How Hygienic Is Your Kitchen?
Living away from home is a fantastic experience for most students. No rules, or nagging parents is hugely exciting in the initial throes of student living. However, after a few weeks, something strange begins to happen. The sink is constantly full to the brink with plates and dirty bowls. You search the cupboards for a replacement, but the cupboards remain bare. The kitchen begins to waft of l’odour de lazy and the floor soon becomes the kitchen bin as the rubbish cascades from the mountain inside.
Student living is tough, why did no-one tell us this before?!
Life without Mum and Dad can become a pain, but university life is also a time to start growing up. Your maturity should dictate – you need to take the initiative and find ways to keep your home tidy. Hopefully you are living with like minded people who are as fed up with the mess as you are (although there will always be one lazy oaf).
How can we do better?
We’ve spoken to the hygiene and cleaning experts over at Clinell Direct to explore just the dirtiest areas of our student home – the kitchen – and discuss ways, that as a team, you can do better.
The kitchen is the most important place to start. It’s an area that you will most likely share with others, so it’s imperative that you keep it tidy. If your housemates have higher standards than you then respect that. Nothing stinks (literally) of selfishness more than a lazy housemate who has no regard for others.
If you don’t know who that is, then it’s probably you!
If this IS you, then you need to change ASAP before you end up applying this logic to everything in life! The kitchen is said to be dirtier than a toilet seat. For this reason alone, it is vital that it is cleaned often.
A quick wipe of the surfaces saves a lot of problems with bacteria. By keeping a cloth or a selection of multi-purpose antibacterial wipes handy at all times, you can simply wipe the kitchen surfaces each time you use it. This will take you literally 2 seconds and can go a long way to help the hygiene of your home.
If your sink is full then start by taking everything out and putting it to one side. Run the hot tap with nothing else in the sink and blast the dried-on dirt away down the plug hole. This is what we would call a first coating. Once this has been done, you can start to fill the sink with hot water and washing up liquid. Now you can begin cleaning the plates, bowls and cutlery by hand. Cleaning a full sink can take about 30 mins – share the responsibility by sorting out a rota! If your housemates protest, then suggest everyone cleans as they go.
It takes less time overall and keeps the house looking spick and span. Your only problem then becomes policing the situation!
What about the bin?
Take the bin out before it overflows, simple really. Push down the rubbish until it reaches the lid line. Then bag it up and throw it out, ensuring a replacement has been attached to the bin once you have finished.
