Vacuuming your home may seem like nothing more than a dull and boring chore, however, once you know the facts, you’ll understand exactly how imperative this menial task is.
Dust, dirt and debris accumulate in your home each and every day. These unwanted annoyances live on the surfaces of your furniture, countertops, carpets, sofas and floors and will eventually start to cause you discomfort.
So the question remains, how often should you vacuum your home?
Well, the truth is the is no simple, straightforward answer to that. It will all depend on the size of your home, the number of people living in your home and whether you have pets and children.
In the following article, we’ll take a look at how often you should be vacuuming your home and the various benefits of vacuuming.
If you feel like most people, then vacuuming is a time-consuming and strenuous chore as opposed to something you jump at every chance to do. In fact, there are a million things you’d rather be doing then vacuuming your home.
However, even if you’re not motivated by the exercise you’ll be doing as you drag or push the vacuum around your home, there are numerous health benefits to cleaning your home by vacuuming.
Contents
Benefits of vacuuming
Health benefits
Vacuuming your home doesn’t just mean that you are cleaning the house itself, but you are also creating a cleaner and more hygienic environment for both you and your family.
There are hundreds of tiny microbes that are constantly floating around and can cause respiratory problems in people who suffer from asthma, hay fever and allergies as well.
Bacteria, dust mites and mould attack asthma sufferers respiratory systems, making them wheeze, cough and have difficulty breathing at night.
For those who suffer from allergic rhinitis, coming into contact with dust mites can create extreme discomfort in the form of a bad cold, coughing, chest congestion, itchy and watery eyes as well as a runny nose.
The accumulation of pet dander and hair can also cause people with pet allergies to experience respiratory, nasal and skin irritation.
By not vacuuming your home on a regular basis, certain people can develop severe reactions to pet dander and dust as well as debris which will accumulate on rugs and carpets.
The only way to ensure that this does not happen is to clean your home and vacuum it on a constant and consistent basis.
It’s not possible to completely sanitize carpet fibres, however, giving it the right amount of attention will reduce the likelihood of a symptom outbreak.
Social, physical and psychological benefits
Regularly vacuuming your home as tedious as it may sound, has real physical benefits. In fact, people who clean their homes are also healthier and more active than those who don’t.
A study conducted by the University of Indiana suggests that keeping your house clean may even be more important to your overall health than taking long walks through the neighbourhood.
Vacuuming your home gives you some exercise and helps to clear away embedded health hazards at the same time.
If you have family or friends living with you and they suffer from allergies, you can have the satisfaction of knowing that by regularly vacuuming, you are creating a healthy environment for everyone to live in.
Let’s not forget the social and psychological benefits as well. Cleaning gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Cleaning your carpet and seeing your white carpet actually looking white again will boost your confidence and elevate your mood. Vacuuming can also keep people from developing depression.
Have you heard the saying, idle hands, idle mind?
Well, it is true. Taking out the vacuum cleaner and sucking up the mess prevents you from focusing on depressing thoughts and actually gives you a sense of accomplishment when you sit back and look at your home spotless and sparkling.
People who keep their homes clean and tidy, also create a favourable impression on others. This is where the “house proud” phrase comes from.
Financial benefits
Regularly vacuuming your home can actually save you money. Your carpets and rugs will last longer when they are well-maintained, so you don’t have to replace them as often.
Furthermore, when all of the accumulated pollutants are sucked into a vacuum cleaner, it will keep you healthy and prevent you from getting sick.
People who suffer from allergies as well will remain in better physical shape, which reduces the amount of money you need to spend on medical expenses.
How often should you vacuum
Size of your home
Some people are under the impression that the bigger the home, the more you need to vacuum. However, this is not necessarily true. A small home can be vacuumed as often as a big home and vice versa.
Simply because a space is bigger doesn’t mean that it’s going to get dirtier than a smaller one.
So even if you have a large home, you’ll still need to vacuum it the same amount of time as you vacuum a smaller home, if it doesn’t have many occupants.
Some people have large homes, but they are at work quite often, and they don’t have pets or kids which means that even though there’s a large space to live in, it is not heavily trafficked.
