In your entire home, the room that needs cleaning and disinfecting most is the bathroom. When you’re expecting company, bathroom cleaning becomes chore number one. And on most days, a clean bathroom just makes you feel more at home. But research says that people really don’t like bathroom cleaning.
Does the thought of bathroom cleaning make you cringe? It is hard work to scrub a toilet and clean grimy shower grout, spotty glass doors, slimy mildew, and soap scum, and you may be wondering how to clean a bathroom thoroughly, correctly, and in the quickest amount of time.
It might seem obvious, but bathroom cleaning becomes quicker and easier to do each time when you make a regular habit out of it. Here are some tips for the best bathroom cleaning routine, and you don’t have to tackle everything at once.
How to Clean the Bathroom Daily
Daily cleaning can help keep your bathroom up to par while cutting back time on your deeper cleaning techniques. Here are a few daily cleaning tasks you can apply to how to clean a bathroom.
1. Wipe it Down
Each morning and at night, wipe the sink down and rinse it off. Cleaning toothpaste blobs and strands of hair will save you tons of time and make a huge difference.
2. Squeegee it Off
An inexpensive squeegee can be your most handy bathroom tool. A quick squeegee of your glass shower doors and shower walls every day will do wonders.
3. Keep it Contained
Your beauty products and grooming essentials will stay cleaner and be easily accessible every day when kept in trays in your bathroom drawers or under the sink. Don’t forget to take the bathroom trash out often!
4. Keep a Lid on it
By simply closing the lid on the toilet after every flush, you’ll keep your bathroom cleaner—and far healthier. Flushing can spread bacteria and disease particles into the air that eventually settles on bathroom surfaces, so close that lid before you flush.
How to Clean the Bathroom Weekly
Like daily cleaning tasks, weekly cleaning tasks can help you add a little extra shine to your area while making maintaining your bathroom easier in the long run.
1. Clean Top to Bottom
Start at the top of the bathroom with the light fixtures, walls, mirrors, counters, sink, and leave the bathroom floor cleaning for last. When you work downwards, you won’t get something dirty—like the floor—after you’ve already cleaned it.
2. Bust the Dust
Bathroom cleaning is easier when you tackle the dry dirt first. A duster with an extendable wand is your best accessory for this task, but you can also use a lint cloth, microfiber towel, or even a clean t-shirt to dust the lights, walls, mirrors, counters, and sink.
Dust piles are cleaned away without creating wet smudges or wet strands of hair that are harder to pick up. Finally, vacuum or sweep the baseboards, the bathroom floor, rug, and especially around the toilet.
3. Mirror, Mirror
Use a mild glass cleaner and microfiber towel on your bathroom mirror and glass shower door. Glass cleaner also works well to keep bathroom faucets and fixtures shiny. Get a small scrub brush with gentle bristles–it’s handy to reach dirt or grime that gets caked in the seams on the bathroom fixtures.
4. All-Purpose Goodness
Use a good, non-abrasive, all-purpose cleaner on your countertops, in your sink, and in the shower. Remember to clean the soap dispenser and anything else you keep on your countertop.
5. Disinfecting is Important
Wipes or bleach are best used on the dirtiest parts of your bathroom—like the toilet—and you should only disinfect after you’ve cleaned everything first with a good, all-purpose cleaner.
How to Clean the Bathroom Monthly
Cleaning your bathroom monthly should come easier with our previous frequent cleaning routines.
1. Wash the Shower Curtain
Whether it’s a plastic or cloth curtain, it’s best to have a curtain that you can toss in a washing machine to remove any build-up of mold or bacteria.
2. Time to Scrub
Grab your shower scrub brush and cleaner and tackle the mildew and grime on your shower tiles, especially the grout lines. If you do this every month or so, it’s far easier to keep it under control.
3. Heads up!
De-scaling the showerhead is important because limescale can build up, blocking water flow, and bacteria can also accumulate in the showerhead. How you clean the showerhead will depend on whether it’s an attachment or fixed to the wall, its weight, size, and whether you can remove just the showerhead to clean it.
4. Check the Seat
If you can remove the toilet seat, do so to get at the dirt trapped in the hinges. If you can’t remove the toilet seat, try to wipe away as much dirt as possible.
5. So Long, Soap Scum
Look for the right product to remove soap scum or even create a mixture of water, white vinegar, and dish soap. You’ll do the best job of removing soap scum by saturating bathroom surfaces where that grime accumulates and allowing the bathroom cleaning solution to sit for approximately 15 minutes before you wipe it clean.
How to Clean the Bathroom Toilet
It’s the most dreaded bathroom cleaning job for most people. But when you know the best way to clean the bathroom toilet, you can get through the task and move on with your day!
1. Go Disposable
Bathroom toilet cleaning is one area where it’s best to use disposable paper towels.
2. Grab the Gloves
It’s healthier for you to clean the toilet with rubber gloves on.
3. Think Ventilation
Don’t restrict airflow. Make sure you have ventilation in your bathroom while you’re cleaning the toilet.
4. Work Outside In
Just as you clean from top to bottom in the bathroom, clean the toilet from top to bottom. Concentrate on the outside of the toilet first and work inwards to be more sanitary. Wipe away any dry dust and smudges first, then spritz the whole outside of the bowl with a good, all-purpose cleaner and wipe it off with a paper towel.
5. Wipe the Seat
Again, work from the top of the toilet seat, around the edges, then the inner toilet seat lid.
6. Clean the Bowl
Spray toilet bowl cleaner liberally, and remember to spray under the rim. Give the toilet bowl cleaner at least 10 minutes to work, and use a scrubbing toilet brush with stiff bristles; it makes the task quicker and easier.
7. Grab the Disinfectant
After you’ve cleaned surface stains away from the toilet, spray it liberally inside out with a good disinfectant. Don’t forget the base of the toilet and underneath the seat. Spray the faucet, shower handles, bathroom doorknob, and the floor and walls around the toilet with disinfectant to capture any bacteria particles that may have settled on the surface.
Additional Tips
After disinfecting the toilet and bathroom area, take a break! The disinfectant should stay on surfaces for at least ten minutes. You lose the effectiveness of the disinfectant if you wipe it away too quickly. Let it sit and take a seat yourself—you deserve it!
Whenever you’re finished bathroom cleaning, clean your supplies. Wash your rubber gloves in hot soapy water and let them air dry. Rest your toilet brush in the toilet and pour bleach on it, allowing it to sit for five minutes.
Wrap-Up
By performing daily, weekly, and monthly tasks to prevent bacteria build up in your bathroom, you will be creating a routine that makes cleaning your least favorite place an easy task. Now that you know how to clean a bathroom, you’ll never have to dread it again!
I hope you’ve enjoyed these great tips on how to clean your bathroom. Feel free to check out our other links on how to clean other areas in your home quickly and easily too!