Tips from Professional House Cleaners

• Make a schedule, and stick to it. The mess gets worse the longer you put it off. If the house is too big, hit a floor at a time, or clean all the bathrooms on Tuesdays.
   
• Identify your trouble spots, and determine how you're going to get them cleaned up. Do you need any special cleaning products? Is soap scum or mold and mildew taking over the bath? Select the tools you'll need, and who you can assign the task to.
   
• Get help. If there are others living and breathing in the house with you, who are most certainly contributing to the mess, get them to help. My favorite is to assign tasks to each child for a week at time, and rotate tasks. Don't forget to throw in deep cleaning items, like the mess under the sink, or spraying down and wiping the trash compactor.
   
• Gather all your cleaning supplies and place in a bucket or tote. Don't waste time running around getting a broom or cleaners or whatever you need to complete the task that you're doing. Your bucket should contain glass cleaner, disinfectant, detergent de greaser, soup scum remover, comet, soft scrub, scrub brush, sponge, toothbrush, and a green scrubbier for starters.
   
• Use the right product for the job. Use natural cleaning products if possible. We don't use fancy products to clean with. Get good quality heavy duty cleaning products that do a great job. This doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money either. We use a solution of vinegar and water to damp mop linoleum or vinyl floors. It works great.
   
• Dump your junk. Get clutter free. This is a hard one. I like stuff too, and I was raised in a family of pack rats, so this doesn't come naturally to me either. The room will feel kind of bare at first, but trust me, you'll get used to it, (you'll actually come to prefer it) and it makes clean up a breeze.

Professional Cleaning Tips

Take a lesson from the pros!  Professional cleaning services are masters of the art of speedy, efficient cleaning. To clean your house in record time, try these tips from Mrs. Clean to help get your home clean in no time.:

Schedule Cleaning

Professional cleaners schedule every job. Nobody hires a cleaning service that promises to arrive "some time" on Saturday. There’s nothing like the feeling of a completely clean home—but you won’t get it by cleaning in bits and pieces!

The pros don’t quit until the job is done, and neither should you. Schedule the job and stick to it to get the work done in record time.

Get Motivated and Limit Distractions

You won’t find the pros pausing to check their e-mail or call a friend. Amateur cleaners should limit distractions as they clean.

Turn up the music, and have a family member help to make short work of it. Cleaning as a team with friends or family members can help you stay on project and make cleaning fun. It really feels great when you can enjoy your new clean home.

Wear Appropriate Clothing For Cleaning

Professional cleaners dress for the job in comfortable, washable clothing designed for work. Wear supportive shoes and kneepads if you need them. Comfy sweats and a tee shirt work well. Use goggles and gloves protect against chemicals, a disposable face mask to protect your lungs if you are sensitive to dust or airborne sprays.

Cleaning clothing gets beat up quickly.  Set aside your "cleaning uniform", and wear it ach time you clean, right down to shoes, gloves and eye protection.

Use The Proper Cleaning Tools

Professional cleaners don’t use gadgets. You’ll never find them toting specialized, one-use tools, or other miracle product purchased on some television infomercial. Forget flimsy supermarket cheapies, and invest in well made, time tested cleaning tools. If you get good tools, you'll only have to buy them once and you can use them over and over again.

Carry Your Cleaning Supplies

Watch an average home cleaner clean the bathroom. Oops! Forgot the comet,  so down the stairs you go. The toilet brush? It’s in the other bathroom down the hall. Laundry room has the towels, kitchen for the scrubbie, vacuum who knows where. The feather duster left somewhere else because it was being used as a cat toy.

Professional cleaners tote their tools with them—all their tools. Look in our professional cleaner’s tote tray: all tools, cleansers, brushes and rags needed to finish the job are right there. Vacuum, mop and mini-vacuum all together and wait in the doorway. A plastic bag for trash is tucked into a pocket, next to the waving feather duster.

The tote doesn't have to be fancy- Stick it all in a 5 gallon bucket and carry that with you when you clean. That’s why the pro has finished the entire bathroom before our amateur makes it back up the stairs with the comet cleanser.

When it comes to house cleaning, you may not be able to cut your chores in half, but you can probably reduce the amount of time you spend. Keep the following tips in mind to help you as you do your house work.

Clean Efficiently- Make Every Move Count

Clean top to bottom, back to front, right to left and work your way around the room, cleaning as you go, just one area at a time. Carry your cleaning supplies with you in a basket or cleaning bucket so you don't waste time retrieving them.

Use The Right Tools For The Job

An example: instead of wiping and rubbing at the gunk that gets stuck to counters and shelves, carry a glass scraper with your cleaning supplies. You'll dislodge those sticky messes with one motion. Another invaluable tool is a toothbrush and toothpicks for quickly removing grime and gunk from grooves, grout lines, corners, and faucets.

Concentrate When Cleaning

House cleaning is a chore, but if you let your mind wander, you'll spend even more time cleaning. Focus on what you're doing, make every move count, and you'll finish more quickly.

Time Yourself

Note your beginning and end time for each room. Try to do the same room in less time, the next time you clean. Make a game out of it.

Carry Your Cleaning Supplies

Not only will you not have to backtrack, but you'll work faster if you get into the habit of putting a tool or product back in its spot after every time you use it. We have a cleaning bucket that contains all our supplies and we carry it from room to room. It contains all our cleaning supplies such as disinfectant, scrub brush, de-greaser, comet, soft scrub, etc.

Dust First, Vacuum Last

Start dusting from the top of the highest shelves, the tops of cabinets. These tend to be less dusty than lower shelves. Even if you dust quickly with a feather duster, you'll be moving the dust down to a lower level, usually the floor, where it is easily vacuumed away.