houses without carpets of some kind are in the minority, so you’re going to need a vacuum cleaner to keep them looking nice and to keep the fleas at bay (didn’t think of that aspect, now, did you?).
Broom
Even if there’s carpet everywhere else, there will be some hard floor areas which you will need a broom to sweep. You can also wrap a towel around the head of a broom and use it to clean spider webs off the ceiling.
Bucket
Suitable for more than just holding warm soapy water when you’re cleaning, too.
Rags
Fortunately, these can be picked up for free if you recycle your old towels and T-shirts. Use them as dusters, dishcloths, polishing rags, and general cleaning. You will need lots of them.
A General-Purpose Scrubbing Brush
Use it for everything from scrubbing grass stains off the knees of denim jeans to cleaning blood stains out of carpets. In fact, several brushes with different stiffness grades would be ideal, ranging from super-stiff for getting mud off boots through to something tiny and delicate like an old toothbrush for getting into little crevices in jewellery.
Loo Cleaning Brush
Some things should be kept for one thing and only if they have to do a dirty job. Also, make sure you have something to store this in that can be filled with a disinfectant solution, so the germs don’t find a happy tiny home on the brush.
Rubber Gloves
A lot of commercial cleaning products are pretty ferocious on your hands as well as on dirt. Even dishwashing detergent can be pretty savage, leaving your skin all dry and flaky. What’s more, there are some things that you may have to clean up that you don’t want to get on your hands. Several pairs of rubber gloves are in order here – one pair for cleaner jobs like doing the dishes and another pair for the dirty work like cleaning up where a pet made a mess on the carpet.
Mop
While it is possible to use a scrubbing brush and a barrage of old towels to get a hard floor nice and clean, using a mop is much, much easier. Make sure it can fit into the bucket.
Well, once you have covered the basics, the rest is an added bonus. With the above tools, you are more than equipped to tackle most house cleaning tasks. For anything more complicated you are strongly advised to use specialist services. Your best best is searching on Google for a reputable domestic cleaning company with lots of positive reviews online.