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Terrible Tiles: Case of the Stubborn Tile Stains

Terrible Tiles: Case of the Stubborn Tile Stains

Dear CMDA,

Thank you so much for giving us great tips, especially your Toilet and Bath Cleaning Challenge! I need your help now because I have tried many cleaning solutions, both liquid and dry, and my bathroom tiles are still dirty. I tried re-grouting as well but the grout doesn’t seem to stick for very long. What do I need to to do?

Sincerely,
Tanya

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Hi Tanya, thank you so much for following us and for being a loyal visitor in our site. Bathroom tiles are really a bit tricky, mainly because it is wet most of the time making it a very good breeding ground for all sorts of molds and fungi. You might already have the right cleaning solution and you did a good job re-grouting your tiles, but there are other things you might need to consider, like how hard do you brush your tiles? You might be overdoing it when you do a deep cleaning and scrubbing like there is no tomorrow- which can further damage your tiles and grout.  

Soaking is the answer

Remember to soak the surface with your cleaning solution (with or without water) for at least 15 to 30 minutes first and then gently scrub the area. Soaking will loosen up the molds and grime and it would be easier for you to scrub it. At the same time, this will protect your tiles from scratches and keep the grout intact longer. As for the grout falling off: You might have applied the grout while the surface was still wet or with moisture, or you may have not let it dry for at least 12 to 16 hours before using the bathroom.  

Dry it like you mean it

Depending on the grout, the drying time may vary and it might not work on wet surface. Some commercial grouts require at least 24 hours drying time: meaning you can’t use the bathroom within those times, you have to leave it drying and setting. Also, you might have placed excess grout that when you tried to remove it or while scrubbing it, it fell off together with those that are suppose to stick. Use an old rubber slipper to remove the excess and to even out the grout. Make sure that the level of the grout is deeper than the tiles (see image). This will not only protect and keep your tiles and grout clean, it will also prevent anyone from slipping on the bathroom floor or walls. If you are unsure how to clean your bathroom or how to re-apply grout, we could always send our Handy Helper to assist you. Thank you so much, Tanya and we look forward to your next message for us!
Reena Alcantara

Reena Alcantara

President

Reena, or “Renz”, is the owner and president of CMDA Cleaning Services. A work from home mom, loving wife and a mother of 2 girls, 2 cats and a dog. She is passionate about all things related to cleaning. She is a strong advocate of “Mompreneur” which enables mothers to be successful businesswomen. On her spare time, she looks for local suppliers and retailers to also help support small local businesses.

Reena is a Registered Medical Technologist, and also a graduate of BS Nursing. She knows the real deal about germs and the importance of health. Though she does not practice her field for 15 years, she believes that she could help more people be healthy in providing clean homes and offices.

How Professional Home Cleaning Can Keep You and Your Family Healthy

How Professional Home Cleaning Can Keep You and Your Family Healthy

Recently, a lot of people are getting the flu, and not just the middle aged and old ones, but also young ones. It starts with one member of the family and then passing the virus to the next member. And not just the flu, there is an alarming number of cases of Measles in the US, and just this December 19, 2018, The Department of Health (DOH) has reported Measles cases in Quezon and Antipolo. It might be just the weather, or it could be the state of health in your community. Thanks to the intense work of the DOH, together with the local health officials and the baranggays, the cases were contained. We have also provided home cleaning service in Antipolo and home cleaning service in Quezon to help some families there keep their home clean and stop the spreading of diseases

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So how does a professional cleaning service help keep your family healthy?

 

Clean Spaces You Can’t Reach

Even if we do clean our homes, or we have helpers to do that, we can only clean what we can reach. Unless you have a ladder around and routinely clean your ceiling, walls and all the fixtures and fittings in your home. A professional cleaning service company “should” be equipped with a ladder to clean spaces beyond our reach. Cobwebs and dusts that may contain viruses and germs may have already accumulated in high places. This could be one of the reasons why some illnesses are persistent within your home.

