Man dusting providing domestic house cleaning in Sydney

Dusty places at home worth paying attention to

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Our home is our refuge, our temple. It is where we sleep, eat, love, wash, and share with our friends, and for many these days, where we work. But we need to realize that a significant amount of hidden dust is found in hidden places that we generally don’t see or pay much attention to. And that dust “leaks out” into the living environment, causing a host of issues. Dust is harmful to our general health and mental well-being. Only expert dust-focused cleaners like 1800 CLEANER list and focus on those spots we must consider when cleaning this hidden dust that cannot be readily seen. You can fix your dusty home by paying attention to the list we outline below.

  • Clean your Airconditioning filters

Air conditioners are generally hung on the walls; we must always remember to clean them and the dust that accumulates above and inside of them. This dust is impossible to detect from ground level. But the most important thing to consider is that the filters inside them are the number one dust collectors in your home, and it is essential to keep them clean and clean them regularly. They are metaphorically the lungs of your home.

  • Clean and dust ceiling fans

One of the most significant dust accumulators is the ceiling fans. With the help of the ladder, let’s clean each of its fins well. Remember that if you’ve never cleaned them, using the duster is not enough: using a damp microfiber cloth and a multipurpose product to remove the gunk stuck to their edges is key. Warm water and a scourer work best for really stubborn stains.

  • Clean and dust lamp shades

With a damp microfiber cloth and a multipurpose product, let’s clean our lamp shades well to keep them dust-free. Start with dusting, lightly at first, then progress to a proper moist microfibre wipedown.

  • Clean and dust bookshelves

Our libraries are an accumulation of books and objects stored for ages. How to clean away this annoying dust? Also, clean the sides, top, and back of your bookshelves with a damp microfiber cloth – this one is time-consuming but oh-so-satisfying.

  • Remove the dust from your frames: all of them

The frames of artwork, windows, beds, and doors are great dust receivers and go unnoticed. After using our duster, with a damp cloth, let’s clean that old dust that remains stuck on these intricate landing surfaces. They will look much brighter and more beautiful.

  • Skirting boards.

Skirting boards are permanent dust collectors and are a major eyesore in a dusty home. Let’s use our dusters regularly to keep them clean and intermittently a deeper clean with a damp microfiber cloth.

  • Make sure to clean the dust under your bed

Sometimes, we use the space under our beds to store boxes, suitcases, or anything we like but rarely use. Considering that our room is a space for daily use, this space becomes the perfect place to accumulate lint and dust. The problem is that it accumulates in significant quantities under there, and we don’t see it. Really go after this dust as it lives so close to where you sleep and is harmful to your health. Use your duster to agitate that hidden dust and then, with your HEPA vacuum, remove it from your sight and sinuses.

  • Carpets and rugs

Our dusty home gets dustier even quicker if we have a pet. Use your vacuum regularly and vacuum your carpet from end to end, especially in corners and edges, which are the areas where the most significant dust deposits occur. And go in two different directions to agitate the pile.

  • Top of the fridge

Some surfaces are difficult to reach, and the space where we put dishes and other kitchen objects is crucial – above the fridge. Get on a chair and clean the top of your fridge with a damp microfiber cloth and a multipurpose product. Clean the sides and underneath with your duster, shaking the dust and then collecting it with your vacuum.

  • Indoor plants

We love plants; they give life to any space where we place them, but remember that their leaves (full of pores), huge ones, are dust receptors. With a damp cloth, let’s clean its upper and lower parts.

  • Clean your blinds and curtains.

When you shake your curtains, you will be impressed by how much dust they accumulate. Please do this weekly to avoid dust accumulation on its entire surface. If, instead, we use blinds, we use our duster and then clean the dust with a microfiber cloth on all our blinds and their frames.

The tips described are a great help, but remember that a specialized dust cleaner with the proper equipment will know how to solve this issue most efficiently. Enjoy your dust-free life.

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Michael Sweet, founder of 1800 CLEANER | WWW.1800cleaner.com.au

 

 

 

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Pre-sale cleaning – what you need to know

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There is so much involved in selling your home. It’s important not to underestimate the importance of being able to depend on your pre-sale cleaners. This crucial decision can add tens of thousands of dollars to your final sale price.

