Hygienic home - how often, realistically, should I be cleaning?

[teacher1984]

Any suggestions/advice about how often, realistically, I should be cleaning bathrooms, floors, sinks etc to keep a hygienic home, especially this time of year? Should I be using bleach/disinfectants rather than natural products?

My child gets higher than average number of tummy bugs each year and I'm wondering if I could be at fault.

I have taught her good hand washing practice.

This is what I do:

Kitchen work tops with kitchen spray before and after meal prep.

Kitchen floors bleach daily

Bathroom floor bleach daily using bleach water from kitchen, then I flush it down the toilet. And I bleach toilet and sink daily.

Some will say bleach isn't good to keep using but I love it.

I find when its done daily, it only needs going over quickly then

My cleaning routine is absolutely minimal (infact our cleaner does the majority of it in 3 hours a week) and I only use bleach on stained tea cups, so get through one bottle every two or three YEARS! It is at least five years since any of us have had a stomach bug and even when the dc were very little they got way fewer than average.

So go figure!

However, I am very big on washing hands and everyone has to wash their hands when coming in from school/work/being out and before eating (as well as after toilet obvs).

Hot, soapy water is fine for most cleaning tasks. Get some rubber gloves so you can use properly hot water. Using anti-bacterial products and bleach all the time is excessive and there's evidence it increases cases of asthma in children.

Wash towels and cleaning cloths at 60 degrees minimum. Don't use tea towels for hand drying - keep them for drying the pots.

If you have pets keep them off kitchen work surfaces, dining tables, etc.

I wipe the work tops down after food prep and don't put shopping bags, etc which have been in the boot of the car or on the floor on them.

The kitchen floor gets hoovered once a week (we don't eat in there) and mopped every week or so.

When you clean the bathroom, clean the toilet flush, the taps and the door handles. Wipe other door handles once a week.

You bleach floors daily ?! We have wooden floors which are swept a couple of times a week and steam mopped every few weeks. Kitchen work tops and hob get wiped with dettox everyday, sink and drainer bleached once or twice a week , bathrooms weekly, Hoover once or twice a week.

If you're not getting them as well, then they can't be being passed around at home, can they? Is the rest of the family well?

Hygiene greatly over-rated imo.

I di hardly anything and we don't get tummy bugs. What I would do is take your child to the GP. What I wouldn't ever do is follow any cleaning advice given on MN .

I personally prefer white vinegar to bleach etc. I dilute it 1/3

Clean food prep areas before use with hot soapy water and after use with white vinegar spray.
Wash up daily.
hoover 2 times weekly.
mop kitchen and bathroom twice weekly.
Clean bathroom sink and bath once weekly.

I am a slattern and rely on 99p stores anti bac wipes and spray all week. At the weekend either me or DH does the bathroom and kitchen 'properly'. We also use the wipes to dust (one for a whole room- for the dampness not germs) and hoover 2-3 times a week.

Toilet hygiene and cleaning food prep equipment, plus good food storage is more important than 'cleaning' in fighting bugs, whatever Dettol marketing would have us believe.

Daily bleaching .

I never use bleach on food prep areas- I wipe down with method multi purpose cleaner or dettol before and after food preparation. Any cutting is done on chopping boards that go through the dishwasher.

I Vacuum downstairs daily as my children are messy, mop the floors a couple of times a week and steam the kitchen and bathroom floors once a week or so. I wipe round the loo with a loo wipe every few days.

We have a cleaner fortnightly, not sure if she cleans door handles but otherwise I do them when I remember.

We have very few tummy bugs and occasional colds, certainly no more than their friends.

Ok, thanks for all the very useful replies. It doesn't look like I'm doing any less than I should, we have no pets and are low on clutter so cleaning is relatively easy. DH and I rarely catch any of the illnesses.

We don't often use bleach so was wondering if I should use it more.

Hand washing practices are really good with me and DC; I can't be sure about DH.

It's difficult to get to the bottom of.

Hot soapy water should be as good as bleach and a lot better for the environment.

My neighbour says she gets through about three bottles of bleach a week . I rarely use it these days as I always end up getting it on my clothes.

Yeah, I'm a bit OCD about clean floors. I used to be worse before I had DC1 11 years ago, I would bleach the toilet after every use, now I only do it once a day.

