People searching for cleaning services Tampa will quickly realize one truth: no matter whether you have a pet or not, it will require two separate approaches to keep your home clean. Based on my years of experience with clients, the main reason why a person may have difficulty maintaining their home is not because of how much they clean, but how they are cleaning their home. Based on my experience with clients, the most common way that people keep their homes is to vacuum and wipe surfaces down thinking they have done an adequate job. However, with pets especially, the smell, and hair is always there, and cleanliness is no longer there.
The reasons for this, are that pets create many types of messes; the most common messes are a simple dirt that you see, but there is also a buildup of dirt on furniture, carpets and drapes, and that dirt gets circulated in the air and settles into spots in the home that don’t typically get dirty.
Cleanliness Challenges With Pets
Pet owners face three significant challenges: hair, odor, and dirt. Pet hair can be found in every room because the hair can travel faster than you can imagine, going to the floor; turning into dust; collecting on furniture, baseboards, corners, and even in your ducts; and a host of other places. Similarly, pet odors travel much farther than you might expect. Rather than just sitting in the area where they developed, odors will eventually penetrate into your carpets, sofas, and bedding, producing an environment that may smell fresh at first, but will quickly become stale.
Many homeowners also fail to appreciate how much dirt is brought into a home on a daily basis from paw prints, dust, and dirt, all of which are continuously being brought into homes in the entryway or living room due to heavy traffic or just because of the number of people coming through these areas. Even though you are cleaning on a routine basis, the dirt that was cleaned is not gone; it simply has been cleaned again for a limited period of time.
When I visit people’s homes to provide them with estimates for cleaning, it is common to find that the location has not been cleaned; rather, I frequently find that the cleaning techniques used by the homeowner are simply not in agreement with the method of cleaning used by the cleaning company that will be cleaning their home.
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What Most Pet Owners Experience
When you look at the layout of most houses that have one or more animals in them, you’ll notice a definite pattern. Once you’ve cleaned your pet’s house entirely, there is no way that you won’t find more animal hair all over the place within a short period of time after you finish your cleaning. Even though your house may smell nice or even fresh after you have just cleaned it, the reason is that when moisture moves through the air from cleaning, it continues to do so for days or weeks after the last cleaning completed, which is one reason why people who live in high humidity areas (like Tampa) tend to have their homes cleaned more often than usual.
Another reason why cleaning up after a pet generally takes longer than cleaning up after a child is that when a pet creates messes and damage to their environment, it’s not only in places that are visible when we look around, but they also settle down into the fabric material of our furniture and carpets, which are far more difficult to keep clean.
Daily Habits for Maintaining Cleanliness
The best way to maintain your household with pets will be by consistently cleaning the home instead of having an unpredictable regime of cleaning everything at one time. Cleaning at the source will help alleviate additional clean-ups because by wiping the dog’s paws after they walk outside means there will be less dirt returned inside the house; also, by routinely grooming the dog before it loses hair onto all your furniture and floors can help eliminate most dog hair accumulating in your home.
Making a change to your home can be accomplished by cleaning a single area, or even small areas inside your home, such as high-traffic areas or areas where dogs generally spend the majority of their time, so by creating these habits, you can reduce how often you have to do comprehensive cleanings inside your home.
Dealing With Pet Hair on Carpets and Furniture
Pet hair can be a significant issue for many individuals as pet dander differs in texture and composition from regular dust and dirt. When many homeowners vacuum their homes hoping to eliminate any remnants of pet hair, they often find that the vacuum will remove very little of the actual amount of pet hair that is present, particularly since much of it has become stuck into the fabric (e.g., the carpet) and/or will remain far down (i.e.; beneath the surface) within the upholstery of their home. As a result, many homeowners find that the pet hair they just cleaned, comes back almost instantly when they go back into their rooms after cleaning.
The reality is that although there is still hair remaining after cleaning, you did not remove all of the hair rather; it was still present – it just wasn’t visible. When vacuuming your home to achieve what you would term a “clean” home, you need to take your time; you need to spend the time necessary to move your vacuum at a slower speed than you would typically do, and you need to vacuum several different ways (i.e., from several angles). Also, you need to spend time paying attention to corners and edges of your home.
Upholstered furniture is treated in a similar manner. In addition, upholstered furniture will typically retain a greater amount of pet hair than the floors of your home.
Why Hair Keeps Coming Back
Hair doesn’t just sit on top-it builds up in layers. If earlier layers aren’t fully removed, new hair sticks to them, creating a cycle that becomes harder to break over time.
This is exactly why regular house cleaning sometimes feels like it’s not enough in homes with pets.
Eliminating Odors
One of the biggest obstacles for most homeowners is dealing with pet odor in the home. One of the most common ways that people create additional problems in dealing with pet odor is through using the wrong products. Many homes can have a fresh, spotless visual appearance while still having a strong pet odor.
Generally, this is most noticeable in humid areas (as is the case with “Bush Gardens”) where the humidity will cause odors to be intensified and more difficult to get rid of.
The primary cause for this problem is that pet-related odors are not just in the air; they are absorbed into the materials in the home such as carpets, sofas, mattresses and drapes, and they will remain in the materials for an extended time regardless of how clean or spotless they appear to be.
