With so many dogs in my house and four vacation rental properties I feel like I spend half of my life cleaning. Believe it or not even with so many dogs my house is really clean…and I have a few secrets!
As much as I love pets…I can’t stand for my house to smell like pet. I also allow pets in one of my vacation rentals and there is no way I can let that apartment ever smell like pet. I have tried pretty much every cleaning product on the market and I have a few that I absolute
ly can’t live with out.
The first (and definitely my favorite product) is Angry Orange. Angry Orange is the best cleaning deodorizing product I have found and trust me I have tried almost everything. I add it to my bucket of mop water. I keep a spray bottle of water and Angry Orange for dusting. I sprinkle it on my steam mop. I also use it to clean and deodorize the outdoor pet yard. If I find I spot where someone has had an accident I clean it up with clorox first and then let Angry Orange sit on the spot for about 30 minutes and then wipe it up.
Besides the effectiveness of this product being really good it is non-toxic to pets and it is safe for tile and wood floors (which is all I have in my house).
The second product I cannot live with out is Zep Wall Cleaner Foam. Let’s face it…dogs shake slobber, water, food, boogies and other unmentionables off of themselves and on
to the walls. Wiping your walls with most products ruins the paint job on the wall. I use this wall cleaner in the house and in my vacation rentals and I LOVE IT. It doesn’t take the paint off and it cleans most marks off the wall. My vacation rentals constantly get scuffs on the walls from people dragging in suitcases, dog crates, etc….this product makes the walls look clean again. For the record I use really high quality paint from Sherwin Williams. I don’t know how this would work with a lower quality paint so if you have cheap paint on your walls I would spot test it first. In general I like all of ZEP’s products. I use their shower cleaner in my rentals (it is fabulous) and their glass cleaner works far better than say a product like Windex.
The third product I can’t live without is my steam mop. Because I don’t want harsh chemicals on my floors that are dangerous to my dogs I don’t use any product on the floors but Angry Orange. But Angry Orange really isn’t, at least for me, sanitizing enough. I vacuum and steam mop my floors every morning. Let’s face it…dogs scooch their buts across the floor, they drool, they drag lord knows what in on their feet…the floors just have to be sanitary. I use a Shark Steamer. Its the only steamer I’ve tried so I don’t have any opinion on how it works relative to others. It does last quite a long time though and it does the job. I have a weeks worth of pads for it and toss them in the washer with hot water to get them clean. I do sprinkle Angry Orange on the pads when I use them.
The last tool I use is my diffuser. I buy the Innogear diffusers. I usually don’t need it in the house but sometimes in my rentals someone will have cooked something that smells horrid or they have a dog in there that smells like it hasn’t bathed in a year. I run my diffusers in the apartments while I’m cleaning with a mix of orange oil and lavender oil. I’ll run them for a day if necessary. Along with a good cleaning the diffuser will eliminate most odors pretty quickly. A tip on using diffusers…they need to be cleaned. About every 10 times or so that I use them I empty them and put a little vinegar in the chamber for a few hours to clean the residue off from the oils.
For all the dog moms out there fighting the good fight on keeping your house clean I hope you find this helpful!
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Nacny