How to Keep Your Home Clean During School Holidays: Survival Tips for Parents

Image Credit: UnSplash

{This is a collaborative post}

Having kids at home during the school holidays is great, but it often means any household mess multiplies exponentially. This is just a fact of life, although for those of us who like tidy homes, it can mean more unnecessary stress.

So, how do you keep your home clean during the school holidays? Below are some tips that should help make things a bit more manageable.

 

How to Keep Your Home Clean During School Holidays

 

1. Designate Play and Activity Areas

If you have young children who like making messes, set up designated areas in which it’s safe for them to do so. This could be the dining room table, the living room, or somewhere else.

The key here is to contain mess so it’s easier to clean up. Don’t be afraid to let your kids have a good time, but just aim to keep everything in its designated place. Then when you need to tidy up, it should be a bit easier.

 

2. Assign Cleaning Jobs

Get kids involved in the cleaning process as much as possible. Younger kids can put away their toys, while older children can help with sorting out bins, the dishwasher, and so on. If they receive pocket money, include cleaning in their list of jobs over the holidays.

If you struggle with motivating them, have a designated cleaning hour. Put on some music and make it an enjoyable activity that you can do together. You could even turn it into a race to see who gets done the fastest.

 

3. Tidy as You Go

Make sure everyone tidies as they go to cut down on larger cleaning jobs. For example, get kids to bring washing up down with them, or make sure they bring their rubbish to the bin if they’re passing it.

Similarly, implement a “touch once” rule. This is pretty self-explanatory: if you start a job, finish it so it doesn’t need to be touched again. If you’ve folded some clean washing, organise it into piles and take them to their respective rooms.

 

A Great New Hoover on the Market - Hoover HF500 Anti-Twist PETS Model

{I received the Hoover HF500 Anti-twist Pets vacuum cleaner free of charge for the purpose of writing this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest}

If you ask me how I'm going to clean a floor, I'll tell you I'll Hoover it and truthfully that would be whether or not the actual product I'm using is made by Hoover. As Hoover is a brand I grew up with, it was the only vacuum cleaner my Nan and Mum would ever think to buy and I'm pleased to see that nearly fifty years later Hoover is still making excellent vacuum cleaners.

It was a very easy yes from me when I was asked if I'd like to review the Hoover HF500 anti-twist pets vacuum cleaner. It retails for £299 and is one of the modern stick-type vacuums, which I haven't used before. At just 2.5kg in its full upright form (or 1.7kg as a handheld) it is really easy to use and manoeuvre whatever your size, strength or ability. 

I really like the modern graphite grey and turquoise colouring of this Hoover and it feels robust for something so light. It was intuitive and easy to put together straight from the box and I didn't have to spend time going over a manual and wondering what goes where. 

When I first received the Hoover HF500 anti-twist pets, seeing how streamlined it is I thought I might let my son take it to uni when he goes in September but having used it, I don't want to let it go, as it really is very effective and so light.

It amazes me that a vacuum being cordless and light really encourages my teen children to use it. They won't even consider using the traditional vacuum as you have to unwind the lead and plug it in, but will happily grab my cordless and clean their own bedrooms. That is a big win as far as I'm concerned. 

Put Your Home in Order – Useful Tips

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

For many of us, cleaning means a lot of unpleasant, time-taking hard work. However, in reality, there are some simple tips that will ease the process of cleaning, and most importantly, change your attitude to the cleaning process.

The primary cause for negative attitudes towards cleaning your house is the wrong internal motivation or even a complete lack of motivation. Often, one person does most of the cleaning work, but the whole family creates a mess. In addition, no matter how much time was spent putting everything in order, by the very next day the mess seems to have recreated as if by itself! It can feel neverending. 

Here I'll share some tips on how to make cleaning your home pleasant, easy and not burdensome.

Cleaning as you go

Urgent cleaning prevents a shallow, easily removable mess from escalating into a serious problem. For example, after cooking dinner, a few greasy spots remain on the stove, they are barely noticeable and do not bother anyone at all, you could easily leave them there. However, if you don't wipe the mess away immediately, and if you leave the dirty stove unattended every day, then a multi-layer burnt crust will form, which will require a large amount of cleaning products and hours of elbow grease, all when you could have spent just two minutes each day keeping your stovetop nice. It really is a false economy to leave it for another day.

Review: Gtech AirRam Mk 2 Vacuum - I Love It!

For a few years my parents have had a GTech vacuum, first they had the upright AirRam and now they also have the handheld Multi. I've used both and love them and as such I contacted Gtech to ask if I could review the new MK 2 AirRam. Lucky for me they said yes, so I set about giving it a very through testing and as I suspected may be the case, I am in love. This really is the best vacuum I've ever used and considering that for quite a number of years my career was as a hotel manager with responsibility for housekeeping amongst other departments, I've tried out a fair few.