1800 CLEANER have witnessed customers attempting to sell homes using a substandard cleaning company. Selling something confidently is impossible when we don’t feel good about the product. We’ve learnt from thousands of pre-sale cleaning situations that there’s an intelligent way to approach this essential part of the sales process.

Your pre-sale cleaners can deliver the best value by accentuating the home’s appeal to prospective buyers. A large part of buying a house is about how the home makes prospective buyers feel while walking through their potential new home. Selling your home is, thereby, not an entirely rational process. It involves supporting the potential new owners to imagine themselves living in the home as they move from room to room.

 

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A high quality pristine clean is key

Our customers often tell us that our cleaning has transformed their homes and that it feels like they’re living in a different space. What is most significant about what 1800 CLEANER does is that we can remove all the fine particle dust and other invisible contaminants, impurities and irritants entirely from your house.

It can’t be underestimated what being in a dust-free environment feels like; even though we might not be fully aware of it, it is registered nonetheless. Another factor we can sense, albeit subtly, is how a home has been cleaned – has it been cleaned in a rush or with deep care and respect?

Our pre-sale cleaners are trained deeply in our advanced cleaning methods. And we treat all of our staff with deep care so that they can, in turn, show that same depth of care in your pre-sale clean. And when a potential buyer feels that, they’re even more likely to feel like this is the home for them.

The quality 20-point pre-sale cleaning checklist

All Rooms

1.  Close all windows, doors and entrance areas, minimise through-drafts, and prepare the premises.
2.  Thorough dusting of all ceilings, ledges, walls, blinds, ceiling fans, landing surfaces and windowsills throughout.
3.  Power-head HEPA-Vacuum of floors, stairs and carpets at commencement and completion.
4.  Clean all cupboard and drawer exteriors and interiors and mirrors throughout.
5.  Extract dust throughout all accessible areas by running a negative ioniser.
6.  Wipe clean all surfaces, light switches and skirting boards.
7.  Air Clean with HEPA-air and antibacterial air filtration.
8.  Hand clean of air vents and fans.

Kitchen

9.  Remove dust, grime and gunk on top of cupboards and clean the range hood.
10. Warm water scrub and wipe clean bench-tops, sinks, taps and grill tops.
11. Remove, clean behind, under and replace fridge (if fridge present).
12. Spray, scrub and wipe cupboard exteriors and interiors.
13. Clean and polish appliance exteriors.
14. Hot micro-fibre wash and dry floor.

Bathrooms

15. Wipe clean sinks, vanities, taps and cupboard interiors and exteriors.
16. Scrub, wipe clean and dry shower and shower screens throughout.
17. Wash, clean, and disinfect toilets, inside and out.
18. Hot wash and wipe wall tiles.
19. Hot wash and dry floors.
20. Scrub and dry bathtub.

In conclusion, we recommend booking our 21-point clean, which includes the above list, and we also highly recommend window cleaning to accentuate the feeling potential buyers experience when imagining themselves living in your property. Getting us to shampoo your carpets is the final step to presenting your home in the best way possible. The only problem with cleaning your home this well is that you may no longer want to sell it!

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1800 CLEANER - Where cleaning meets science

Michael Sweet, founder of 1800 CLEANER| WWW.1800CLEANER.COM.AU

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Dust Allergies and how to prevent them

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1800 CLEANER is a Sydney-based cleaning company that focuses on helping sufferers of dust and associated dust mite allergies. The focus on fine particle dust extraction services goes beyond simply leaving a house clean and shining. We are a company that was born out of a personal need to transform a family home into a dust-free environment. This is done for the well-being of your family and, especially, the little ones who are arriving. Don’t miss this article if you suffer from dust allergies, specifically dust mite allergies. It shows you how to improve your habits at home with the end goal of helping reduce your symptoms

Our service is committed to eliminating excessive dust that is hidden in places throughout the average home. Those places and spaces where we would never go to clean by ourselves, and in general, are spaces that can accumulate this hidden dust for years. By not seeing these microscopic particles, we do not realize that we live with particles breeding for germs and dust mites. These tiny particles cause great damage to our health if they are not combated at the root.

What are we talking about when we talk about allergies?

