A clean home makes life easier, but it’s challenging to organize when you have young ones or animal friends around. Here are 12 cleaning hacks for a pet- and kid-friendly environment.
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Have Several Trash Cans
You will likely have more trash around whether you have children or pets. If you only have one or two trash cans, it can get tedious having to clean up messes. Keeping multiple small trash cans around makes it easy to keep your floors clear.
Kids’ attention spans are smaller than adults, making them more likely to ignore trash or put it where it doesn’t belong. A small trash can in each room can encourage them to throw trash away.
Get a Robot Vacuum
Keeping floors clean and clear can make it easier and safer to navigate your home, and small robotic vacuums can help. You can use an application to control when the vacuum travels the floors, picking up small particles for a cleaner, healthier home. The app can alert you if there is a problem or when it completes its task. Some robot vacuums can also mop floors.
Use Litter Liners
If you have a cat, scooping litter gets messy. The convenience of not having to take them outside to go to the bathroom means you need to scoop out the waste to prevent the spread of germs and excess litter.
Liners allow you to easily remove waste without dealing with messy scoops or worrying about getting it all over the floor. They make a dusty task quicker and easier.
Let the Kids Help
One of the best things you can do to make cleaning easier is to let your children help you. Young kids often want to feel independent, and by giving them age-appropriate cleaning tasks, they can get excited about helping care for the home.
At first, cleaning with children could take longer. However, as they get older, they’ll be able to complete tasks efficiently.
Use Natural Cleaning Products
One part of maintaining a child- and pet-friendly home is ensuring they don’t accidentally expose themselves to harmful chemicals. While you know not to ingest cleaners, kids and pets don’t always understand they’re dangerous.
Keeping cleaners natural can give you peace of mind that your children and furry friends won’t inhale or ingest chemicals that could make them sick. After cleaning, keep all cleaners up high where they can’t reach them.
Prepare Doors and Windows
Doors and windows often get overlooked when cleaning, but they should be a priority when you have kids or pets. Dogs and cats like looking out windows, but their noses and paws can add smears or dirt. Additionally, curtains and horizontal blinds are easy for them to break and make dirty.
When kids go to school or extracurriculars, they often bring germs home. Close contact combined with inadequate hand-washing can bring germs into your household. Sanitizing door knobs about once a week can help keep germs out.
Get a Multilayer Mat to Capture Mud
Wiping your feet on a doormat removes water and dirt from your shoes. However, kids and pets don’t always understand how to brush their boots and paws to keep clean.
A multilayer textured door mat can help catch debris without much rubbing or scooting, leading to less sweeping and mopping.
Invest in an Air Purifier
Pets can create dander, and kids are more prone to allergies than adults. Air purifiers are an easy way to remove the amount of particulate matter from your home, helping you, your kids and your pets stay healthy.
Polluted air can cause lung irritation and exacerbate asthma and other respiratory conditions. Machines with HEPA filters can quickly eliminate them.
Create a Kit for Each Room
While a cleaning product can work in multiple rooms, keeping a clean home is sometimes easier when the products are close. Keeping a cleaning bin or caddy with a few essentials in each room can make it easy to keep things tidy.
Install a Baby or Pet Gate
If you have a room that you need to keep clean but do not want to keep the door closed, gates can prevent young kids and pets from entering and getting into things they should not. Closing the gate can help you keep an eye on little ones while keeping your room as mess-free as possible.
Utilize Baskets
Baskets can be an excellent organizational tool that is easy for kids to use. Little ones sometimes need help remembering which drawer to place something in, but knowing to put their items in a basket is easier.
Using baskets instead of drawers can create an attractive space. Placing a pile of blocks in a basket after playtime can be easier for toddlers than re-zipping them into a plastic bag or sealing a container. You can even train some dogs to put their toys back into a basket.
Get a Bluetooth Speaker
Cleaning is boring for many adults and kids, and playing music is fun to involve the entire family. There are many “cleanup” songs out there. You could also blast your favorite soundtracks. A Bluetooth speaker amplifies your device’s audio, increasing the excitement. Turning cleaning into a game or dance party can help you complete tasks quickly and with less stress.
Keeping a Clean Home With Kids and Pets
A messy home is inevitable from time to time when you have kids and pets around. These hacks can help keep your home clean.