Most homeowners try to resolve their pet odor issues by using air fresheners and surface cleaners that mask the odors for a short period of time, but because the source of the odor was not removed from the home, the odors will reoccur once the products have worn off.
Proper odor removal needs to be done through deep cleaning of the items that are holding the odors, and through breaking down the source of the odor. This is where the use of proper cleaning products, especially enzyme based products, can make a significant difference in the actual removal of pet odors.
Recommended Frequency for Professional Cleaning
For people with pets, cleaning their homes should follow a systematic approach instead of being done randomly.The combination of regular maintenance, such as weekly and biweekly house cleanings, plus a deep clean every few months is what I’ve found to be the most successful method.
Cleaning your house often will keep day to day messes like dirt and pet hair off of the floors/surfaces of your home but as time goes on there will still be layers of build up in deeper areas of the home requiring a full deep clean periodically (I recommend doing this at least every few months) to maintain a clear home prior to continuing routine cleaning regularly.
In my experience when working with clients on how they achieved their cleaner lifestyle, I have seen many homeowners use house cleaning Tampa services create a much more predictable, less stressful time when it comes to the overall cleaning of their homes.
Clients of Wow Now Cleaning discussed with us about their warranty options or clients had switched to a cleaner more effective way of life and continued to use our services, thus making it very easy for them to keep their home clean and have saved a significant amount of time on maintaining a clean living space as opposed to prior to using our services.
Special Products for Pet Cleanup
One of the essential components to keeping your home clean with animals is the type of cleaning products you are using. Many standard cleaning products have not been designed to remove pet waste and odour; thus, even though you may have just completed an extensive look at cleaning up your house, you will likely still be able to smell the odour. In order to clean up after your specific animal you should look for products that are formulated to clean the messes made by the type of pet you own and use products made from enzymes that will remove the source of the odour from the substance that made the odour, instead of just masking it.
Also, if you use a vacuum designed specifically for pets, or use microfibre towels or air filters designed specifically for pets, your cleaning time will dramatically decrease and your entire cleaning process will be much more efficient than if you were using non-pet specific products.
Cleaning Zones: Where Pet Mess Builds Up the Most
There is no greater significance than knowing which part(s) of your house contain the most dirt!
The bulk of homes that have animals typically contain three areas that get dirty faster than the other parts of your home—where you enter the house (doorways, foyers, etc.), the living room(s), and where the animal sleeps/eats/plays (pet beds, etc.). Cleaning these three areas (instead of all of the rooms in your house) will yield better results in a shorter period of time & with less amount of energy expended on cleaning.
Common Mistakes Pet Owners Make
I’ve noticed throughout the years, and in many different homes and homeowners, many homeowners continue to make similar errors, not because they are careless but because they didn’t understand how messes created by pets differ from messes created by other sources. One of the most frequent mistakes that homeowners continue to make is to rely on surface cleaning of their homes without considering what they need to do to clean their home regarding fabrics and places that are hidden from view. After creating an odor in a home from a pet, it is very common for homeowners to take too long to remedy the odor in their home before they can effectively remove it. Another frequent mistake homeowners make is using typical household cleaning products to clean up pet messes when those products are not always effective for cleaning messes created by pets. Due to this reality, while many homeowners regularly clean their homes, their homes do not appear consistently clean.
When Deep Cleaning Is Necessary
You might be doing an excellent job of proactively cleaning your home using daily habits, but due to the fact that ‘cleaning supplies’ eventually run out or your daily cleaning does not give enough ‘cleaning’, there is a point in time when you need to perform deep-cleaning.
For instance, some signs that you may require a deep clean include persistent odors in your home, pet hairs becoming visibly harder to remove, or surfaces in your home not feeling or looking clean even after cleaning. These are indicators that there is build-up present and that “resetting” your home will require deep-cleaning (the process of ‘resetting’ your home/removing dirt/debris from usually hidden areas (areas that you normally do not clean regularly); and can be done by removing the build-up of dirt that have been accumulating in
places around your home that you usually do not see, such as behind/under furniture, in your furniture, and/or under your other belongings (your belongings have hidden build-ups of dirt (accumulated dirt created over time). Consequently, most of our services are recommended to pet-owners who want to get their homes back to a truly ‘clean’ state.
How to Keep Your Home Clean With Pets: Final Thoughts
To maintain a clean residence while living with pets isn’t so much about doing more, but rather changing the way we accomplish tasks. By electricly utilizing the three methods of daily routines, routine cleaning and occasional deep cleaning to achieve a clean home makes keeping your home cleaner easier and less stressful.
When it comes down to how to ensure a clean pet friendly house, you must commit to your own cleaning method, keep your cleaning tools properly stocked and ready for use and consistently clean up after pets immediately or as soon as possible before the mess can become larger.
If you feel that your current cleaning process is not meeting your expectations, it is very likely that you will want to consider a more thorough professional cleaning process for your home.
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Hey everyone, I’m Khrystyna! I’ve got experience in all sorts of cleaning, which I gained at Wow Now Cleaning. Now I’m sharing it with you all! I’d appreciate any comments or feedback on my tips, so feel free to write!