When you are maintaining a clean home, it is essential to have space in your house to store your cleaning supplies. Cleaning supplies are filled with chemicals that are toxic to your health. You need to keep them in a safe location that does not threaten your overall health.
You cannot store your cleaning supplies in your garage. This is a health and safety hazard due to the varying temperatures and weather patterns. Not only should you avoid putting your cleaning supplies in your garage, but you should also avoid storing them in your basement as well. Also keeping your cleaning supplies in an open space increases the chances of accidentally spilling or ingesting the toxic chemicals.
Cleaning supplies are essential products for your home. You need to keep your home sanitary and safe There are many alternative storage areas you can use for your cleaning supplies. You should make sure the supplies are in a closed space that is out of reach from small children and pets. There are other suggestions you can learn about.
Where to Safely Store Cleaning Supplies?
First, when you are deciding where to store your cleaning supplies, you should always check the labels of your supplies. Cleaning supplies use harsh chemicals that are both toxic and harmful to your body when contacted upon. All chemicals, whether they are harsh or not, require special storing protocols and handling.
You should carefully read the storage and warning labels on your housekeeping products. Some have more dangerous reactions than others when mixed. Therefore, you should be extremely careful where you store these products.
Because of some hazardous ingredients within cleaning supplies, you should avoid storing them in cold areas, such as garages or basements. They should also never be stored next to a water heater. This produces a potentially harmful chemical reaction that has serious damage to your property.
Who Should Avoid Cleaning Chemicals?
When deciding who should be separated from your cleaning supplies, you need to evaluate who is the most vulnerable and at-risk in your household. The most common answers are your pets and children. Children and pets tend to investigate and look in kitchen cupboards and underneath your kitchen or bathroom sink.
Vinegar and baking soda are natural cleaning agents that are not harmful to children or small pets, but other chemical cleaners and disinfectants are other stories. You should plan on storing your chemicals on high shelves that are out of reach.
You can store your products:
- The top shelf of your household laundry room
- The top shelf of your linen or hallway closet
- Avoid Garage Shelves
You should store all of your products in clean, cool, and dry spaces. High levels of humidity and fluctuations in temperature do not mix or react well with certain chemicals.
Your products need well-ventilated rooms that prevent the fumes from spreading. Also, avoid keeping any chemicals at the ground level. It increases the change of mixing up the contents and spilling them.
How to Label Cleaning Supplies?
When you are deciding how you plan on organizing your cleaning supplies, your first need to assemble a container, caddy, or storage basket to hold all of your supplies; the supplies must remain in a controlled temperature environment that keeps the supplies in one location.
The products can be put in a drawer in your kitchen, but you need to separate the supplies from your food. The mixture of chemicals damages your food and can poison you.
To aide in your cleaning supplies organization, you should differentiate between and label each product:
- Antibacterial kitchen and bathroom cleaners
- Dusting sprays
- Window and glass cleaner
- Stain removal
- Drain Cleaners
- Laundry Detergents
By clearly labeling your products will lessen the chance of mixing or forgetting your products. To help you see all of your products, you can purchase a wheeled shopping utility cart or tiered rolling cart. These tools help you move your products easily without accidents.
Smaller cleaning products, tools, and bottles can be stores in an over the door shoe organizer. This can be hung on the back of a closet or laundry room door. This keeps the products above ground out of reach from children and pets.
If you lack the proper space in your closets or storage rooms, you can organize extra space under your sinks, but with a locked cabinet door. This prevents any accidental usage from children.
What is the Best Organization System for Cleaning Products?
You can include three different organization systems for your home. All offer varying degrees of success. It depends on how you work best with different organization patters. These systems include:
- Shelving and Cabinetry
- Wall Mounts
- Product Holders
The shelving and cabinetry organization system is best utilized in a laundry room setting. You can place all of your cleaning products above your washer and dryer to keep all of the similarly themed items in one location. This helps eliminate unnecessary traveling around the house to grab similar items.
This location also reduces the chance of a pet or child accessing them because of their height. A wall mount is a useful system to use because it holds all of your baskets, brooms, and mops in one location. This keeps them from falling and becoming in your way.
You can also utilize baskets and bins to hold all of your tools that often become lost or in the way. You can also use the product holder organization system. This system uses small bins to store your items and tools for cleaning. You can store your sponges and cloths in easy and simple to access trays.
All of these systems improve your organization patterns and ability to function successfully within your home. Having designated places to store all of your products increases your productivity and ability to clean safely without unnecessary stress.
How to Maintain a Clean Organization System?
You can maintain a safe and clean area by scrubbing all counter and surface areas. The area that should be cleaned consistently is the one that stores your cleaning supplies. You should remove old linens, apply waterproof liners to protect your countertops, shelves, and other surfaces.
You should also wipe down every cleaning product, so there is no contamination or spread of the chemical. You need to also secure the lid of the chemical while checking the expiration date of the product. Toss away an unused item after one or two years. There is no need to keep an expired item.
You should also throw away all old sponges, cleaning pads, or cloths that contain dangerous germs and bacteria. These negatively impact your health, which is what you are trying to maintain. Keep your most used items at the front of your shelf for easy access.
Remove all of the items that do not relate to cleaning your home. These products include:
- Paint products
- Automobile products
- Hobby supplies
- Pesticides
Also, a good rule to follow when shopping for cleaning supplies, you should only use products you need that will be used. Never buy a product because of its appearance or possibly utility. The product will end up collecting dust, and you would have waste money and space on a useless item.
Where to Not Store your Cleaning Supplies?
