From how often to wash your tea towels to cutting your energy bill, cleaning whizz Anita Birges offers her top laundry tips
Online, cleaners have been sharing their handy pro tips and tricks to help others tackle common household problems. One cleaner revealed a simple method for removing grease stains from a stove “without harsh chemicals”.
Another shared their cost-effective natural cleaning solutions for dealing with moul d. Now, a cleaning expert has issued a warning: “Repeat after me, never throw dirty tea towels in the laundry hamper on top of clothes. Gross.” Anita Birges recommends using a dedicated bucket for cleaning items like microfibre cloths, tea towels, and hand towels that might be used for the floor. She explains: “Enter the down-and-dirty bucket. This is a bucket I use to collect things like microfibre cloths, tea towels, and hand towels that might be used for the floor.”
“It all goes in my down-and-dirty bucket which then gets washed in a load once a week on a high temp to blast germs.” Damp moist fabrics left in a dark cool hamper might encourage mould spores to grow so keeping these items in a separate plastic bucket is key. Anita also offered some advice on how frequently you should wash other items in your home. She suggested bath towels should be washed every five to seven uses because they hang in the bathroom, which is typically the dampest place in your home. This makes it an ideal breeding ground for bacteria.
She added: “Also note, the guideline is based on uses, not days. The reason for that is pretty obvious, some people shower more than once a day, whereas others may not. Once those towels are in the wash, make sure it’s set to a hotter temp.” Anita also recommends that: “Pyjamas should be washed every three uses. This pyjama washing guideline applies if you’re not the type to sloth about in your pyjamas all evening and well into the morning. You’re fine to wash them with other similarly coloured clothes.”
Other laundry gurus have recently unveiled the nifty ‘magic hour’ for doing laundry to slash energy bills. But it requires an early riser or a clever setting on your washing machine so that your washing can be done between 7am and 8am. They revealed that an astonishing 85% of us are doing our laundry during the peak pricing times – between 8am and 10pm. This means many of us our not taking advantage of off-peak hours when energy prices generally dip.