 

Deeper Than Deep Cleaning

Professional cleaners work not just on the surface level, but also beyond that, like your grease traps, the insides of your air-conditioning unit including the filters, areas under the sink, cabinets and dressers because these areas are often neglected thus susceptible to fungal and bacterial growth. The cleaners should be able to do sofa and carpet cleaning as well to remove dusts and dirt within the fabric/fur. These areas are often over looked since we don’t directly “see” them, nor the dirt and grime that are within them. These areas are very good breeding grounds for germs and viruses as they are most of the time moist or wet. These areas are also the most likely culprit when you have allergic rhinitis.

 

Provide The Right Solution

If you have booked for a scheduled cleaning with a professional cleaning service company, make sure to discuss with them your concerns, including health related ones. They should also know what approach to do in cleaning your place, whether it is air-borne or water-borne diseases you are experiencing. A multi-faceted professional cleaning service company like CMDA Cleaning Services uses industrial grade disinfectants to clean homes. These disinfectant solutions are used by hospitals and research facilities to help stop the spread of diseases, and these are not the ones simply bought from the grocery. The solutions are even BFAD approved to ensure the safety and efficiency.

 

Organic Cleaning

Hate harsh chemicals? Advocate of anything and everything Organic? Professional cleaning services should also be able to provide organic cleaning options to ensure no harsh chemical residues are left. It is true at times that the reason some of us are sick is because of the chemicals we are exposed at every single day, which may include cleaning solutions and materials. Cleaning using organic solutions are the best way to ensure that the family dweller’s exposure to chemicals are very minimal.

CMDA Cleaning Services provide professional cleaning service to homes, condominiums, offices, restaurants, warehouses and buildings from Ortigas to any point of Luzon. Contact us today to learn more on how we can help you with your cleaning needs.

📞 994-7870 | 650-9018
📲 0917 144 2632
✉️ inquiry@cmdacleaning.com

Be a Sofa Cleaning and Carpet Cleaning Pro in 5 Easy Steps

Be a Sofa Cleaning and Carpet Cleaning Pro in 5 Easy Steps

Carpet cleaning and shampoo and sofa cleaning and shampoo are chores that we don’t learn from school, not even from our parents (unless they are professional carpet cleaners).Most of us have these items in our homes and probably bought expensively. Naturally, we want them to last at least your lifetime. But as much as we want to, we can’t stop them from getting stained or dirtied (especially with little ones around), unless you cover them in plastic, or you are not totally using them at all. Even in storage they get dusty and sometimes even molds develop from them.

If you are in a situation of having to clean a sofa or carpet, or tasked to do so, and you are looking for pro-tips to clean them fast and easy, you have come to the right place. Check out our steps on how to clean sofas and carpets like a pro:

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1. Assess the condition

As they say, don’t go to battle without a plan. Don’t just dive in and scrub those sofa or carpet yet, instead, check out a few things first before going toe to toe with the upholstery:
  • What kind of fabric are you dealing with? (all sorts of fabric would need different care)
  • Is it stained or just dusty?
  • How long has it been on its current condition? Is it a new stain or dirt, or are they old?
  • How thick or thin is the fabric already? Can it take a beating? Or it might get holes after?
 

2. Prepare your materials

Once you’ve assessed the condition of the sofa or carpet, you would know what you will be needing. This way, you can save on supplies, your time and effort in cleaning. So what materials do you need exactly? Depending on the condition: IF it is just dusty, dry, no stains and the fabric is still thick:
  • Dry, clean plastic brush
  • Vacuum
IF it has a fresh stain or dirt in it:
  • Kitchen towel/big toilet paper
  • Rubbing Alcohol (Isoprophyl or Ethyl)
  • Warm water (in a spray bottle)
  • Vacuum
  IF it has old, dried out stains and dirt in it:
  • Rubbing Alcohol (Isoprophyl or Ethyl)
  • Warm water
  • Dishwashing soap (liquid)
  • Dishwashing Sponge
  • Dipper (Tabo) or Pail/bucket
  • Vacuum

