Cleaning/Disinfecting during CV19

[historically accurate]

I'll admit it; I am a lazy, very lazy housekeeper normally. With the current virus situation, I am trying to learn quickly how to clean/disinfect properly. Can we discuss what is reasonable and what is overreacting and what is too minimal? None of us here are super high risk, although I do have a dd who is likely to get sicker than normal and DH has high blood pressure (controlled with meds). If it gets bad, my brother will probably move in and he is a cancer survivor in his 50s. DH has to go to work daily. He is in an office with just a few people left and the department has locked the door, but he often has to walk out on the line where there are lots of people. So, he may bring it home to us. 

I have set up my laundry room as a disinfecting entry point. Everything is cleaned and disinfected daily (mopped/counters). I put out cardboard boxes to throw shoes in - one per family member. They get lysoled daily. I'm thinking the rest of the floors can be done 2x weekly with the bath mats being washed and floors being mopped. Honestly, I usually just vacuum my laminate (I hate mopping) with only spot cleaning with water, but I think I should probably mop those too. Should I be doing all the floors more often? Less often? 

All countertops, doorknobs, light switches, and high traffic cabinet knobs wiped down nightly by youngest. Anything else I should include? And I just realized I haven't done anything with the railing on the 3 stairs in the garage up to the house door. It's gonna get touched all the time by DH coming home/kids going out to play/etc. Argh!!

Bathrooms done 2x weekly - should I be doing this daily? Same with sheets; 2x weekly. 

I haven't yet convinced DH he needs to shower when he comes home; he thinks I'm just a germaphobe and rolls his eyes. I was able to convince him to change clothes as soon as he comes home; I put his "at home clothes" in the laundry room and he has to change before he can enter the rest of the house. I'm still working on a second shower for him daily. 

I am currently doing all the dirty laundry daily and spraying the dirty clothes basket with Lysol after I dump the load in the machine.

And if anyone can teach me HOW to clean, I'd appreciate it. I just look at it and if it looks good, I go "it's good." How do I make sure I get everything? 

 

[Pawz4me]

I saw a doctor doing a Q and A on TV yesterday and she says there is no need to change clothing after coming home or washing clothes any more than normal. She did advise taking shoes off before entering the house. 

I like to keep things relatively neat and tidy. Most people think our house is on the higher end of cleanliness. This is what I'm doing -- I'm sanitizing all counter tops (kitchen and bathrooms) with bleach once or twice a day. Ditto all faucets and the light switches and doorknobs we use most frequently, the fridge/microwave/oven/dishwasher handles. If I do it in the morning and none of us goes out anywhere then I don't bother doing it again. Unlike some on here I'm not much concerned about mail or packages. The only change we've made there is that we do try to remember to wash our hands after handling those. Also, when bringing in groceries I try to set them on one area of the counter as I'm putting them away, then I sanitize that area.

You really need to do what's in your comfort level without driving yourself nuts, IMO. Mental health is a concern. And I say that as someone whose DH has stage IV cancer and who is herself on an immune suppressant medication.

[Bootsie]

The most important thing is to have everyone properly wash their hands, especially before touching their face.  Try to minimize touching the eyes, nose, and mouth.  I would not be so concerned about frequent showers and clothing being contaminated, unless someone is working in a medical setting or is known to have direct exposure.  I would be vigilant about keeping a clean kitchen.  Often the kitchen sink harbors more germs than many other places in the house (with damp sponges being a bad culprit).  There are approximately 1.35m cases of salmonella poisoning in the US every year, with about 26,500 of those individuals being hospitalized and 420 people dying each year.  (That doesn't include cases of listeria and ecoli).  Not only would you not want to get one of those at anytime, you would not want someone to have to seek medical treatment for them right now.  

[Familia]

Washing hands when returning home, after playing with indoor animals, after touching face, and other normal times.  

I generally keep our house pretty clean by most people's standards - based on what visitors to my home say to me.  In fact, I have slacked off a bit, because I have consumed my normal chore time and previous out-of-home work time by being online.  Today I plan to catch up on normal, relatively thorough, cleaning.  

We live in the country and our Dd runs a fiber farm here.  The Covid 19 situation is, in a good way, making me even more aware of the need to keep the barn/house barrier strict.  Certainly, we have always changed shoes when returning from farm area, but sometimes eggs have come in and simply got laid on the counter, the dog ran back in from a paddock without having paws wiped, and, in the past, I thought nothing of running out back in my house shoes to free an Angora goat from having his horns stuck in the fence.  Now, I am thinking of those things and training myself to be more conscientious.  The more difficult thing to do is to train the family.  

[Acadie]

What you describe is much more than I'm doing now, but I am trying to up my game 🙂

One change I'm trying to get my family on board with is setting aside areas for mail, packages, shopping bags etc, and washing hands or wiping down those areas after use. It's slow going--this morning I came downstairs to see someone had set shopping bags on top of my clean folded laundry! 

Our state health director recommends removing rings, because they can harbor microbes. I think today I'll retire my rings for the duration. 

I'm also thinking of purchasing that Dupray Neat steam cleaner Bill loves so much. 

[Tanaqui]

If you watch with bleach, what they use in hospitals and labs is a 1:9 solution with water. One part bleach, nine parts water. You don't need more bleach than that.