Children are lovely, but they sure are messy. Whether they’re eating, playing, going to the toilet or even trying to tidy up, it often seems like they manage to make a mess everywhere they go.
If you don’t have the luxury of professional cleaning help but still need to juggle keeping your house spick and span with looking after the kids, Expert Home Tips has published some great advice for getting rid of the most stubborn stains and smells that little ones seem to leave around.
Here’s our pick of five of the best:
Cucumber and WD-40: The ultimate crayon-fighting team
Crayons can be a pain. In their bold primary colours and with their waxy finish, they can be a nightmare to get off walls and out of clothing, but not if you have some cucumber and WD-40 to hand at all times – parenting essentials arguably more vital than baby wipes.
The skin of cucumber is remarkably brilliant at getting crayon marks off walls. Just rub it over the drawings and they should come off easily, leaving your walls looking as good as new.
The average washing powder doesn’t tend to do much to crayon stains on clothing, but WD-40 can. Simply spray a little over the stain and rub hard until the marks are gone.
Freeze off pesky chewing gum
If your kid steps in chewing gum or somehow ends up with it on their clothes, this doesn’t have to mean a ruined outfit and extra expense for you. Instead, you simply need to put the affected item into your freezer, ideally overnight.
This will help the gum to harden, meaning it will fall off easily when you take the shoe or garment out of the freezer.
Lint roll glitter away
Glitter is another major bugbear for parents. It’s great that the kids are being creative, but will you ever stop finding specks of the stuff all over the house? It can feel like you’ll still be fighting glitter years after they’ve left home.
But there’s a simple way to clean up after craft time that will help to put an end to these worries and keep your home glitter-free. Use a lint roller to collect glitter off surfaces, floors and even clothes – this hack will seriously change your life.
Put teddy on a spin cycle
If your little one has a favourite soft toy that they insist on carrying everywhere with them, it can soon end up covered in all kinds of crumbs, sticky things and general grime, making it a bit of a hygiene concern and not very pleasant to cuddle up to.
Teddies are safe to go in the washing machine though – you just need to find a time when you can prise it out of your child’s hands! Some parents like to buy an identical replacement teddy so they can secretly switch them when their little one isn’t looking to give one a good clean.
It’ll be returned to them feeling extra soft and smelling lovely, but it’s unlikely they’ll notice the difference – you can enjoy the peace of mind that all that grime isn’t going to make them ill though.
Line their lunchbox with mustard
Lunchboxes can end up pretty smelly, especially if your child is in the habit of forgetting to bring it home from school each day.
Lining their lunchbox with mustard might sound like a horrible April fool, but it’s not – placing some mustard inside overnight before washing it like normal will help to neutralise and get rid of any unpleasant smells that could be lurking inside.
Source: Expert Home Tips
