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When you think about all of the cleaning projects you should tackle with your steam cleaner, cleaning your shoes is probably not one of the first things to come to mind. After all, a steam cleaner can be used to clean your house from top to bottom, be used to clean your car, be used to clean sports gear, be used to clean patio equipment, and so much more. The possibilities for cleaning and disinfection are endless! If you are like most households, at least one member of your family (or more!) have a pair of stinky shoes. Even if the shoes are in great condition, the interior may have unpleasant odors locked into the fabric. And that means the every time that person wears those shoes, the minute they take their shoes off, that unpleasant odor will invade your home. Do not throw out of a perfectly good pair of shoes when all you need to do is reach for your steam cleaner!
If you, a loved one, or your household pet has begun to show symptoms of ringworm, it is important to get treatment right away. Ringworm is highly contagious and easily spreads through human to human, pet to human, or object to human contact. Mayo Clinic describes what exactly ringworm is, “Ringworm of the body is a fungal infection that develops on the top layer of your skin. It’s characterized by a red circular rash with clearer skin in the middle. It may itch. Ringworm gets its name because of its appearance. No actual worm is involved…Mild ringworm often responds to antifungal medications that you apply to your skin. For more-severe infections, you may need to take antifungal pills for several weeks.” If someone in your home has ringworm antifungal medication should be used as soon as possible but it is also a good idea to thoroughly clean and disinfect your home so that the infection is fully eradicated from your home. Because ringworm is so contagious and can be spread through so many different ways, cleaning must be thorough and the best way to do so is with a steam cleaner.
If you have had your drapes or curtains for any length of time they have probably accumulated some dust, absorbed some odors, and may even have gotten some stains on them. They can look perfectly “clean” from a distance but once you get up close you will see a heavy layer of dust just like any other piece of furniture in your home. But, while you may remember to dust your countertops you probably are like most homeowners and you forget to regularly clean your drapery or curtains. Did you know that dirty curtains are not only unsightly but they can actually impact you and your family’s health? If anyone in your home suffers from allergies or is immunocompromised, those dusty curtains could be triggering allergy symptoms and could contribute to lung infections!
Many homes today have granite or other natural stone countertops such as quartz or marble. And, while many of these stones are not only beautiful but durable, they do require care and maintenance to look beautiful for years to come. Additionally, countertops come in contact with a lot of dirt, grime and bacteria. Many homeowners may reach for their chemical cleaning products to clean and disinfect but those products can actually damage many granite and natural stone countertops. Chemical cleaning products leave a residue behind that can stain countertops. And, not only that, but chemical cleaning products can also create a biofilm which actually traps bacteria on your countertop and slowly grows, becoming harder and harder to eliminate. For these reasons (and more!) it is best to clean and disinfect your granite countertops with a steam cleaner. Steam cleaning is safe for your countertops, eliminates 99% of bacteria, will not stain your countertops, will not create biofilm, and will not leave hazardous chemicals on your countertops which means you do not have to worry that your food will be contaminated with chemicals or that chemicals will get on your skin.
Concrete floors have become very popular in both home design and in restaurants and retail spaces. Additionally, many industrial settings have concrete floors. And, even if your home does not have concrete floors, you probably have concrete flooring somewhere on your property such as your garage or your patio. Cement flooring may just be poured and left to set, it may be stained and/or sealed, or it may be stamped or painted in unique designs. Though concrete flooring is very durable, all flooring is susceptible to stains and getting dirty. Some spills or shoe scuff marks are easier to clean but if something stains your concrete flooring or difficult to remove substances such as grease get spilled on concrete the cleaning task if far more difficult if not impossible to complete resolve.
Your flooring sees a lot of wear and tear. You walk in and out of your house, tracking whatever chemicals, dirt, and other residues that are on your shoes from the outside world and bring them right into your home. You walk all over your home every day, your pets walk around, your kids walk around, and the list goes on and on. Needless to say, your floors are not only dirty but probably crawling with bacteria. Chemical cleaning products often don’t thoroughly clean flooring because they can’t get into small crevices and porous surfaces that flooring often has but it will also leave a chemical residue behind that you will then track throughout your home. Fortunately, there is an alternative to chemical cleaning products – steam cleaning. People can be hesitant that steam will not do as thorough a cleaning job as chemical will but steam can actually heat water to such a high degree that it is capable of killing 99% of bacteria. Using a steam cleaner is the most effective, efficient, and economical way to keep almost any flooring type clean and disinfected.
You may not think you need to clean your walls and ceilings clean but they get dirtier than you think! Walls and ceilings accumulate dust, can get scuffed or have marks and spills on them, and frequently absorb the various odors of a home including cooking or smoke odors. It can be incredibly difficult to get these stains, spills and odors out without completely repainting which is no simple or inexpensive task. And, many of the cleaning products available on the market today will either do an incomplete job of stain and odor removal or will actually do more damage to the paint on the wall, necessitating further repair. By using a steam cleaner, you can easily reach any parts of your walls or ceilings that need cleaning and effectively clean, disinfect and deodorize without the use of chemicals. Below are three ways you can use your steam cleaner to clean your walls and ceilings easily and effectively.
Allergy and asthma sufferers encounter a lot of environmental triggers that can make allergy symptoms miserable. While they encounter many of those triggers outside of the home, the last thing they want is to have to deal with frustrating symptoms inside their own home. Unfortunately, according the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America, approximately 20 million Americans have a dust mite allergy and all homes have dust mites. Additionally, the AAFA provides a helpful description of what dust mites are and how they thrive in homes, “Mites are primitive creatures that have no developed respiratory system and no eyes. Too small to be seen with the naked eye, a dust mite measures about one quarter to one third of a millimeter. Under the microscope, they can be seen as whitish, eight-legged bugs…Dust mites thrive in temperatures of 68-77°F and relative humidity levels of 70-80%. There are at least 13 species of dust mites, all of which are well adapted to the environment inside the average home…Dust also contains many microscopic mites and their waste products.The waste products of dust mites — not the mites themselves — are what cause allergic reactions in sensitive individuals. Throughout its short life span, a single dust mite may produce as much as 200 times its body weight in waste products.”
If you have ever used your oven, and particularly if you cook a lot, your oven is probably dirty inside. Even if you do not spill inside your oven, grease and other food particles tend to accumulate on your oven walls and at the bottom. Slowly but surely that all cakes on and get harder and harder to clean with each oven use. Then, you start to notice that with each oven use it smells bad or like something is burning because your oven is not clean. And, if you take a look at the oven grates, they probably do not look so great either. But those grates are large and cannot fit in your kitchen sink to clean. That means you either need a huge container to soak them in, or you need to place them in your tub and begin soaking them – not something every homeowner is keen to do. Most modern ovens have an oven cleaning setting that will essentially run your oven so hot for such a long period of time that it will disintegrate everything inside and leave it clean. But, this is not only costly for utilities but leaves your home smelling horrible after. And, if your oven does not have this setting, you are left using store-bought oven cleaners that contain incredibly harsh chemicals that also smell terrible and are very bad for your health. Fortunately, you can easily, efficiently, and very effectively clean your oven with a steam cleaner.