Sanitizing your house has become a top concern during the COVID-19 era.
That goes not just for the homes that families now live in, but for those houses and townhomes individuals are looking to relocate to after hiring long distance movers.
Sanity & sanitizing
The “new normal” certainly has lots of people feeling quite a bit less-than-normal, no doubt. Besides the obvious benefit of protecting against coronavirus, sanitizing might help you preserve your sanity during these stressful, unprecedented times.
When’s the best time and what’s the best way to sanitize your house?
Let’s start at the beginning. You’ll want to start your long distance move by staying socially distanced. National Van Lines agents offer zero-touch moving estimates, so you’re social-distancing right from the get-go when it comes to moving cross country. You can obtain your FREE moving estimate in various pandemic-approved, high-tech ways, including Facetime and Yembo.
DYK? By hiring pro movers to pack, transport and unpack your belongings, you’re actually in a safer situation than if you were to move yourself? How is that possible? We don’t guarantee a hermetically sealed bubble, but we’re observing the best guidance to date on containing the coronavirus.
Starting off with a hygienic mindset makes it easier to keep that frame of mind throughout your long distance relocation.
Before settling in
Fast-forward to move-in day. The moving crew have placed your belongings exactly where you’ve requested.
Before truly settling in to your new surroundings, you want to first start sanitizing your house.
The federal government’s U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasize a distinction between “cleaning” and “disinfecting.”
- Cleaning: Removing germs, dirt and impurities from surfaces. Cleaning removes, rather than kills, germs. This decreases their numbers and lessens infection-spreading risk.
- Disinfecting: Using chemicals—such as EPA-registered disinfectants—to kill germs on surfaces. This process doesn’t necessarily clean dirty surfaces or remove germs. However, killing germs on a surface after cleaning can further lower the risk of spreading infection.
Which method is right for you? Consider your situation. Federal authorities report scientists/researchers haven’t yet determined how long air within a room occupied by a coronavirus-confirmed individual carries the possibility of infection.
Let’s assume a routine cleaning of your new home that’s informed by the pandemic. Once your professional movers have completed your relocation and are leaving your new neighborhood, you’re ready to go to work. Remember to use gloves and breathing protection.
Cleaning solution
Clorox provides instructions at their website for creating a DIY bleach-and-water cleaner that will help in sanitizing your house. The bleach manufacturer’s 5-step process advises to pre-clean a dirty surface to remove dirt or grime. Importantly, make sure your bleach of choice is effective against 99.99% of germs. Also, remember to make a fresh solution each time as the bleach-and-water hybrid degrades into salt and water over time. A small batch is two tablespoons of bleach to two cups of water; a large batch is 1/3 cup of bleach to one gallon of water.
When sanitizing your house, the company advises using either a microfiber cloth or synthetic mop or sponge to apply the water-and-bleach solution directly to hard, nonporous surfaces. Don’t use paper towels as they’ll degrade the solution, weakening its effectiveness. This holds true for other natural-fiber materials such as paper, cotton and wool. Surfaces being cleaned must remain visibly wet for six minutes.
This solution should be A-OK to use on many surfaces when sanitizing your house, including: most bathroom surfaces; hard, nonporous kitchen counters (except natural marble); and other surfaces around the home, such as stainless steel, chrome and sealed granite.
It’s always a good idea to test the solution’s effect on a small, inconspicuous area before applying to an entire area.
Quality services
Being a family-owned and -operated business, Josh and Angel Folkestad feel that offering quality services to the customer is extremely important in order to assure continued growth in this industry. They’re proud to say that 70% of their business is by referral or repeat customers. Folkestad Moving Services in Prescott, Arizona is a full service moving company, specializing in local, intrastate, interstate and international moves, plus loading/unloading of rental trucks and packing/unpacking for residential and commercial moves.