A family home can be like Grand Central Station. So many pairs of feet walking and running over the same part over and over. Lots of messy hands holding, gripping and touching the same doors, handles and chairs over and over.
It’s just a part of busy family life but it takes its toll on our home. Even if you clean your home regularly and make sure you use some of the best cleaning products on the market, you can’t hold a tide with a broom.
Carpets especially are prone to storing bacteria and becoming rather smelly. However even material like wood can become swarmed with bacteria and something solid can turn into fractious and fragile.
Then again, you can’t live your life always being so consumed with trepidation. After all, it is your home and you shouldn’t worry too much about how you and your family live.
The important thing to do is to accept that you have certain parts of the home that need special treatment as they’re not the same as everything else.
Foot and underneath the sofa
The practice of family meals eaten at the dining table is a dying concept. The modern family would rather eat their meals on the sofa, watching the television. We also eat snacks sitting down in the living room and this adds to the problem of crumbs.
Where do these crumbs mostly go? Indeed, some do go down the crevices of the sofa. And although that may be annoying, a pointy nosel of the vacuum cleaner will do the trick of scooping them up.
Now, it’s the floor at the foot of the sofa and underneath the sofa that gets piled over with bits of food. When we see crumbs have fallen on our clothes or on the cushion of the sofa, what do we do? We wipe it off.
Thus it begins, the mountain of uneaten food, drying up and rotting underneath the soles of our feet. Vacuuming here would be merely damage control. The carpet will become stained as the sugars and oils in the food begun to seep into the fibers.
First of all, check what kind of material your carpet is made from. This is because synthetic fibre and natural fibers such as wool, will need different carpet cleaners. Manmade materials will need a little less strength. Whereas cotton and wool need a little more to rub off the stains.
The silent collapse
The grey, green and sometimes blue killer of any home is mold. It can cause a silent collapse of the structures and walls without you knowing that anything is wrong.
No wonder then that so many people literally flee their own homes when they find out that mold is growing on the walls and ceilings. It’s not as scary as people may want to make it out to be.
It’s not easy to understand what causes mold or what can be done about it but here is a simplified approach to mold growth in your home.
There are over 10,000 species of mold, which is a staggering amount since this
bacteria can only exist when the environment is just right.
Mold can spread quickly with the aid of water, which is how it all begins in the first place. Usually a leaking pipe or an entrance into the home via a hole in the wall, or gap through the windowsill, allows bacteria to multiply quickly.
The solutions are varied and not all of them can be done by somebody who isn’t an expert. You can remove the mold yourself, but this is recommended if the structure is still strong. i.e. mold is in it’s very early stages.
Moisture building up in the home can be due to a lack of circulated air. i.e the HVAC has been turned off. The window pressure equalizer has been blocked or shut.
Mold can be a tricky issue to deal with as the cause can be elusive. And the right method for removal is just as difficult to surmise. However usually an expert needs to be called in to take a greater look at the situation. You’ll smell it before you’ll see it most likely.
Mold has a very pungent smell of rotting wood and what can seem like gaseous soil or manure. The overlooked parts of our home are inevitably more unhygienic. Fixing them cannot be done in a similar way to less serious problems.
You need specific treatments for them to avoid damaging your home in the process. Unfortunately you will need to spend a little bit extra money to solve the bad conditions they present.