3. Cleaning Process

Now that you have your materials ready, you can start cleaning it accordingly: IF it is just dusty, dry, no stains and the fabric is still thick:
  1. Start off with loosening the dirt by using a dry plastic brush. Make long, gentle strokes according the fabric’s direction or how the “tufts” go. If it doesn’t have any, brush it still in just one direction. This way, you get to remove the dirt without damaging the fabric.
  2. Vacuum the sofa or carpet with the same direction as you did when brushing.
IF it has a fresh stain or dirt in it:
  1. Immediately blot the fresh stains or dirt with a kitchen towel or toilet paper. Just dab the towel/paper on it, avoiding the clean surrounding being stained.
  2. Put some rubbing alcohol on a clean kitchen towel or several pieces of toilet paper, and then place it on top of the stain. Make sure that the kitchen towel is not soaking wet. Let it stay there for 15 minutes and DO NOT rub the kitchen towel on the fabric to avoid smudging or scattering the stain. This will dissolve the remaining ink and oil based stains and dirt, at the same time, bringing them to the surface where the kitchen towel or toilet paper will absorb them.
  3. After the time is up, check if the stain has been completely removed. If there are still some more, repeat step 2 until totally cleaned.
  4. Spray some warm water on the area and then wipe it off to remove the excess alcohol on the fabric.
  5. Vacuum the area to remove excess water and then air dry or use the dryer function of your vacuum.
  IF it has old, dried out stains and dirt in it:
  1. Vacuum the sofa or carpet to loosen up and remove the dirt. Make long, gentle strokes according the fabric’s direction or how the “tufts” go.
  2. Combine 2 part dish washing liquid, 1 part rubbing alcohol and 5 parts water in a dipper or pail/bucket. Mix/shake it until you form suds.
  3. Using a sponge, take some of the sponge and scrub it on the stains/dirt. Make sure to use the soft part of the sponge and scrub it according to the direction of the tuft. Work on affected areas only, avoiding the clean parts. Do not use excessive force or scrubbing to protect the fabric.
  4. Repeat on other areas, or clean the whole sofa or carpet if necessary, to get an even color.
  5. Vacuum the area to remove excess water and then air dry or use the dryer function of your vacuum.
 

4. Post-cleaning assessment

After cleaning your sofa or carpet, you might want to check how things went. Are the stains completely removed after the process? Are the colors even? Are there any faded spots? You might need to redo the cleaning as some stains disappear when wet, and then reappear when they are dry already. You might need to check on pre-existing damages as well, some part that was already broken prior to cleaning, hiding in the dirt. You might need to do some stitching at some parts. This is an opportunity for you to know what other steps you can do to maintain your sofa or carpet.  

5. Maintenance

Now that you have your sofa or carpet cleaned, you would want to keep it that way as long as you can. The best way to maintain them is to have a routine quarterly or monthly sofa or carpet shampoo cleaning to recondition the fabric. Also make sure to clean any mess that may stain the material as soon as possible. Once it dries out, it will be harder to clean them. Vacuum it or brush it weekly to remove dusts and dirt.   Sofa Cleaning or carpet cleaning might be hard for a few, and expensive to some, given that you need a vacuum cleaner (and hopefully with a dryer function). But you can always hire a professional sofa cleaning or carpet cleaning service company to do the job at half the cost (not to mention, saves you time and energy!).

5 Quick Tips In Cleaning Your Pinoy Home

5 Quick Tips In Cleaning Your Pinoy Home

A typical Pinoy home is usually clean, thanks to the help of a household helper or to the rigid and intensive cleaning done by the occupant. But how can you keep and maintain a clean home when you live alone? Or you happen to be the only responsible person residing in the house?

Well, you can binge watch “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” (Season 1 with 8 episodes) on Netflix, grab each item in your home and feel if it gives a spark of joy, OR, you can go ahead and follow these quick tips:

