Storing your cleaning products

Storing your cleaning products intelligently and in a clear order will make your cleaning chores much easier than if you have to rifle through piles of empty or badly labeled products to find what you want.

Choose a spot that is either high up or a cupboard that you can easily lock if you have children or curious pets in your household. It’s best to find a cool, dark place that doesn’t change in temperature significantly during the year. The laundry room or a cupboard in the bathroom or toilet would be the obvious places.

As far as possible, keep your products in the containers they came in; if you mix your own then always use the same container and label it clearly with an indelible pen – CD pens are quite useful for this. Use the same container every time you mix, until it’s time to use a new one, at which point get an identical one. Consider using a different colour bottle for each of your mixed cleaning products, so that you know what you’re using when you reach for a bottle.

Organising your cleaning product store
My cleaning products’ cupboard has products for similar requirements on a shelf each. All my cleaning products are stored on shelves behind the door in a walk-in cupboard in the hall. It doesn’t take up much space, and it’s really easy to access.

Each shelf has a small box with products for one room, and a list of its contents stuck to the front to make replenishing easier. From the shelf above, I hang the spray bottles that are used in that room.

For example, the ‘bathroom’ shelf in my cleaning product store has a box with spare hand soap, spare hand moisturiser, the gloves, the cleaning sponges, the toothbrush I use for between the tiles, and the scrubbing brush for the floor.

Hanging on the shelf above is the glass spray, the bleach spray, the bathroom cleaner (I mix my own: vinegar and citrus cleaner – it does wonders on the stainless steel!).

Each room has its own box and its own hanging area for the sprays. I also have carrying box in which I have more generic cleaning products – those that I can use on a day-to-day basis when I just have 20 minutes to do a run-around. In the carrier are gloves, hand moisturizer (I put the moisturizer on my hands before I don the gloves to give my hands a bit of a treat while I clean), a pack of multi-purpose wipes that I use in the toilet, around the sinks and door handles, a duster, a kitchen roll and some glass cleaner. They cover most evils!

Most disposable bottles will function fine until the end of the bottle, but if you buy the refill packs, it’s worth paying them a little attention. Every couple of weeks, run the nozzles under some water to clean out any residue build-up and keep the bottles working well for longer.

By looking after both your products and creating a logical system that works for you, you will find you are more capable of cleaning effectively, and your house it more likely to be cleaned more often!

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