How to Clean Up After Being Sick

Living with allergies and sensitive sinuses means that I tend to easily catch a cold if someone around me is sick. (Not to point any fingers) but my fiance was sick this week and I woke up Saturday morning with a stuffy nose. I decided to sleep in and barely gave my productivity to-do list a thought. When you’re sick getting more sleep, drinking lots of fluids, and taking it easy is sooooo important. As I moved throughout my weekend my mind was a bit murky along with my stuffed sinuses and as I thought to myself, ‘What should I write my Monday blog post about?’ I came up with an answer relatively quickly. 

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Today I’m going to share a short post about how to clean up after someone in your house is sick – whether that person is you, your fiance, your kids, or your roommate. It’s never fun being sick but people often forget one of the most important things to do once they’re no longer sick, and that’s cleaning up and getting rid of those nasty sick germs!

Think of all the things you do and touch from the moment you wake to the moment you go to bed. You touch your phone, the light switch, the bathroom door handles, and you use your toothbrush. When you go to the kitchen you touch the light switch, the refrigerator door handles, the pantry door handles, and the cabinet door handles to get a dish, glass, and silverware. You crawl onto the couch and wrap a blanket around you while you pick up the remote and turn on the TV. You use your tablet or e-reader to sit up in bed and read a book or magazine and you browse social media on your phone, lamenting about how awful it is to be sick.

Starting to get the idea? Your sick germs can be hiding in plain sight and it’s always in your best interest to get rid of as much as you can. There are door handles galore throughout your home, on top of everything else you touch. Even if you take a sick day, there’s still tons of things you touch and even if you try to be careful about what you touch after blowing your nose and wiping your face, you don’t have a lot of control over where your germs end up.

Tips for While You’re Sick:

1. Wipe up as you go
   • Use disinfectant wipes and focus on the things that you touch that others will be touching too like light switches, door handles and the tv remote
2. Keep it contained
   • Keep a box of tissues in every room
   • Use a brown paper bag to toss your dirty tissues in and keep one next to every box of tissues throughout the house
   • Keep a bottle of hand-sanitizer out on the counter for easy access
3. Wash your hands!
   • Don’t sneeze into your open palms, use your inner elbow instead! If you insist on sneezing into your hands without a tissue, go wash your hands right away
   • If you’re constantly blowing your nose, try to wash your hands before you touch things throughout the house
4. Keep your distance
   • If you can’t take a sick day and you need to go to the office, see family or friends, or run errands, try to keep your distance from others
   • Be respectful and let people know you’re sick and express that you don’t want to get them sick
   • Don’t hug anyone or shake anyone’s hand!
5. Keep in the moisture
   • Use special hydrated and super soft tissues to prevent the skin near your nose from getting raw
   • If you do end up with the dreaded raw nose; use vaseline around your nose to keep it from stinging
   • Use hand moisturizer after washing your hands or using hand-sanitizer to keep your skin from being dehydrated and cracking

How to Clean Up After Being Sick:

Once you’re no longer sick you’ll want to do an entire sweep of your home by walking through and cleaning everything in your path. Go from room to room and get rid of all the germs you can manage!

Cleaning Tips

You’ll want to pay special attention to the things you use constantly like your phone and tablet and anything you touched like door handles and knobs.

1. Clean everything with a disinfectant wipe
   • Digital/tech items – use special wipes that are safe on tech devices
     • Cell phone screen and protector
     • Tablet screen and protector
     • Computer or laptop keyboard and mouse
     • TV remote
   • Door handles and knobs – I personally love lemon scented Lysol wipes
     • Entire house: bedroom and bathroom doors
     • Kitchen: refrigerator door handles, all cabinet and drawer knobs
   • Any surface you may have touched
2. Replace your toothbrush with a new one
3. Wipe down your car with a disinfectant wipe
4. Do your laundry
   • Toss all the clothes you wore while sick in your laundry
   • Don’t forget to include your pillowcase!

The main focus after your cold has gone away is making sure that everything is as clean as possible in order to hopefully prevent yourself or others from also getting sick.

 

I’m interested to know, what are your go-to tips and tricks for cleaning up after being sick?

 

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