Cleaning Is Insurance for COVID-19

House Cleaning & COVID-19

As our State and County governments ease into loosening the COVID-19 restrictions in some counties in California cases are beginning to rise again, and the nationwide infection rate has topped 2 million people. You wouldn’t think of driving your car without insurance or investing in a home without having homeowner’s insurance, so in many ways professional house cleaning can be your added protection and insurance against bacteria and COVID-19 virus.

Priorities and Health

Even though shelter in place is behind us for the time being, as we start taking advantage of newly opened stores, restaurants, parks, and other establishments we were used to frequenting before COVID-19, we should all continue to social distance, use a mask when near others outside our home, and maintaining strict cleaning habits. Governor Newsom has mandated masks to be worn by anyone over 2 years of age when outside of our homes. The SARS-COV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 isn’t going away anytime soon, even with warmer weather, you need to keep up your tactics to prevent getting COVID-19. It is easy with the warmer weather, people out and about, and summertime activities to be lulled into feeling that life is back to normal, but we are far from there yet according to the latest health data from experts in epidemiology and infectious diseases.

Cleaning your home and sanitizing surfaces is more important than ever now that shelter in place is behind us for the time being. The variables go up as your activities and the number of people you are around increase. This point was brought home this last week by our west county supervisor, Lynda Hopkins, who shared that the family owned grocery store in Forestville had an employee test positive for COVID-19. Also as we have seen here in Sonoma county and beyond, some people see mask wearing as a political statement, not a health choice, so it’s more important than ever that you are vigilant with your own health and home cleaning practices.

How Crystal Clear Home Can Help

Sanitizing and disinfecting your home are two different things. Sanitizing is about removing dirt from a surface and disinfecting is about killing viruses and bacteria. The CDC recommends that we do both on a regular basis in our home and Crystal Clear Home can help. While we were shut down for cleaning homes in Sonoma County during shelter in place, Crystal Clear Home was cleaning businesses and sanitizing them for the safety of their essential workers. We honed our expertise on both which eco-friendly sanitizers we use and also our techniques to create the healthiest outcomes for the businesses we served. The sanitizing and disinfection techniques for bacteria and viruses we used for businesses, we are now bringing to our home cleaning along with practicing strict COVID-19 protocols.

Crystal Clear Home suggests that you spot clean and disinfect surfaces between our visits and use our services to clean at least once to twice a month to tackle where germs, bacteria and viruses hide. Transmission of COVID-19 from person to person is a much greater risk than surface transmission, but the CDC recommends we clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces in our home at least once daily. Cleaning high-touch surfaces as life opens back up is more important than ever because your contact with the outside world has increased. Investing in your home being cleaned by professionals can be a good insurance against virus transmission.

What Are High-Touch Surfaces?

Lab research has found that the COVID-19 virus is able to live on surfaces like cardboard for 24 hours, but up to 2-3 days on plastic, stainless steel, and other hard surfaces. So cleaning and disinfecting surfaces that are touched frequently should be a priority for all of us, even if we aren’e leaving the house very much. Anytime objects or people enter your home, there is some possibility of exposure–the more people, shopping items, shipped packages, and places you have frequented the equation increases exponentially.

Where to Clean & Disinfect:

• Cell phone
• Garage remote
• Car door handles
• Doorknobs, both exterior and interior of your home
• Table tops
• Kitchen counters
• Bathroom counters
• Hard surface dining chairs or occasional chairs
• Toilet seat and toilet handle
• Faucets and faucet handles both kitchen and bath
• TV remote control
• Any remote control device, such as air conditioner, robotic vacuum, etc.
• Game controllers
• Hot pot handle or coffee maker handles
• Refrigerator door handle
• Desk surfaces
• Mouse pads and mouse
• Cordless phones

Each home is unique, so when walking through your home think of all the surfaces you touch each day, make notes and put them on your list. Now that you have your list, here are some tips on cleaning and disinfecting surfaces.

How to Clean & Disinfect:

Adding these techniques to your daily routine can help lower your risk of infection for you and your family. It’s about doing a thorough job and getting in the crevices where dirt and viruses can lurk.

• First clean surfaces, remove any dust or dirt. You can do this by wiping the surface with soapy water and a paper towel.
• Then depending on the surface, whether metal, wood, or plastic use the appropriate disinfectant. A disinfectant spray is one of the easiest ways to do this with paper towels or disinfecting wipes. We have just found bamboo reusable and washable paper towels that would be great for home use and with increased cleaning will keep your use of disposable paper towel to a minimum. They are sturdy, bamboo reusable paper towels can be used 80 times each.

Depending on your household surface you are cleaning you may opt for making your own homemade bleach disinfectant spray by the direction given on the CDC website:

• 1/3 cup household bleach, you can use scented bleach, this is fine per gallon
• 4 teaspoons bleach per quart bottle
• Pour both into an appropriate sized spray bottle and shake well
• Spray on surface to disinfect , let sit for 10 minutes and wipe away with a wet cloth
• Bleach solution will be effective for disinfection for up to 24 hours

We would love to save you time and energy by cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing your home on a regular basis. Home cleaning professionals can get your home safe and clean quicker and also more thoroughly. Give us a call about our Welcome Back Special at $99 or fill out our contact form and we look forward to hearing from you soon!