As much as you love your kids and your pets, they could be doing some things to damage your home. Because of this, you need to keep an eye out so that you can spot and fix damage as soon as it occurs as this will keep it from getting worse. Keeping on top of household chores when you have young children can be extremely challenging. If this is something that you’re currently struggling with, here are two tips that you may find helpful and some common ways that your pets could be damaging your home.
Damaging the Walls and Blinds
A lot of pets scratch on the walls. They may do this as a way to relieve stress, or they may just like the way it feels on their paws. Kids are also notorious for drawing on the walls, or even throwing toys and leaving dents. Whatever the reason, it can cause a lot of damage that needs to be painted over. If it is really bad, you may need to replace the drywall as well.
It’s not uncommon for pets or even small children to like to see outside, and they may end up tearing up your blinds to make it a little bit easier for them to do so. You can lessen the damage that they cause by making sure that the blinds aren’t accessible to them. Raise them when you aren’t around to supervise playtime so that your pets can easily see out without having any contact with them.
Chewing on the Plumbing
Some pets like to chew on plastic PVC pipes that may be part of your plumbing. If you notice them chewing on any of these pipes, you need to remove them from this area right away. You should also put a barrier around the area so that they can’t continue to chew on them further.
If there is visible damage to your pipes, you will need to call plumbers to fix it in order to avoid water damage to the interior of your home. While they’re there, your plumber may be able to make some suggestions about how to discourage this sort of behavior in the future.
Soiling the Carpets
If you have to leave your home for long periods of time, your pet may end up soiling on your carpets. This can cause a huge mess that is difficult to clean. Even if you do clean the surface, there may be deeper damage. Many pet owners find it beneficial to leave down a pet pad that’s made for pets to soil on it if they need to relieve themselves.
As a parent, you have a limited amount of time and energy to devote to cleaning. It’s important to be aware of this and to seek out help for cleaning tasks which require a lot of time, effort and attention to detail. Carpet cleaning is one such task. If you try to clean all of your home’s carpets by yourself instead of hiring a professional cleaner, you will probably end up disappointed with the results of your efforts.
The reasons for this are as follows; firstly, the process of deep-cleaning a carpet is a very physically-demanding task. If you’re already exhausted from taking care of your child and keeping on top of the basic household chores, you simply won’t have enough energy to do this challenging job properly. Secondly, if you don’t have access to high-quality cleaning solvents, as well as a powerful vacuum and steam-cleaner, it will be next to impossible for you to extract all of the deeply-embedded dirt from the carpeting.
Make the Most of Your Brief Bouts of Free Time
As a parent, you probably have very little spare time during a typical day. Fortunately, this lack of free time doesn’t mean that you have to live in an untidy and unclean home. You can still maintain a hygienic and tidy living environment for you and your family, simply by carrying out short bursts of cleaning every now and then throughout the course of each day.
For example, rather than sitting down and resting whilst your child eats their breakfast in the morning, you might want to spend those ten minutes putting on a load of laundry, wiping down the countertops and giving the kitchen floor a quick sweep. Similarly, if your son or daughter takes a 30-minute nap most afternoons, you might want to devote this time to sanitising the sink and toilet in the bathroom and mopping the floor. If you let them watch a 20-minute cartoon show in the evening, you can spend this brief period of time loading up the dishwasher, dusting the windowsills and clearing up any clutter that’s lying on the floors of your home.
If your pets need to go outside at certain times of the day, use that time to get some fresh air or do some gardening with them. This ‘little and often’ approach will not only ensure that your home stays relatively clean at all times but will also make the seemingly-endless list of household chores a lot less overwhelming.
Even well-trained pets can do a lot of damage to a home. This is why it’s necessary for their owners to always be on the lookout for any damage that they caused. When they notice that some sort of damage has occurred, they should do what they can to fix the damage and to keep it from happening again in the future.