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ORGANIZE YOUR PAPER

Pinoys are keepers, we basically keep almost everything like old photos (albums of them), flyers, bills, food from last week, and most of all – Tissue paper. We love to save things, thanks to our ever prudent moms and grandmas, and keep them “for later” or “just in case”. But when they end up scattered all over the place, it becomes a mess. Start by stacking up and wiping those photo albums, they are great memories after all. It’s really hard to throw some or all of them, and relatives will really feel bad if you’ve thrown a photo of them with you. So just make sure all your albums are stacked together, wiped clean and stored somewhere water cannot access it (a plastic box or on a row of shelves). Throw away old flyers, bills from more than 12 months ago, and papers with zero sentimental or significant value for you. Preferably, shred your bills before throwing them to protect bits of your information that might cause identity theft. Pinoys love to eat out, and chances are, they bring home doggie bags and tons of tissue paper from their fastfood restaurant or coffee shop. Store these old tissue paper in an empty tissue box or tissue dispenser so you can re-use them (which was your initial intention anyway, right?). This neat trick also gives us huge savings as we don’t need to buy tissue for a while.  

BOTTLED UP

Another Pinoy thing is keeping condiments “for later” or “just in case”. Wash those empty mayo or peanut butter bottles or jars to help you organize condiments packets. If you think you only have a few, you could probably just put them all together in single jar, or you could separate them according to type. If you have actually started recycling PET bottles and have a bunch in your sink cabinet, take frequent trips to the nearest recycling center or junk shop, or hand it over to a street sweeper who might benefit more with the extra change earned recycling them. Keeping those PET bottles for a long time might be more harmful to you than you think. Re-using them and subjecting them to heat might leech the chemicals in the container. Leaving them stagnant might make them breeding grounds for mosquitoes and germs.  

DEDUST THE SAINTS

“No Tito, that’s not an old Counter Strike map version”. A typical Pinoy home will almost always have an altar, filled with images, statues, figurines, rosaries and religious items. In some households, the altar is only occasionally cleaned probably because, we only pray with it, or only a few in the household ever pay attention to it. Using a feather duster or a blower might do more damage than cleaning them, so a moist towel and a pail of clean water will be your best tool for this. Start from the front, where it is most likely always only cleaned, and then at the back. Rinse your moist towel after every wipe. Dusts leave stains when they are not removed immediately, causing discoloration or darkening on surrounding surfaces.  

APPLY SOME CHEMISTRY

Nobody loves scrubbing. Period. Be it scrubbing the floor, stainless utensil, the kitchen sink, bathroom tiles, and most of all – the toilet bowl. Well, we have good news! You don’t have to, well, at least not as vigorously as you need to. Hard to remove stains can be easily removed if you apply some heat or soak chemicals into it.   Vinegar and Baking powder mix is probably the most affordable and the most powerful cleaning agents you can use – as long as you soak them in it. Place a pinch of baking soda on stains and pour some vinegar in it. You can let it stay there for about 30 minutes and do other chores or you can watch the chemical reaction and pretend like you’re in an episode of MythBusters. Scrub a little and then rinse. You can substitute freshly squeezed calamansi juice so that it will leave a more pleasing smell after. This trick works best on bathroom tiles, toilet bowls, sinks, walls with molds and faucets with hard water stains.  

HANGING THERE

The trouble with cleaning is, we sometimes only cleaning everything in eye-level. We tend to miss cleaning the wall or ceiling fan, wash the kulambo, dusting all the frames of the diplomas and family pictures hanged at the sala, wipe the Last Supper painting or statue by the dining wall, including the large spoon and fork hanging on the wall which you don’t exactly know why and what it was used for when you were a kid. BONUS TIP: Soak your Ice cream containers you use to store food (cooked or uncooked) in 1 part vinegar, 1 part dishwashing liquid and 8 parts water for an hour. This will remove all the grease, grime and nasty smell that remains there no matter how many times you wash them. For you Sewing Box/Kit that is made of empty cookie tins, place buttons and loose items in small plastic containers so you don’t have to dig deep into the can just to find that small thing you’ve been looking for. Less hassle, less chances of getting pin pricked too! And you can always call us to hire an assistant cleaner for a day! Click here to know more about our per hour cleaner or per hour assistant. 

Home Cleaning Tips to Welcome the Chinese New Year

Home Cleaning Tips to Welcome the Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is fast approaching, and be it your sign year, lucky year, or not, we all make preparations to make the rest of the year as prosperous as possible, especially within our homes.