Yeah, just a squirt of bleach in a bucket of hot water, and I use one of those sponge mops to do the kitchen and bathroom every morning. It only takes 5 mins if that.

I mop floors with hot soapy water and a dash of bleach about twice a week, kitchen work tops after food prep with a kitchen bleach spray and use baby wipes on other surfaces that collect dust.

What do people think of steam mops vs regular mops for cleanliness? The steam is supposed to kill all germs right?

Yeah i've heard good things about steam mops. It sounds a lot more simpler how you don't have to fill a bucket with hot water and bleach. It would probably more inviting to getting it out more often to giving a quick mop over.

I thought i was hot about the toilet bleaching them twice a week

I never use bleach on the floor. It's really dangerous if you have pets or small children. You shouldn't really ever need to disinfect a floor unless it's had wee, poop or sick on it.
I use hot water & washing up liquid to clean the floors and do so twice a week. I also Hoover 2-3 times a week. When my 2 kids were younger, I made sure their baby clothes got washed on 60 degrees where possible (PJ's and baby grows mostly) and washed their toys down with hot soapy water too, once every week or so. 2 weeks world be acceptable.
If possible, try to keep babies from crawling on kitchen and bathroom floors. They could pick up anything and put it in their mouths. And do.

how old is dc and are they are school or nursery?
food intolerances?

God I can't imagine having time to do the floors daily!!

Floors get mopped weekly, kitchen gets brushed daily and wiped down with anti bac wipes and surface cleaner, hoovering done 2-3 times a week downstairs and once upstairs, I wipe around the en suite sink and loo once a day with an anti bac wipe and do the same with downstairs loo. Family bathroom gets cleaned once a week as no one ever used it other than to have a bath.

I don't use bleach or anti bac anything! I am careful about chopping boards and raw meat (sep chopping board for meat which gets washed in very hot soapy water immediately) and adhere to sell by dates on meat and fish.

Toilet gets cleaned as and when, certainly not daily.

I really don't think being susceptible to tummy bugs has anything to do with how clean your house is unless you have really slack habits, or terrible personal hygiene.

My dcs are 19 and 16 and have never had d and v or any mild form of tummy bug. Ever.
Me neither. ( except after wine )

We've obviously got strong constitutions..... I clean toilets daily ( bleach)and wipe surfaces, but floors get done weekly and I wash towels etc on 40.
Garlic and onions in everything.

I think some people just have weaknesses to get certain Illnesses, be it colds, sickness etc. it might not be that you are doing anything wrong exactly.

We have a septic tank and so can't use bleach at all. You do not need to use bleach.

Kitchen surfaces wiped down fully at least twice a day with anti bac spray. Same for kitchen table. Sink has a drop or two of zoflora in every other day diluted in water and left overnight. Dishcloths and tea towels are changed daily. Chopping boards go in the dishwasher after each use (unless its just cutting bread).

Floor swept daily and mopped twice a week with diluted zoflora. All bathrooms done completely with anti bac spray and toilet cleaner twice a week. Hand towels changed at the same time so twice a week (or sooner if it's necessary but we have a lot of bathrooms)

All door handles done with anti bac spray once a week (after we had a spate of threadworm attacks with DS2).

This makes it sound like I'm obsessed with anti bac spray. I'm not I just find its a good one product solution. I don't need anything else.

Cleaning only once a week here too. I agree hand washing and thoroughly cooking food are more important in terms of avoiding tummy bugs. My DC don't tend to lick the floor

White wine vinegar, lemon juice and bicarb of soda, in various combinations, are my go-to cleaning products.

Bathroom gets done when small person is in the bath. Floors get swept every two days (tiled house throughout) and rugs shaken in the garden. House mopped once a week - use wipes for spillages.

I don't own any bleach: disgusting smell, stained clothes from spashback, horrible stuff if ingested (sucking a toy dropped on the floor or whatever).

Religiously wash hands after toilet trips. Change hand towels and kitchen towels daily. We are fairly healthy. I am in the middle of my first bug of winter (wheezy cough, i sound like Mutley), small person has the constitution of an ox, more due to luck?

We aim for clean but not sterile.