How to Properly Clean Your Bathroom

One of my biggest pet peeves is a dirty bathroom! Since it is the least fun place to clean in the whole house it seems to get neglected or not fully sanitized. I can't begin to count the number of times I have seen someone clean their bathroom and completely miss essencial areas or clean in such a way that they just spread the germs and bacteria around.

A clean bathroom is important for the health of the family, especially if you have children.

To all the bachelor's out there it definitly helps with the ladies as well. Do you know how many women are completely discusted and turned off when they walk into your bathroom and see filth and stains!? If you care nothing about your own health at least you will improve your social life by reading this.

Things you will need before you get started:

1. Rubber gloves

2. Two hand towels

3. Window cleaner

4. Disinfectant cleaner

5. Toilet bowl brush

6. Broom

7. Mop

8. Shower Cleaner

My favorite products to use are:

-Swiffer Sweeper with the dry cloths for sweeping and the wet cloths for mopping (quicker and easier than a regular broom and mop)

-GreenWorks products for shower, disinfectant, and toilet bowel cleaner (smell great, work great and environmentally friendly)

Now that you have everything you need let's get cleaning!

I am going to write the steps in order and the order is very important to have a truly clean bathroom.

1. Take everything off the bathroom floor and sweep. It is important to sweep first because if you do this towards the end you may have water on the floor and will make a mess with the broom.

2. Now take everything out of the shower and spray it down with the shower spray. Make sure to really get in the corners and where you may see any soap scum build up, including the shower head. Do not rinse yet. We are going to let it really soak in.

3. Next you put on your rubber gloves and pour the toilet bowl cleaner around the rim of your toilet. Use the toilet bowl brush and scrub around the whole inside of the toilet making sure to get under the rims. After I use the toilet bowl brush I rinse it under extremely hot water in the sink before putting it back in the holder. If you don't rinse it you will soon end up with crud build up on your brush. (Don't worry about your sink getting dirty from this because we will clean it later).

4. Now take the Window cleaner and clean the mirror.

5. Get your disinfectant cleaner and spray down the sink and counter. Using the same rag in step #4 clean off the counter and then the sink. Also use this rag to wipe down the door handle.

6. Now for the best part, the toilet. Take your same rag and disinfectant and spray down the top of the toilet and handle and wipe down. Close the lid and wipe down the top and right behind the lid. Now open the lid and spray down the rim of the toilet and wipe down. Move downward and spray all sides of the toilet and around the bottom and floor and wipe down. The bottom of the toilet is very important, especially if you have children crawling or walking around. Now flush the toilet!

7. Now get your new rag and turn the shower water on and thoroughly wipe down the shower. Replace all items back into shower.

8. Mop the floor. 

9. Your bathroom is now sparkly clean!

P.S. When you are done make sure you wash your hands with your gloves on to leave them clean for next time and then wash your hands after removing them.

Some additional things that often get overlooked include the following:

1. Clean bath rugs - Check the label, but most bath rugs can simply be thrown in the wash. I do this at least every 2 weeks. Vacuuming rugs does not get rid of the germs.

2. Wash hand towels - this should be done as often as necessary, depending on use of bathroom. I do this once per week. It is handy to have spares so you can replace them often.

3. If you have guests coming make sure that you wash any towels that may have been sitting in the cupboard for months because they tend to get a funky smell after sitting for so long. Your guests will truly appreciate this ;)

4. If you have decorative towels make sure that you wash them every few months or so as they will get dusty and smelly.

5. Every month or two, depending again on use of bathroom, wipe down around the baseboards that tend to collect dust.

6. If you have soap scum stains in your sink use the shower cleaner and let it soak it before cleaning off. Another trick is to fill the sink with bleach and hot water and let sit.