According to ASCIA “Allergy occurs when the immune system in a person reacts to allergens which are substances in the environment that do not cause problems for most people.  This reaction leads to inflammation (redness and swelling) that causes allergic conditions, which can affect different parts of the body”, such as:

  • Allergic rhinitis (hay fever) which affects the nose and eyes.
  • Eczema or urticaria (hives), which affect the skin.
  • Anaphylaxis (the most severe allergic reaction) which can affect the whole body.
  • Asthma which affects the lungs.

Allergens are mostly found in house dust, dust mites and their faeces, pollen, pets, moulds, some antibiotic medicines, insect stings or bites, latex (natural rubber) and foods.”

It is important to bear in mind that many factors can lead to the development of symptoms and culminate in an allergy. It can depend on the season of the year, the area where we live, and even the jobs we do. For example, construction workers use to increase risk of exposure to big amounts of dust, specially silica dust and is very likely to come home with traces of these particles on their work clothes. Our approach is directed especially to where we spend most of our lives, especially after the COVID era: our home.

Dust Mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus CREDIT Allergy Australia

It is important to keep ourselves informed about how dust mites behave. And how they can affect us. Finally, how to prevent their spread through habits that help to cut their numbers.

Dust mites: what to know and how to combat them

House dust mites belong to the spider family and are so small and minuscule that they cannot be seen except under a microscope. They feed on dry human skin, dust accumulated in houses, and other microscopic food sources such as pollen and fungal spores.

Dust mites are very common in humid areas and thrive in constant warm temperatures, which is why they are more common in coastal areas of Australia than in the interior of our country, the drier areas. Dust mite allergy is a common result of excessive dust in the home.

They mainly live in the layers of dust that have settled in houses, especially in the most crowded or well-travelled spaces. Previously, we mentioned that they feed on dead skin cells, so it is very likely that they are in our beds and surroundings, whether they are curtains, furniture, or carpets. If you suffer from a dust mite allergy, there’s good news for you.

1800 CLEANER recommendations

1800 CLEANER understands very well where these little beings are, how they behave and breed and knows the most effective and safe methods for alleviating the presence and preponderance of dust mites in our homes. To find out more, we recommend that you read this article where we tell you the main tips to take into account when fighting these little enemies, including:

  • Wash sheets, pillows cases and other bedding weekly in hot water
  • Cover mattress, pillow and quilt with dust-mite-resistant covers
  • Consider replacing carpets with hard floors
  • Vacuum carpets weekly: HEPA filter vacuum cleaner may remove more allergen than a regular vacuum cleaner.
  • Reduce humidity: have a dry and well-ventilated house
  • Venetian blinds or flat blinds are easier to clean than curtains
  • Use a damp or electrostatic cloth to dust hard surfaces.
  • Try to keep your pets out of your home as they are a major source of allergens.
  • If you have external environmental allergies, remain at home (when possible) during the pollen seasons. This is particularly true on windy days, after thunderstorms or during bush fires.
  • Removing visible mould by cleaning with non-toxic products.
  • Consider a no-shoe policy at home.
  • Try live a minimalist life with lots of open and easy to clean surfaces.
  • Hire professional “dust-free” oriented cleaners once a year to conduct a spring clean

In conclusion, you deserve to live dust-free

Unfortunately, dust mites can not be completely eliminated from our homes. But we don’t need to remove every dust mite to alleviate dust mite allergies. It’s important to keep yourself informed about how they behave, how they affect us and how to prevent their spread. It all starts at home through the development of wise cleaning habits such as minimalism and open easy-to-clean surfaces. This can help alleviate the painful symptoms of living with dust mite allergies. We can work to keep their presence under control and focus on the care of our home through efficient cleaning methods. And once a year to call in trained professionals to conduct a focussed “dust-extraction oriented” spring clean.

Article by Lucila Aidar of 1800 CLEANER.

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Can a dust allergy ever be cured?

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Estimates indicate that approximately 10% of the world’s population is allergic to dust. The goal for dust allergy sufferers is to minimise their exposure to dust mites. This involves keeping dust levels in your home to a minimum. When you do this, you can be confident that you’ll have fewer and less severe allergic reactions. It’s impossible to get rid of every dust mite in our homes. But that isn’t what’s important. What matters is to get rid of most of the dust mites in your home, which you can do. We can take the following steps to reduce their number in our living environment dramatically.

