Does a Messy Home Affect Your Health?

Cleaning isn’t something most people enjoy. Some people dislike it so much they pay other people to do it. Cleaning is important though, and it’s something that every homeowner needs to do on a regular basis to make sure their homes stay clean and germ free. Not cleaning regularly can cause a number of health hazards, which can creep up on you long term or just contribute to your day to day aches, sneezes and grumbles.

First of all, cleaning benefits your mental health more than a visit to the psychiatrist. If you’re living with dust covering your windows where the sun can’t shine through, and your house is cluttered and smells bad, you’re highly likely to be unhappy. You may start finding ways to avoid spending time in your home, and when you’re home, you’ll find yourself coming up with an unending list of things to do and excuses not to clean, which may actually take more time to do than the clean itself would have!

Cleaning is also vital to your physical health. If you vacuum your carpets and wash your floors regularly, you’ll be cleaner yourself as you won’t be constantly walking on a grimy surface. If you steam clean your carpets, the heat will eliminate all of those nasty organisms living in your floors, which contribute to a wide variety of both adult and child health ailments such as allergies and asthma. Steam cleaning is also likely to improve the overall air quality of your home.

If you clean your mattresses and change it every 8 years (as doctor recommended), you’ll avoid buildups of pesky bed bugs, which can bite you in your sleep and whose droppings can make you cough and wheeze. Whereas leaving dirty dishes in the sink over long periods of time can attract fruit flies and other critters to your home – all of whom bring diseases into your house with them.

Cleaning also means dusting. Dust collects everywhere from table tops to the bottom of your couch legs, and it is bad for your health to breathe it in. It can cause allergies, and it also breeds harmful toxins that can cause disease. When cleaning, you’ll want to rid your fridge of any spoiled food. This helps avoid bacteria such as mold.

Make a point too of not putting large quantities of food – and especially not raw meat packaging or raw meat/ chicken scraps – in your trash can in the kitchen. They will go rancid overnight, and if you have a large trash can and only take out the garbage once a week, you’ll have a whole week of breathing in the unhealthy, germ laden fumes. The smell will attract flies and cockroaches from blocks away, and though you may never see them (cockroaches only come out at night), you’ll wonder why you’re suddenly getting sick, as they traipse the contents of your garbage can all over your lovely clean counters!

Lastly, don’t just clean big things; clean everything in your house. Germs live on any and all surfaces, and you don’t want those getting close to you or your loved ones – or yourself.