If you live with one or more indoor cats, household litter boxes are a fact of life in your home. There are several different types of cat litter products available, and the type you choose can have a major impact on how your home smells. It’s important to choose an effective cat litter that your cat doesn’t mind using and  that keeps the smell out of your home.

Clumping Cat Litter
Many people prefer to use clumping cat litter rather than traditional cat litter. Those who prefer this option find keeping their cat’s litter boxes clean to be much easier than with traditional litter boxes. While traditional litter boxes have to be dumped and refilled regularly, this isn’t necessary when you use clumping cat litter.

Instead, the areas that need to be removed actually form clumps that you can easily see and remove, without having to deal with picking up the entire box and emptying it. Of course, the litter has to be completely changed once in a while, but the frequency is much less than with traditional litter.

On the downside, the clumps do need to be removed quite frequently. If you allow them to build up in the litter box, it’s likely that your cat will avoid using the box to do his or her business.

Odor Alert Clumping Cat Litter
If you like the idea of the easy ongoing maintenance of clumping cat litter but don’t trust yourself to remember to take care of the necessary complete litter changes before the smell gets out of hand, you might want to try Odor Alert. This type of cat litter provides cat owners with a visual cue when it’s time to swap out their clumping cat litter.

Instead of realizing too late that a litter box odor has permeated your home, with Odor Alert, it will be very obvious when it’s time to make a switch. The pre-odor indicators in this product turn blue when the dampness that leads to unpleasant odors starts to build up. Long before your nose tells you it’s time to switch your kitty litter, your eyes will notice that it has turned blue. Odor Alert takes the guess work out of knowing when it’s time to make a total litter switch.

Important Consideration for Choosing Cat Litter
Keep in mind that cats tend to be very finicky about their litter boxes. If you’re thinking about switching to a different type of kitty litter, purchase only a small container the first time. This will save you from wasting money and having to deal with kitty potty accidents in your home if your cat refuses to use the new litter.

Is cleaning your home a chore that you really dread? Are you too busy with work, parenting, and other obligations to devote the proper amount of time to keeping your home as clean as it really should be? If so, you might want to consider enlisting the assistance of a professional cleaning service to help with your housekeeping responsibilities.

Hiring a professional cleaning service doesn’t have to be cost-prohibitive. One of the major factors impacting the fee for cleaning your house is how often you have a professional come in and work on your home. If you’re able to keep up with making sure your living space stays relatively tidy, you may only need to hire a professional to come in and take care of deep cleaning once each month.

On the other hand, if you want to minimize the need for you to spend any time on cleaning your home, you may want to hire someone to come in and take care of surface and deep cleaning once every week, or maybe even more often depending on how quickly your home gets messy. If this is your preference, your per-visit fee is likely to be less that for a once a month cleaning, because there won’t be as much to do on every visit. However, your overall out of pocket cost will be more due to the frequency of the visits. Of course, what you’ll get for the extra money you spend is increased freedom from regular house cleaning responsibilities.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, some people keep up with their regular cleaning duties, but like to have professionals come in and do a really thorough cleaning once or twice each year. Individuals who choose this option save the worst jobs for their cleaning specialists, such as cleaning the mini blinds, drapes, foot molding, and other hard to reach and clean areas. The per visit fee for this type of cleaning is likely to be fairly steep, but you only incur this type of expense on rare occasions.

The decision about whether or not to use professional cleaners, and how frequently to have them visit your home, is up to you. It’s a simple matter of time, preferences, and economics. If it’s worth the money to you to be able free up some of your time, then investing in a professional cleaning service can certainly be  money well spent.

No one looks forward to scrubbing their shower, but keeping your shower clean is certainly an important part of proper housekeeping. Shower cleaning doesn’t have to be unpleasant or difficult, if you keep up with the task on a regular basis. Follow these simple tips, and you’ll find that maintaining a clean shower is much easier than you thought it could be!

1. Use The Right Cleaning Solution
When cleaning your shower, it’s important to use a cleaning solution designed for use in the bathroom. The dirt and germs that tend to build up in bathrooms are very different from those found in kitchens and other areas of the home. Bathroom cleaning products are especially designed to combat mold, mildew, and other types of dirt and bacteria that build up in damp areas.

2. Start at the Top
When you clean your shower, the dirt that you remove will drip down the walls to the floor. If you start at the bottom, you’ll find yourself having to duplicate your effort. Start cleaning at the top of the walls, and work your way completely around the shower before moving downward.

Apply bathroom cleaner all the way around the top of the shower and start scrubbing. The cleaner and some of the dirt will drip down the walls. This is fine, because you will simply work your way down the walls, and end by cleaning the tub or floor of the shower.

3. Don’t Forget Faucets
Even though shower faucets don’t usually collect mold and mildew as quickly as shower floors and walls, it’s still important to clean them on a regular basis. If the bathroom cleaner you are using on the walls is safe for use on the types of faucets you have, you can use it. Many people prefer using a vinegar and water solution to clean their shower faucets. 

4. Preventive Maintenance
One of the best things you can do to make shower cleaning easy is to take proper preventive maintenance steps. Mildew builds up in showers because they stay damp. If you get in the habit of wiping your shower walls down after you use it, you’ll create an environment that is less conducive to mildew growth. You can also spray down the shower with a 10:1 solution of water and bleach in between uses, to prevent unwanted buildup and bacteria growth.

Keeping your carpet clean can play an important role in extending it’s useful life. Replacing flooring can be costly and inconvenient, so it’s definitely a good idea to do what you can to extend the life of the carpeting in your home.

1. Vacuum Regularly
Embedded dirt and dust can make your carpet look old and worn out long before it should. If you vacuum your carpeting at least once a week, you’ll keep dirt and dust from settling in and causing stains and other permanent problems that contribute to worn out carpeting.

2. Shampoo Periodically
Even with regular vacuuming, dirt can still get trapped in your carpet over a period of time. While regular vacuuming helps make sure that the dirt and dust of daily life don’t settle in the carpet for the long haul, an occasional shampoo is necessary to keep your carpet as fresh and clean as possible.

Whether you own a steam cleaner or you rent one from your local home improvement store, shampooing your carpet is much easier and less costly than having to replace it. Proper carpet shampooing can add several years to the useful life of your carpeting.

3. Be Proactive
When something spills on your carpet, don’t let it set there until you have time to get around to cleaning it up. Cleaning up a spill now doesn’t take any more time than it will take to clean it up later. As a matter of fact, when you go back later, the spill that would have been easy to clean up when it was fresh will likely have gotten worse, possibly even creating a permanent stain.

4. Spot Treatments
If you do get a stain on your carpet, the sooner you try to remove it, the better chance you have of being successful. If you have carpeting in your home, it’s a good idea to keep some type of carpet cleaning solution on hand so that you’ll always be able to treat stains as soon as you become aware of them.