 

Children living without dust

Start with your bed

Our bed is where the maximum exposure to dust mites occurs. Dust mites live on our dead skin scales. And where we sleep creates an abundance of food for them. And so they thrive in our mattresses and on our sheets and bedding. So getting a mattress protector is vital. This will create a physical barrier between you and the dust mites in your mattress. Next, ensure you wash and change your sheets and bedding regularly and, ideally, wash them with hot water. Finally, if you use a duvet and are reluctant to wash it, every few months, put it in a black plastic bag out in the hot sun for half a day to scorch any dust mites inside.

Next is to deal with the dust

The faeces of the dust mites trigger most of our allergic reactions to dust. And these are microscopic. They are so small that we can’t see them. This dust is difficult to remove because it goes airborne when we disturb it. Even the slightest breeze can send it into the air, where it stays suspended for up to five days. So it would be best to let it settle and calmly wipe down all surfaces with a moist microfibre rag before you start dusting and vacuuming. Over time with this technique, you will catch ever-decreasing amounts of fine particle dust in your home. Make sure you have door mats at the entrance to your home and, ideally, have a no-shoe policy to diminish new dust and irritants entering your home. You also want to clean under and behind your furniture, so the fine dust has nowhere to hide and “leak out” later. You should clean seriously like this once per week. A specialist dust-extracting cleaning service can reduce these dust levels quicker and can cut the need down to a fortnightly service.

 

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Dealing with the dust is a very important step to avoid allergies

 

Use anti-bacterial air filters

If your dust allergy is beyond mild, consider getting an air filter for your room. This must be HEPA grade at a minimum and should also have an anti-bacterial filter. These are now quite affordable and can be easily found or ordered online. If you want to get serious, you will also get a negative ioniser which will help make the airborne dust heavier so it will drop quicker.

It is wise to make your bedroom sacrosanct and a place that nurtures you without rugs or carpet, as these are cities for dust mites to breed. Further, you want to reduce the amount of clutter in your home as this gives dust and dust mites a place to hide. The ideal is a minimalist home with many open landing surfaces that are easy to clean. Ensure your vacuum has a HEPA-grade filtration system and collect all the visible dust you can regularly. As you can’t see the microscopic dust, start to get curious about it. You will sometimes see it twinkling through a shaft of sunlight in the morning. Give it time to settle, and then try to get as much as possible from your environment with the aforementioned wet cloth technique.

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Happy 1800 CLEANER team

Managing dust is the solution

Once you understand how dust behaves and how easy it is to disturb and send airborne, you’ll get the hang of collecting it stealthily. And then, over time, you’ll reduce the amount of it you live with. This will reduce the dust mite’s food source and cut into their breeding cycle. And then you’ll find you can breathe easier with a dust-free life.

 

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Son with dust allergy – Client case study

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Son with dust allergy - Client case study, Cindy. Double Bay.

Son with dust allergy – Client case study, Cindy. Double Bay.

Client case study, Cindy – Double Bay. “Son with dust allergy”.

It was another builder’s clean with a new customer in Double Bay named Cindy. She had expressed that her son could not live in the home after the renovations. His allergies had flared up to the point that he would have trouble breathing. She was understandably upset about it. No matter what she did, she couldn’t solve the problem herself. I explained to her that this was a common problem and that I was confident we could solve it with our 21-Point spring clean.

When we entered her house, we saw it was orderly, tidy, and immaculate – on the surface. We could feel that the place was dusty though you couldn’t see it. Once we spent some time searching, we found hidden dust in all the usual places upon closer inspection. You could feel it when you ran your hand over the walls. You could see it had collected behind the beds and in the cupboards. And you could sense it all around in the air. It was clear to me why her son was having trouble.

Builder’s dust is highly allergenic.

For those predisposed to dust allergies, it’s intolerable. And it’s microscopic and tough to remove. When you bother it, it goes airborne en masse. And there, it can stay suspended for up to five days, only to resettle again in the days following the clean. Any wind flow or movement in the home can send it airborne again. And in many cases, your average vacuum can not capture it but sends it airborne again. And it stays in the house for decades.

Once we had completed the day’s cleaning, we were so happy to hear that, indeed, her son had spent the night and slept soundly. He was no longer affected by the house, and Cindy could focus on making the home their private haven. We do this work for a living but experiences like this make our job feel like a calling. To leave a lasting impression and do a good deed makes this job more than just work. It feels like a job with purpose, and we look forward to helping many other children and their parents breathe and rest easier.