So basically the only type of dust, debris and dirt you will experience is moderate dust and debris that probably fly in from open windows and air vents aside from those rooms that are heavily trafficked.
So when it comes to vacuuming your home according to the size, this should not play a huge role. The number of times you vacuum your home will depend on how dirty it gets and how often this dirt builds up among other factors.
Irrespective of the size of your home, vacuuming should be done regularly, and this can mean different things to different people.
So regularly could mean once every two weeks for some people, once a week for others or even daily for some.
Number of people living
When you consider vacuuming in relation to the number of people living inside your home, it does definitely play a huge role in the number of times you need to vacuum. More people means more highly trafficked areas inside the home.
So ultimately, it means more people are dragging dirt into the home as they move around from one room to the next and area of the home to the other.
So if there are a lot of people living inside your home, then obviously you will need to vacuum your home more regularly.
If you use your vacuum cleaner approximately once a week, then you should bump that up to probably every second day to ensure that dust and dirt is kept at bay.
Kids / No kids
When you have kids, you will no doubt need to vacuum more often. This is because kids are always moving dirt and debris from outside the home to the inside.
Children also have a tendency to move around the entire home instead of staying in one part of the house.
So that said, if you have kids, then vacuuming should be done probably twice a week or more. However, it also should be noted that vacuuming is just the first step in cleaning up when you have children.
The next step would be to mop and wipe all surfaces inside the home, especially inside the kid’s playroom to eliminate germs and bacteria, which can make your children sick.
However, vacuuming is a good start and should be done at least twice a week to maintain an appropriate environment that is not just clean but safe for your children as well.
Pets
This is where things get a bit complicated. If you have pets, you’ll probably need to vacuum every single day. If you really love them, you should also enjoy vacuuming.
If you have pets such as big hairy dogs and cats then you know that they shed fleas, pet dander and hair all over the place. These annoyances can cause allergies and respiratory diseases for people inside the home.
Additionally, when you have pets, they tend to get dirt on their paws and drag this into the home as well. Irrespective of whether you have hardwood floors or carpeting, you still have to vacuum.
So the short answer is if you have pets, you need to vacuum daily, as in every single day to maintain a clean and hygienic environment for the rest of your family.
Problem with allergies
For those who suffer from allergies, it has often been recommended that vacuuming on a regular basis will improve allergy symptoms by getting rid of things that trigger allergies like dust mites.
It is also suggested that keeping windows closed when outdoor allergens are at high levels will help.
Minimizing the use up window fans because they pull pollen from the outdoors inside, and vacuuming your house two or more times a week will help with allergy symptoms too.
Vacuuming is especially effective in keeping your floors clean. Even though it is not as widely recognized as other factors, dirty floors are often the primary culprits of indoor allergies.
Some people have a rule of leaving their shoes at the door to minimize the amount of dirt and dust that is brought into the home.
However, whether there are shoes or not dust will inevitably find its way into the home and ultimately need to be moved.
Unlike vacuuming sweeping stirs up dust and therefore exacerbates allergies. Vacuuming, on the other hand, is probably the best way to keep your floors clean and allergen-free.
Although vacuuming is one of the best methods in reducing allergens, it is recommended by experts that the most effective vacuums contain a high-efficiency particulate air filter often referred to as a HEPA filter.
These filters are recommended because they are remarkable at sucking in dust particles.
Vacuum cleaners that have these filters need to be changed approximately every six months, and it should be changed outdoors so that the trapped particles are not released back into the new environment.
That said when it comes to people with allergies, vacuuming should be done every single day.
Conclusion
Vacuuming your home regularly is a great way not just to keep your home clean and tidy, but to enhance the overall physical and mental well-being of everyone inside your home.
However, you should also take note and look for ways that you can enhance your vacuuming techniques. It is recommended that a vacuum is most effective when pulled backwards as opposed to being pulled forward.
So moving a vacuum around in multiple directions will help to loosen the dirt and other contaminants and keep your floors and carpet thoroughly cleaned.
Also, if you want the best possible clean invest in a vacuum cleaner that contains a HEPA filter as this will reduce symptoms experienced by asthma and allergy sufferers inside the home.
