What You Actually Need

You do not need much. The cleaning products aisle wants you to think otherwise. It is wrong. What you actually need - Window cleaner — for glass, mirrors, and anything that needs to be streak-free. - Alcohol household cleaner — for surfaces, sanitising, cutting through grease and bacteria. - General floor and surface cleaner, to dilute — more concentrated for floors, lighter for surfaces and worktops. That is three products. Everything else is a duplicate or a luxury. Equipment Microfibre cloths — buy several, wash them regularly. Sponges, changed often. A small brush for corners, grout, and edges. A dustpan and brush. A sweeping brush with soft bristles for hard floors — soft bristles pick up fine dust rather than pushing it around. A mop and two buckets. This matters: one bucket for clean water and product, one for wringing the dirty mop into. Cleaning with one bucket means you are spreading dirty water around the floor. Two buckets means your floor is actually getting clean. Washing up liquid for the kitchen sink and anything that needs soaking. That is it. A home cleaned consistently with these basics will be cleaner than one cleaned occasionally with twenty specialist products. The products are not the variable. The consistency is.