Cindy left us a five star google review, as you can see above.

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Winter is coming – how to get your home ready

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by Michael Sweet | 1800 CLEANER

This article is particularly useful for those who have dust allergies.

Winter is coming, and it’s time to prepare your home for the cold weather. As you will be spending more time indoors snuggling on the sofa watching Netflix, let’s make sure that your home is not only comfortable but also safe, clean and healthy.

With a little bit of your effort and a large amount of our help, we can create a cosy, dust-free and inviting space you’ll love spending time in during the colder months. Further and even more importantly, this will prevent health problems caused by dust and other indoor pollutants, irritants and contaminants that, when built up, can weigh heavily on our immune systems when we need them the most.

1. Clean your carpets

When was the last time that you cleaned your carpets? We clean carpets thoroughly with a powerful HEPA-Air industrial-grade vacuum cleaner. However, built-in grime and dried, soiled materials sometimes require more. And in such cases, we can shampoo your carpets clean too.

Anti-Bacterial-HEPA-filters

Anti-Bacterial HEPA filters clean the air as we clean the house.

2. Improve indoor air quality


Spending more time indoors during winter means ensuring that the air you breathe in is clean, healthy and toxin-free. Dust and other indoor pollutants can cause health problems such as allergies, asthma and respiratory issues. And we specialise in removing dust, especially the microscopic dust that escapes from the traditional cleaning approach.

3. Reduce clutter


Clutter means hidden dust and can make your home feel cramped and congested. It can also make it difficult to clean and dust properly. It also drains your energy and enthusiasm. Declutter your home by getting rid of things you don’t need and organising your belongings to make your space more functional and comfortable. And especially if you or a loved one suffer from dust allergies, give that dust nowhere to hide.

4. Keep your home clean


Dust can accumulate quickly in your home during the winter season. Our regular cleaners can help you maintain a clean and healthy home. Depending on your needs, we can organise a weekly or fortnight schedule.

Our expert recommendation is to set aside a whole day before the official onset of winter and let us do the hard work for you with one of our exceptional spring cleans. You can add window cleaning and carpet shampooing as you wish. We invite you to fill in the form and get a FREE quote.

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Michael Sweet, founder of 1800 CLEANER | WWW.1800cleaner.com.au

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Would you trust a cleaner who pays for fake reviews?

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And how can you tell the difference?

I recently got a message from a swarmy-looking dude from an indeterminable geographical location offering me 5-star Google fake reviews for my cleaning business for $3 each. It took but a nanosecond to advise that this was unethical and wholly improper.

The review process is about establishing hard-fought and won customer trust through the arduous task of cleaning houses well and consistently. How dare a bot-boy come along and offer to trick customers into trusting a competitor with such questionable ethics?

And so I went and had a look and thought, how can you tell the difference?

All is now getting so compelling, and these bot farms can churn out innumerable 5-star Google Reviews with the press of a button. How very tempting. Spend the day cleaning a house to perfection, hoping to get a five-star review while risking a negative review or paying just three bucks to guarantee a 5-star review? You can have hundreds of them in a row without risking a single negative review. The real question is, why wouldn’t you?

My only answer is that it’s wrong, immoral and unethical.

And what about articles?

How could you know if, for example, these words you are reading now were not created by the massive electronic brain we know as ChatGPT?

At my insistence, our operations manager experimented with ChatGBT.  And, within 2.3 seconds, we produced an extremely compelling article that we internally debated adopting and putting on our blog. I am so happy that within our organisation, the light won out with protestations about ethics and energy.

Though I have compelling advice from a great friend and one of SEO’s greatest thinkers that ChatGPT articles are currently being seriously considered to generate content in many leading agencies, we decided firmly against it.

And so, after much pondering within the substantive limitations of a human mind, I have gotten to a place where I believe I can discern a bot review from a real one. And interestingly, the answer for me is beyond the mind and into the body, with the key word being to feel.

Bot reviews feel a little iffy

The bot fake reviews seem great on the surface and are well-written and articulated. But after a while, they feel a little two-dimensional. Flat even. Mimicking emotions but directly describing reality. And they never have a typo! They often run in waves, one after another and tend to be short. Monotonous. They are then interspersed often with a negative review that is clearly human, brimming with emotion.

