Two Changes To Make If You Want A More Sanitary Home

Posted on

If you've become more concerned with keeping your home hygienically clean as of late, here are some changes you can make to it that will make it more sanitary.

Replace fabric window dressings with shutters

If you'd like to achieve and maintain a more sanitary home, then you should consider taking down all of your window dressings that are made from fabric (like curtains, roman blinds, roller blinds and voile panels) and replacing these with shutters.

The fabrics from which these dressings are made are absorbent, which means every time you touch them, or every time your pets paw at them, any particles on your hand (or their paws) that contain microbes will stay on those fabrics. If these fabric-based window dressings get damp (when, for example, the room gets humid or an open window results in rain falling on them), their absorbency will mean they'll stay moist for a long time, and the microbes on them (some of which may cause disease) will then quickly multiply.

Sanitising these microbe-filled fabrics is not easy. For example, because removing lots of window dressings is hard work, it's not practical to sanitise them by putting them in the washing machine every week. Instead, if you want to keep the microbe population on these items down, the only option is to spray them with disinfectant regularly. However, eventually, this may lead to the discolouration and staining of these fabrics.

Conversely, shutters, which are usually made from varnished wood, plastic or metal, are not very absorbent. This means that they won't stay moist for very long if they get damp, and microbes won't sink into these materials the way they tend to do with textile window dressings. Furthermore, you can safely disinfect these tougher materials regularly if you want to, without worrying that this will result in their deterioration.

Consider installing low-touch or no-touch features

It's also worth installing features which you don't need to touch very much in order to operate. For example, if you get shutters, as advised above, you could get motorised ones that you can operate by pressing a button, rather than having to touch the shutters directly.

Likewise, you might want to fit some interior sensor lights so you don't have to use light switches, as well as bath and kitchen taps that have sensors that control their emission of water. Additionally, you could fit swing doors in your home, which you could open by lightly pressing with one of your feet or arms, instead of your hands.

Putting in features that reduce the need to touch lots of surfaces around your home will cut back on the frequency with which you add more microbes from your hands to these surfaces. These low-touch or no-touch features will also reduce your cleaning workload, as you won't have to sanitise light switches or door handles and will be able to keep your shutters sanitary without disinfecting them every single day.


Share