COVID-19: A Quick Guide on Cleaning, Sanitizing, & Disinfecting Your Home

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has resulted in questions on how to clean your home to prevent the spread of the virus. Cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces should be on a daily basis of you want your home to be clean and virus-free.

541 Home Sales | Cleaning, Sanitizing, Disinfecting: What’s the difference?

The first thing you’ll want to know is that cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting are different things. The CDC recommends we all three, even if nobody in your home is sick.

• Cleaning is about removing contaminants from a surface.
• Sanitizing means to reduce the amount of microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, and fungi on a surface after it has been cleaned.
• Disinfecting is about killing pathogens.
• Do all three daily if anything or anyone has entered or exited your home.

Transmission from person-to-person is a much greater risk than transmission via surfaces, but the CDC recommends we clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces in our homes at least once daily just to be safe, assuming we have had contact with the outside world in some way, either a person leaving and returning or goods coming in.

Bullseye: Your Home’s High-Touch Surfaces 

Researchers have found that the novel coronavirus is capable of living on surfaces such as cardboard for 24 hours, but up to two or three days on plastic and stainless steel. So cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting high-touch surfaces is a step we should all take, even if we aren’t leaving the house. Anytime items or people come in and out of your home, there is some possibility of exposure.

High-Touch Surfaces to Clean, Sanitize and Disinfect Daily:

• Doorknobs
• Table surfaces
• Hard dining chairs (seat, back, and arms)
• Kitchen counters
• Bathroom counters
• Faucets and faucet knobs
• Toilets (seat and handle)
• Light switches
• TV remote controls
• Game controllers

Everyone’s home is a little different, so just think about the surfaces you interact with most.

First Clean, Sanitize, Then Disinfect:

1. First, clean the surfaces, removing any contaminants, dust, or debris. You can do this by wiping them with soapy water (or a cleaning spray) and a hand towel.
   

   Clean surfaces with wipes/cloth

2. Next, sanitize surfaces with household bleach. Take note: Never mix bleach with ammonia or any other cleaner, wear rubber or other non=porous boots, gloves, and eye protection. Also, if using sanitizing products indoors, open windows and doors to allow fresh air to enter.
   

   Sanitize surfaces with household bleach

3. Then apply a surface-appropriate disinfectant. The quickest and easiest way to do this is with disinfecting wipes or disinfectant spray.
   

   Disinfect with disinfecting spray then wipe with a cloth

What to do if you cannot find store-bought disinfectants?

Store shelves are bare in a lot of places, especially in the cleaning section, but you still have plenty of options. First off, please do use more soap, water, and scrubbing. That can make a huge difference.

The CDC also has a recommended recipe for a homemade cleaning solution using household bleach.

How to Make Homemade Bleach Disinfectant Spray:

• 4 teaspoons household bleach
• 1 quart water
• Pour both into one quart spray bottle, shake vigorously
• Spray on surface to disinfect, let sit for 10 minutes, wipe away with wet cloth

Stay Home. Stay Safe. Save lives.

There’s a lot going on right now. It’s stressful. It’s scary. It can be hard to know what you should do or what’s going on. But always keep in mind: Prevention is always better than cure. Follow all the precautionary measures by cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting your home, at least once a day. So, please stay safe out there.