Interestingly, the bot fake reviews often have funny names and do not have a depth of review history. And they usually have less than three reviews a piece. Most often, all three reviews, when you dig deeply, will be 5-star reviews. And the picture accompanying the name will often feel off and regularly is not that of an actual, “average” human being. Indeed this is the great thing about what I discovered through this process. Whilst the human mind can never now catch up with the exponential growth of AI, the human heart is exceptional. The body can feel with a wisdom that I don’t believe will ever be matched by physical wiring, circuitry, algorithms and electricity.

Go mankind

Can a robot give you the warm hug of a child? Or can a cyborg listen to your heartfelt musings with empathy and warmth, allowing you to feel heard and thereby heal? Can a robot clean your house with love? And can a bot write a review that puts you on the right path to finding an ethical cleaning company? A cleaner whose 100th clean will be as high in quality as their second? Can a computer and an algorithm write an article with the same quirky and dysfunctional depth as a human experiencing life through the ups and downs of living within a biological body? Can an electronic being have a soul?

One thing is for sure, they sure are getting good at mimicry. Scaringly so. But I assure you a bot did not write this article.

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Michael Sweet, founder of 1800 CLEANER | WWW.1800cleaner.com.au

 

 

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How to get rid of dust

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By Michael Sweet | 1800 CLEANER

I want to take you with me on a journey into the world of the microscopic. A world within our world that the naked human eye can not see. And this journey is a crucial first step in your adventure to get rid of dust and to live dust-free.

Even though we can’t see it, it is nonetheless a world that impacts our lives dramatically. A world that is simultaneously terrifying and incredibly beautiful all at once. The recent drama of the worldwide panic about a virus so small that we can’t see it is opening our eyes to the dangers of the minuscule world of viruses and pathogens.

These things are so tiny that they have escaped human control throughout history, and the debate rages on whether we will ever control them. Once you get your head around the microscopic nature of such things, you may see that wearing a mask to stop a microscopic virus is like trying to stop a mustard seed with a farmer’s wooden fence.

Let’s talk about dust and how to get rid of it

Viruses are just one of many microscopic things that we humans can be dramatically impacted by. Many of which we have very limited control over in practical reality. This article wishes to discuss an even more common and far less talked about microscopic subject. And it is gratefully something we can do something about to dramatically improve our health. It’s dust and, more specifically, common house dust.

We want to deal with the effect dust can have on the health and well-being of those humans who live with it.  This is to say; practically everyone who lives under a roof on the planet.

1800 CLEANER Dusting

How big is dust?

Dust particles vary in size. The dust we are talking about here is the dust so small that you can’t see it unless it clumps together on an open surface in your home. Individually you can discern it if it glitters in a sunshine shaft as the light reflects off it. It can range in size from as small as half a micron to 100 microns.

A micron is one millionth of a meter. To give you an idea of the scale, we will start high and finish low.

100 microns                            Thickness of a standard sheet of paper

70-30 microns                        Circumference of a human hair

40 microns                          Naked eye visibility threshold

25 microns                               Diameter of a white blood cell

10 microns                               Size of a typical adult dust mite

8 micros                                   Diameter of a red blood cell

2 microns                                 Diameter of Coccus Bacteria

0.5 microns                              Diameter of Bacillus Bacteria

0.1 microns                              Diameter of Coronavirus

0.1 – 0.5 nanometres            Diameter of a typical atom

(A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter)

If you’re still reading, you get an idea of the breathtaking sizes we’re discussing here. Once you get down to the atomic level, things start to boggle the mind. We can leave that level of infinitesimal smallness for another time and perhaps a follow-up article.

What comprises a typical house dust particle?

The average-sized human being is purported to shed, on average, a full teaspoon of dead skin flakes each and every week. These dead human skin scales are a favourite food of dust mites.

Additional to human skin flakes, dust mites, and their tiny feces, we often find loads of other micro-stuff. Things like; human hairs, insect parts, animal dander, microscopic plastics, and other fibres. Take a breath; pollens from plants, mould spores, micro-dirt, aerosols, and many tiny contaminants, including exhaust fumes. Then there are aerosols and many assorted minuscule things, some benign and some toxic.

Why is house dust so harmful?