You should avoid putting your oxidizers, flammable chemicals and combustible chemicals should be stored away from any flame source. A flame source includes:
- Flames
- Heat
- Sunlight
- Places that may cause a spark or static electricity
All of your containers must be properly sealed and kept in their original container. Never mix other chemicals, even if they are similar in categorization. You should monitor the expiration dates of every product.
A good rule to follow is to discard a product that has not been used in over a year. If you have never used a product in more than two years, you can also safely discard this product. Old or unused products have a reduced ability to clean and can produce harmful side effects on your health.
How to Maintain an Organized Cleaning Area?
You may have a designated cleaning area in your home, but you should make sure it remains effective. Your cleaning supply room is only effective as long as you keep it organized and clean as well. You can do this by using whiteboards or chalkboards. These boards help identify which supply should be used for each task in a specific room.
The boards also are great reminders for products that you are running low on or should not purchase again. To maintain your cleaning supply area, you need to keep it well organized. This means returning the supplies to their proper location and putting fresh labels on all of your products.
This prevents unnecessary stress because you can find the item when you need to, and it is not chaotic. A chaotic mess adds to stress and is not good for your health. A mixture of toxic chemicals and stress creates a dangerous combination, so prioritize your cleaning storage space.
Learning how to maintain an area or room in your home is essential for the success of the room’s goal. You can think of your storage room in your home as an extension of the storage bins in your mind. Keeping the space clear and decluttered aids in your memory, ability to complete tasks, and improves your mood.
Creative Organizing Tips for your Cleaning Products
Because it is helpful to have a working organization system for your cleaning products, you can also have fun with designing labels and colorful tabs. You can utilize a colorful design to your rolling cart of cleaning supplies. This allows you to enjoy looking at your design and enjoying your creative efforts.
You can also experiment with colorful caddy’s that express your individuality and color preference. Most of the cleaning supplies and organization tools are bland, neutral colors, but you can opt for a little color and expression with some small alterations.
How to Properly Handle Cleaning Supplies
When you are using cleaning products at home, you need to make sure you protect your body from potentially toxic and harmful chemicals. You should always wear gloves when using your household disinfectants.
Another good rule follow is having open ventilation and circulation when cleaning. You should crack open a window, keep your door, or use a fan to improve hair flow. It is damaging to your lungs to inhale the chemicals in a closed space.
When using your household cleaning products, you need to make sure that you read every label. The most common labels include:
- Caution
- Warning
- Danger
All of these labels indicate a specific meaning or message to its consumer. Caution indicates the product is mostly safe but should be used with awareness. The warning label explains that the product is moderately toxic and should be used with more considerable care.
The danger warning label indicates this product is highly toxic to your body and can cause significant damage to both your eyes and skin if handled incorrectly. Never take your safety for granted. You need to be smart about the proper usage of chemicals.
What are the Best Cleaning Tools?
The best cleaning tools you can use include:
- Brooms
- Mops
- Sponges
When keeping your broom in your house, you need to store your brooms upside down. This prevents the broom’s bristles from becoming bent or broken. This allows a great amount of longevity to your cleaning tool.
To improve the length of time using a sponge, you should air dry it once a week. When you store your sponge at the bottom of the skin, it never dries and bacteria and mold growth. This also impedes your ability to properly clean your dishes and scrub your sink when there are active bacteria on your sponge.
Bacteria builds when your sponge smells sour. This indicates you need to toss your sponge and replace it with a fresh one. To expand the life of your sponge, you can place it on the top rack of your dishwasher to clean and air dry between washes.
If you are tired of constantly replacing sponges, you should investigate using cloth-based cleaning tools. These are great for daily use that can be cleaned in the washing machine. The cloth requires less maintenance and does not attract much bacteria growth due to its ability to dry easily.
Why do Accidents Happen Around Cleaning Products?
Unfortunately, accidents occur with cleaning products. Because small children are curious, and adults experience confusion, many products cause accidents to occur. Some chemicals that are often confused are window washing fluid and antifreeze because of their color. Both products resemble colorful drinks that appear safe for children to use or drink.
To prevent any future accidents from occurring, you can lock your chemical storage cabinet. Locking poisonous, highly flammable chemicals is the safest way to ensure accidents are greatly reduced. Most of these chemicals treat and protect your cars, gardens, and lawns, but they can cause a great amount of confusion.
To help eliminate accidents from occurring, you should keep your household cleaning products inappropriately labeled containers that are secured with tape. This ensures that the product will not accidentally tip over and will not be confused because of its proper label.
Tips and Suggestions for Storage Organization
When you are optimizing your cleaning storage space, you should make sure your supplies are near you when you use them. It often takes more time to find your products than actually using them. You should plan on storing your bathroom products near your bathroom, kitchen cleaning products near your kitchen, and similar to every other room.
If space is an issue, you can store what you need in monthly increments. This means that the larger bottles can be store elsewhere, while the more crucial ones are smaller and more easily accessible. Having one large multipurpose cleaning bottle is a better option than having tiny smaller bottles that only have one cleaning goal. This optimizes your small space.
Also, when improving your cleaning product area, you should maintain high-quality products. This means spending more money on products, but the results are better. Look for supplies that last for long periods, that deliver an excellent cleaning power. This means they get the job done without multiple cleaning episodes.
You should also look for products that have a large amount of versatility in their cleaning. This means they can achieve multiple tasks with minimal effort. They take up less space while making it easier and faster to complete your cleaning tasks.
Using less product occupies less time for you, and that should be your overall goal. Using less product, spending less time and money while having a clean home environment. You work hard to maintain your home, and having the right products to achieve this goal is essential.
