San Diego House Cleaning (I) – the Benefits of Chemical Free Cleaning
Even if in most of the cases using chemical products is much easier and efficient than natural ones, sometimes you just have to conform and seek alternatives. Have you noticed the world wide rising cancer rates? What do you think about more and more children being born with various kinds of allergies, asthma and other diseases? Do you consider using chemical-free cleaning liquids as a reliable solution in making your house a safer place for people with different illnesses and health problems? Well, the truth is that the benefits of chemical free house cleaning are huge and I’m glad that I managed to figure this out back in the days when I lived in San Diego and did housekeeping maintenance on my own, several times per week. I have to admit that it was really time consuming, but I had no other options at the moment, since I was really short of funds to afford and pay someone else to do it.
I know that many of you already got used to such products as Lysol and other bleach cleaners of all kinds during bathroom, toilet or kitchen cleaning. However, the good news is that there some really amazing alternatives available on the cleaning market nowadays. All you have to do is open your eyes and try to understand that there are really good options out there that you might want to take into consideration and that as a matter of fact most of them are even cheaper and more accessible than the chemical stuff that we have been buying and using intensively for the last decade. Most of these chemical free cleaning solutions are not good for protecting your health only, but for the surrounding environment as well. Another aspect is what while the majority of people don’t even realize, the products already exist in your household, in various different forms. All you need to know is how are they called, how do they look like and where can you safely use them in order to obtain a clean house.
Most of the products that we are talking about here can be used to clean your furniture, hardwood floors, dishes and even your own body. However, even if the last mentioned one has nothing to do generally with your house, it is good to know that you can use lemon juice for example to clean your hands of black dirt that got on your hands after repairing the engine of your car. Anything similar might happen to you, so take that into consideration. So, while you probably never had the chance to use these products, most of you guys heard of them or even see them on a daily basis, even when walking around your house from one place to another. My big house in San Diego was simply overwhelmed by these natural cleaning products since I started to understand how important, cheap and really safe these really are. So if you still haven’t made up your transitional decision for chemical based cleaning products to chemical free ones, the chance is pretty close, as what we are going to share he is less likely to be found somewhere else. Are you prepared to learn from my nine years of serious household experience?
When talking about floors, it’s clear that most people use chemical products to wash and make them look good. However, all these agents like chlorine (bleach) and other synthetic products are not that good for our health and it is not recommended that you mop your floors with water mixed with such liquids without first opening the doors and windows around your house. Remember one thing. The more appeasing and pleasant smell a certain cleaning product has, the more dangerous it is and the higher the level of chemicals used to create it were added. When used to often, like several times a week, most of these products can lead to various breathing problems, onset of allergies or even asthma. I’m sure that you don’t want something like this to happen. When there is no other alternative to cleaning your floors besides using chemical chlorine based products I suggest that you have protective eyewear and a mask in case it is going to take longer than several minutes. You don’t want to risk with your eyesight and lungs just for the sake of your flooring, which by the way shouldn’t be always treated with bleach (did you know that hardwood flooring is very sensible to chemical products).
So, while most chemical products are really effective when talking about general cleaning, washing and stubborn stain removal, these are not recommended to be used. The chemical residue that they leave does not go away very easy and this makes them very unhealthy for both us humans and for the Mother Nature – the whole environment that surrounds us. Vinegar for example is one of the many excellent alternative products that can be used instead. Did you know that it can be used against bleach sometimes and that the acid that it contains is effective in removing stains from your floors? It’s extremely simple to use and requires only a bucket of warm water, a little bit of vinegar to be added a mop for washing and here you go – the first chemical free method of cleaning the flooring of your house exposed! My San Diego house floors were always washed with apple vinegar because in comparison with other types of vinegar that I’ve tried, it has a more pleasant smell and a much better effect. So, if you decide to go natural with cleaning your house, use the apple based products of this kind. When you are searching a way to stay away from polluting the brain and lungs of you and your family, it is highly advisable that you use vinegar instead of other chemical chlorine products. This is preferable especially when you want to get rid of other unpleasant odors and remove stains left by your pets on the floors that are washable!
Wishing the dishes is also quite a big challenge because most of the detergents that you often use are chemical based, this making them a little bit unsafe for health in general (even if you water-clean them several times after washing). If your recently purchased dishwasher has some technical problems and is not working properly, you might end up with plenty of detergent left on your dishes and that’s not the way to do it. Would you like to hear about a great green alternative to such detergents for washing your dishes? Well, in this case you need to find out about the mustard powder, a very safe and healthy product that can be used instead of detergent. Believe it or not, but this product works excellent when mixed with clean water. I used to experiment a lot with mustard back in my San Diego times and figured out that sometimes it cleans the house even better than most specially created products that are being sold quite expensive on the housekeeping cleaning market these days. Do you agree?
Windows cleaning is done using products like Windex by most Americans. Well, the thing is that if you are really serious about washing the mirrors and windows around your house, using old newspapers and warm water is more than enough to make them look sparkling and perfect. However, if there are some stains that are pretty hard to be eliminated, you can always use vinegar and lemon juice as well, as these are great green alternatives to the existing chemicals that are being pushed so hard for these kinds of cleaning activities. Both the above mentioned methods work great. The thing is to constantly seek different measures of doing things right and to understand that there were no such chemicals in the old times and people still managed to keep their house clean without bothering too much.
The above house cleaning methods that I managed to share with you in this post were used by me in San Diego. I had a beautiful house there, you know, and always looked for options to go green when it came to picking up stuff, cleaning, doing laundry, etc. However, I remember even insisting that the hired maid that used to clean my place when I had no free time to do it myself should use natural products and believe it or not, but she was washing my windows using chemical free cleaning products. Huh, isn’t that something? So, if you want to be healthy and to stay away from trouble while contributing to a green environment round you, make sure you get rid of using harmful chemicals, at least when possible (sometimes washing your toilet bowl with lemon juice instead of bleach sounds a little bit native, doesn’t it?).
Eveline
San Diego House Cleaning Blog