The Gtech AirRam retails for £199.99 (or you can buy a K9 model with added suction for if you have pets). I think the big selling point of the AirRam is how light it is, at just 3.5kg even my 10 year old's pick it up and carry it up the stairs easily. It is wonderful to see them willing to do their own cleaning as it is so easy with no cords to get tangled in too. It glides around the room like it is on rollers and the swivel handle is a dream to use as well, as you can be standing in one direction and vacuuming in another.

The battery can perform for an impressive 40 minute run time on one charge cycle, which takes about 4 hours but you don't have to have the battery fully charged to be able to use it, even an hour gives it a boast to be able to clean when you need to. I also like that the battery has 4 light sections, so you can see what charge is left.

Spring Cleaning with my Karcher Steam Cleaner SC 2.500 (Review)

A few weeks back I received the Karcher SC 2.500 steam cleaner to use and review. I've had a steam cleaner before from a competitor and whilst it was OK I found it heavy and more trouble than it was worth so I was interested to see how the Karcher lived up to the tests I had in mind for it. I've heard of the Karcher name before and my husband uses their products in his work and he said they are a good reliable brand and to be honest that is what I expect from any German brand. The Germans do seem to build things to last and work well.

Setting the cleaner up
This was really easy, I took everything out the box, which was pretty compact and whilst the instruction booklet looks huge and scary it is actually only a few pages in English and the rest is for other languages. Inside the front cover are visual instructions for set up and it took me literally 2 minutes, it was so simple. As you can see all the fittings are yellow which help you to see where they should join and they are an easy press and click system.

With the steam cleaner you receive a floor cleaning head, a smaller head for handheld tasks and a tiny precision head with grout attachment. I also received 2 cleaning pads fork the floor cleaner head and two for the handheld.

The SC 2.500 model retails for £232.09 and there are other models available for both more and less, depending on your cleaning needs.

What can it clean?
Really the list of what your steam cleaner can clean for you is limitless, I have not tried everything yet but I'm loving having something that can clean at such high temperatures that it is hygienic and can kill bacteria.

The types of areas it can clean are hard floors, hard surfaces, plants, upholstery, carpets, glass, shower screens, bathrooms, cookers and on and on.

Lino floor -
The first thing I decided to tackle was my lino floor which covers much of the downstairs of my house. I normally use a traditional mop and bucket and whilst this is fine in the main it never really seems to get the ground in dirt by the front door. As we live in the countryside we are out and about in our wellies an awful lot and as we do not have a garden attached to our house the kids scooters come into the house and thus this area gets very dirty. Here are the before and after pictures -

I didn't find the cleaner hard to use at all and as the water is contained in the floor unit (rather than in an handheld cleaner like I had before) it was light and you could pull it around with you easily. I would have liked the cord to be a bit longer than the 4 metres supplied but obviously it was easy to use an extension lead. You can see from the pad above that it sure gets some dirt up and I just put the cloth in the washing machine afterwards and it came out fine.

Window Frame -
Next up I wanted to clean a window frame that has been going mouldy through lack of ventilation. As I live in an 18th century listed building we have old lead windows that we can not change. One of them is in my galleried hall and this means that we can not actually access the window at all without an extra tall ladder. The joy of the steam cleaner is that the arm is so long I could stand on the balcony and use the cleaning arm from there, of course it is a bit hard to get the same kind of scrub from a distance of about 6 foot but it is better than nothing. Again I have some before and after pictures for you to see, look at the bottom of the frame in both pictures, there is a massive improvement and of course I can now do it each month rather than letting it build up again.

Tiles and grout -
One of the things I hate to clean are bathroom tiles and especially grout, it is so boring, therefore I was pleased to see the steam cleaner can help me with that. I haven't got any pictures to show you but take a look at my short video to see me both cleaning the window frame and and also the tiles. The next morning in the light of day I could really see that  the cleaning had made a difference and as I mention in the video it is great to know the tiles are now hygienic.



Pros -

• Can be used on a massive range of surfaces/ areas and is easy to use
• Great range of accessories that you can purchase to expand it uses, I wanting to get the bathroom cleaning set so I have a cloth which can be a but more abrasive too
• Super website with loads of cleaning tips
• Hygienic cleaning, great for peace of mind to know those high temperatures are killing harmful bacteria

Cons -

• It is not cheap but I do believe it is an investment
• Storage space is always an issue but this does pack up nice and streamlined

I've been using my steam cleaner each week since it arrived with me and it is fabulous. I've found out since my early cleaning attempts (those on the video) that you can use some cleaning products (natural or man-made) with the cleaner. So with the really ground in floor dirt, I can spray on some cleaner and leave it to soak for a few minutes and then use the steam on it to really clean it up - fabulous!  I'm happy to recommend this and give it a 9/10 overall, it only didn't quite get a 10 as I know the cost will be a stretch to some.

Disclosure: I was sent this Karcher steam cleaner free of charge for the purpose of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.

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