Whether you have allergies or not, most human beings will feel the negative effects of being in an indoor environment for an extended period of time that is too dusty.

Most of us are sensitive enough to feel an ickiness in such dank places. For those with allergies and higher sensitivities, the impact is usually much worse, with asthma, eczema, dizziness, dry throat, sore eyes, itching, sneezing, congestion, and an overall feeling of unwellness being typical symptoms. Over time our immune system can become compromised, opening the doorway to other illnesses and diseases.

The poos of the dust mites typically contain undigested enzymes from the human skin scales they delight in consuming. These tiny fragments can enter our lungs and cause mild to substantial irritation. Cutting the breeding cycle of dust mites is critical. By reducing their food supply and overall levels of dust in your home, you can expect to find an immediate improvement in the aforementioned symptoms.

Why is it so hard to get rid of the dust?

This microscopic dust is very hard to get rid of. It’s not only so tiny that it floats but is also subject to static electricity when you try to remove it with traditional cleaning methods. This positive charge that we put on these tiny particles can actually contribute to making the fine particles stay suspended mid-air in an indoor environment for up to five days.

That’s why we often find that thin layer of dust collecting again and again on open surfaces in the days following our cleaning efforts. So how do we get rid of this dust?

Therefore, an imperceptible dust-fog is occurring in most modern homes unbeknownst to its inhabitants. This fog seems to be at its thickest when there is a lot of movement and starts to settle somewhat when the home is still for days and weeks, but it is easy to disturb.

What can your average household do about it?

The best move for the modern household is to understand how dust behaves and to have a plan for it.

The first crucial step is to appreciate that it floats under typical conditions and to negate that by using an ionizer when cleaning with doors and windows closed to minimize through drafts and allow the dust to settle pre-clean. This will assist over time in ensuring that the positive static electricity charge that attaches to the particle is negated by the negative ionic charge, and the dust will fall to the open surfaces and ground much quicker. Stopping the dust from floating is a crucial step towards getting rid of the dust.

Now that the dust is no longer floating as much, we can use our vacuum cleaner to collect it. Ensure your vac is equipped with a HEPA-grade filter, and use microfibre mops and cloths.

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HEPA filter used by 1800CLEANER team

Particularly thick sections of dust should be approached with a moist cloth. It’s difficult to get it all the dust in one fell swoop. This is a process.

The law of diminishing dust returns

Ever-decreasing amounts of dust will be removed with each subsequent clean, dramatically reducing the dust fog in the home over time as less and less dust remains. To do this well you should really still the house, reduce through traffic and make a minimum of physical movements as you clean in the initial stages when the dust is at its worst.

Once the bulk of dust is removed, you can vigorously use a feather duster to dislodge all the hidden dust in the nooks and crannies. This will take time and is a process with the law of diminishing returns helping you remove less and less dust each time from a house with increasingly smaller dust levels remaining within it. By repeating this process over time you will get rid of most of the dust in your home.

The last step is to breathe easy and enjoy.

Michael Sweet is the founder of 1800 CLEANER and has over 30 years of cleaning experience.

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Michael Sweet, founder of 1800 CLEANER| WWW.1800CLEANER.COM.AU

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Allergies and what to do? Michael Sweet Interview.

/0 Comments/in Dust Allergy Tips, Healthy Living, Podcasts /by

Allergies are a real challenge for those who suffer from them and those who love them. Enjoy this 30-minute conversation about the origins of 1800 CLEANER and the dust-free cleaning method between Lucy Dahill and Michael Sweet.

Some sufferers of allergies know it, and others do not. Symptoms can be severe for some and subtle in others. The general thing is that the sufferer will have an allergic reaction to something external to their body. Generally, the irritant is something microscopic in the environment and often something in their food. This interview touches on environmental-oriented allergies specific to dust.

In general, dust allergies are one of the most common allergies. Even a non-allergic person will, over time, suffer from the harmful effects of high levels of house dust. And the thing is that it is challenging to manage and control household dust. That’s because the really fine dust tends to float when we clean with traditional methods.

This interview with the founder of 1800 CLEANER describes how he built the business and discovered the nature of how and why fine particle dust floats. It touches on how he painstakingly experimented and eventually invented a scientific cleaning system that removes the vast majority of dust. This ensures that sufferers’ symptoms are eased in most cases and completely eradicated in others. This system is shared to benefit allergy sufferers and those who love them. Whilst the business 1800 CLEANER can get rid of the majority of dust for its customers in one single day, the founder shares articles and information on this site that any household can use to reduce their own dust levels in their home over time for their own benefit and the benefit of their loved ones.

