Posts Tagged "tea tree oil"

How Clean is My House?

Posted by cafebebemama on Feb 9, 2010 in Motherhood | 11 comments

How Clean is Your House

How clean is my house?  I made a shocking discovery last night.  It turns out my house is not very clean and in fact, is possibly TOXIC!

I am not the World’s Greatest Housekeeper.  Truth be told, I am not even my village’s greatest housekeeper.  I find that my daughter and my work (blog, Twitter, writing) are my main priority and housekeeping definitely takes a 5th or 6th place on my agenda of things to do.  I keep the house tidy enough but I don’t have a cleaning schedule or a rota or any real routine of cleaning.  Thankfully my husband is in charge of the laundry (he actually does it ALL) and neither of us iron so that eliminates one chore.  We’re not filthy, messy people and we now have a Dyson Animal hoover so our carpets have never been cleaner.  However, the discovery I made last night was enough to stop me in my tracks and nearly make me turn in my Mother of the Year tiara.  (Regular viewers of my vlogs know that I have one)

As I was sitting in Little Miss’ room, rocking in the rocking chair, watching Hubby get Little Miss ready for bed, I glanced over to Little Miss’ cot bed.  I had rearranged the bedroom a few months back, moving the cot bed under the window which allowed us to put her changing table at the end of her bed and giving more room for the rocking chair.  We also have begun using a humidifier in Little Miss’ room since Christmas.  Little Miss has had a chesty cough and snuffly nose for the last few months and a humidifier was added as another solution to the night-time coughing.  Every time Little Miss goes to sleep at night or for naps, the humidifier gets turned on.  Little Miss’ room is a box room with 2 exterior walls and is rather tiny.  Sometimes I forget to crack the door open when the humidifier is on thus turning the room into a cold steam room!  Now I see the error of my ways.

I noticed a spot on the wall in the corner, directly behind Little Miss’ cot and leaned forward to investigate.  What I found was not one little spot but many which were of the BLACK MOULD variety.  OH MY GOD!!!!  I’m cultivating BLACK MOULD in my daughter’s bedroom!!!  I’m POISONING my daughter!  I felt like (and still do) the WORST mother in the world…take my tiara now.  Mind you, when I discovered the black mould, it was about 60 minutes past Little Miss’ bedtime anyway as we had had my inlaws over.  So, with bedtime looming and the black mould screaming at me, I grabbed some bathroom cleaning wipes to scrub the bejesus out of the wall and also grabbed my bottle of Tea Tree Oil to treat the wall.  I’ve seen the above “How Clean is Your House” crew of Kim & Aggie using Tea Tree Oil to get rid of horrendous mould in people’s toxic waste dumps.  The room smelled lovely and “tea tree”-like and I felt moderately better but I still felt like the worst mother!  I was letting my daughter sleep in a SPORE INFESTED room and was cultivating the black mould by continually pumping steam around the room.  No wonder the child has a chesty cough!

My goal today is to move everything in her room and root out any more black mould and destroy it with a good scrub and tea tree oil.  My husband has told me that part of the reason for the mould in that corner is that it’s the one corner of the room with no inside wall which would explain the dampness.  I obviously need to keep that corner uncovered and keep air circulating around it to eliminate any future cultures of black mould.  I’m changing the bedding and giving the cot a good wipe down as well, just in case.  I have found a website that teaches you How to Make a Non-Toxic Cleaning Kit which I am going to attempt as well.  I’m normally a BIG FAN of bleach, but I feel the need to keep the toxic chemicals to a minimum where Little Miss is concerned.

Here’s my call out for advice and help.  What are your favourite household cleaning products?  Do you use any chemicals around your children?  What is your household routine for cleaning?  Help me to be able to wear my World’s Greatest Housekeeper tiara once again!