Cleaning our homes is an inevitable part of having a home, whether it is rented or owned. Some of us enjoy it, while others see it as a chore to be done as quickly as possible. Either way, here are some common mistakes many of us make that could be dragging it out.

Clean the cleaner

Using mops and cloths to clean is great, but don’t forget to wash the cloths regularly; otherwise, you are no longer lifting dirt and might even end up spreading it further.

Ignoring the ‘top to bottom’ rule

If you don’t clean ‘top to bottom’, you are probably doubling your workload. This means dusting the highest points of a room – such as the shelves in a bookcase – before moving down. In this way, any dust from the rest of the room will have settled by the time you come to vacuum your floor.

Use the vacuum cleaner properly. An upright cleaner has a rotating brush for carpets – if you leave this on when you come to clean a hard floor, such as engineered oak flooring or tiles, you will be scattering dust and hair rather than collecting it. There is a huge arrange of flooring available from specialist retailers such as engineered-flooring.html.

Leave shoes at the door

Traipsing dirt through the house by keeping your outdoor shoes on can really build up, so get everyone into the habit of leaving their shoes at the door. Using doormats outside and inside will give you a second chance of catching dirt.

Sort laundry differently

Most of us sort laundry by colour. We are taught early on to wash similar colours together, although some of us find it saves time washing clothes ‘by person’ instead. The real time-saving can come from washing lint-shredding items together and separate from those that attract lint; otherwise, you could spend a long time with a lint roller!

When it comes to using your lint roller, do not be tempted to tackle heavy pet hair with it, as it will not be up to the job.

There are more top tips on making cleaning easy online

Tackle the chores you hate the most first and get them out of the way. You might also find it helps to have a cleaning schedule.