 The first step is knowledge.

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What is it about slime? And how to clean it!

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What is it about slime? Why is it that at a certain age, usually around 6 or 7 or so, kids become obsessed with the stuff? First, they want you to buy it, then they want you to make it, then they spill it over everything. They seem to love it so much that you can’t say no to slime without leaving them forlorn, broken-hearted and seemingly and dramatically impacted for life. And how do you clean slime after this obsessive slime stage has run its course?

So what to do when that slime spills onto your lovely beige rug? How to clean slime.

Or when it finds its way onto your favourite shirt? Or worse, accidentally falls smack bang in the middle of your brand new sofa? Fear not, because as bad as a slime stain looks on the first appearance, it is not always definitely permanent. This is  particularly so if you can get to it sooner rather than later. We can clean slime.

In my own case, I endured the slime phase on three separate and distinct occasions with three daughters. How can a dad say no to those cute little faces? I remember at one point incrementally spending $120 to try and save money on a $15 jar of slime. Craziness. Anyway, no matter how many promises or how many precautions we took, the slime would invariably end up anywhere it shouldn’t. Yep, on the carpet, on clothes and my personal favourite, in long hair! Now we have fluorescent slime and colourful emotional meltdowns all bundled together in the one perfect home-spun symphony!

So, when you scour the net you will find many different tactics for waging war in the aftermath of an errant slime party. For me, the caveat on all of these remedies is are they toxic? Aesthetics are an important consideration in removing slime, but even more important is to make sure the cure is no worse than the disease. That means non-toxic remedies are the only ones that we will be considering here. 

After all, it’s the ongoing health and well-being of our little angels that matters the most. They will be bringing joy into our world for many years after the thought of having to clean a slime stain has faded.

Best non-toxic remedies to keep in mind and how to use them

 

  • My favourite, and in my experience one of the most effective ways to deal with fresh slime is the humble ice cube. As soon as you see that slime stain, get a piece of ice onto it. You may want to use gloves with this one.  It can get cold rubbing that ice cube into the slime stain. After about 10 – 15 minutes it should be sufficiently frozen. Then you can scrape it off in frozen chunks, and vacuum it up before it melts again.

This has remarkable results when the slime is not acidic. But if you have any ingredients in the slime that are caustic or on the extreme side of the PH scale, you may find that there are no remedies as a stain is a stain. It’s all about whether or not the molecular structure of the affected fibre in question has been damaged. If it’s permanently damaged in this way, it’s like trying to wash away a scratch on a car. Only a magic wand can work such wonders.

  • Another non-caustic method that I recommend is a mixture of vinegar and water. Mix one part warm water with two parts vinegar and get scrubbing. Spray this mix onto the stain, and then scrub at it with a soft brush.  Work the fibres from all angles in small circles. Do this for a little while before drying it with absorbent paper.
  • Another method to keep in mind is dish soap. I recommend a plant-based dye-free dish soap, which works wonders with warm water. After the initial clean or two with dish soap does the trick, it’s a good idea to rinse it with straight water to remove the final residue the dish soap will leave behind. I like to work this one with a nice big thick old rag. I keep dunking the rag and transferring the muck from the carpet onto the rag and then from the rag into the water and then cleaning the water and staring again. Follow this procedure until the water remains clear and you know you’ve got it all. That section of carpet may now look a little weird as it is so clean compared to the surrounding carpet. At night glows!

 

The final thing to note is that the most important thing is to get to that slime quickly. It is considerably easier to deal with it when it’s fresh. It’s important to appreciate that when your kids go through their slime phase, it is practically impossible to guarantee you won’t get some slime on something. So if it happens, and it probably will, be prepared and try to show your kids how when stuff goes wrong it’s not the end of the world. People are much more important than things.

We breathe, we deal with it and we get on to enjoy the day with loving energy. After all, this is the true gift that slime offers to a family. Quality time together and precious memories of parents who love and laugh and care.

 

 

 

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Michael Sweet, founder of 1800 CLEANER | WWW.1800cleaner.com.au