If you are practicing Feng Shui or consults with a master of that art, you may have already gotten some tips on how to make the necessary preparations and arrangements to make your home a lovely one, make the people who live in it successful and keep it a secure and safe place. But for those who don’t fully practice or doesn’t have access to a Feng Shui expert, here are some tips that you can do to at least encourage love, wealth and happiness into your homes:

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REDUCE, RENEW, DECLUTTER

As much as it might sound like Recycling, which is equally important, it is just as sensible to throw away or give away the things that you don’t use anymore.

Things that may just be lying around unused for years and collecting dust and clothes that you barely use and just take up space, these are stuff that you can throw or give away already. If you have broken items that just lay around the house, throw it, fix it or have it replaced. Luck, positive energy or Yang as you call it, is always moving and flows around us. It doesn’t love to stay in stagnant objects and if it is blocked by clutter, it doesn’t reach the other areas of your home.

Bonus: During the Chinese New Year, Ang Pao (Red envelopes) are given by people, because it is believed that it will bring luck to the giver and the receiver. Giving and Receiving gifts during that day brings fortune to both!

TOP TO BOTTOM

The Chinese New Year marks the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring, so the days prior are used for “Spring Cleaning”.  

Start off from the top. This could be the roof or the attic, your ceiling or the top floor of your house. Due to gravity, dusts fall downward, which makes cleaning your home without the proper order make the task harder and longer.

The top sections should include the top of your door and door frames for a much detailed home cleaning. Those areas are hard to reach and are not cleaned everyday, hence, could be the dustiest part of your house.

FRONT TO BACK

It is believed that luck enters through the front door and exits at the back. So when you sweep the floor, the direction must be from the front, main door towards the center of the room, and then pick the dirt up with a pan or place it in a trash bin, then throwing it out by accessing the back door. Essentially, this would ensure that any luck or fortune that comes in, doesn’t exit out the house fast.

Architecturally speaking, the front or main door is usually the biggest entrance and exit, and since wind is generated from outside the house, the air naturally would go in. Any attempt of sweeping the dust out through the front door would result to the dust going back, again making the task harder and longer.

MAKE A PLAN

If you are reading this on a Chinese New Year, or days after, DO NOT CLEAN YOUR HOME, YET. The Chinese New Year and a few days succeeding it is the time when luck and fortune enters your home. It is a time that you should spend with your family and enjoy their company. Any attempt on cleaning your home this time would risk sweeping away luck and fortune, not to mention how sad your family would be if you are unable to join them because you are busy cleaning. It might just be better if you do the cleaning a week after.

The best time to clean your home in preparation for the Chinese New Year is days before. Get your tools and equipment ready, make the cleaning process in phases or stages to be more organized and make sure that dirt and trash doesn’t just transfer from one room to another. Sounds like a battle plan? It doesn’t have to when you can simply hire a professional home cleaning service company.

BRING COLOR AND LIFE INTO YOUR HOME

Still feeling sad, gloomy, unlucky or out of place even after cleaning and organizing your home? What it might just need is a fresh touch of paint and colors. Faded white walls will look grey and sad. Your once happy and lively colored living room may be faded or darkened due to dust stains. Slowly change the color of your cloth curtains to something more energizing! Get your walls repainted (and then have a deep cleaning after) to your lucky color, or the year’s most auspicious color or simply have specific rooms painted based on their purpose and style.

Aside from bringing luck, colors play a lot of psychology in us and somewhat influences us with how we feel, like the color red makes us somewhat energized (or perhaps angry), the color green makes us calm, the color orange makes eating more appetizing, and so on. So before repainting your walls, check the colors that will be lucky for you, and fits the mood you want at the same time.

May the coming Chinese New Year bring you good health and fortune! Welcome the New Year with a smile and stress-free.

5 Office Cleaning Tips to Welcome the Chinese New Year

5 Office Cleaning Tips to Welcome the Chinese New Year

Preparations for the Chinese New Year are not limited to personal and home spaces. Preparing your office for the New Year is also a must because, after all, we spend most of our day there, 5-6 days a week.

Luck, Fortune, Chi, Yang or energies course through around us, not just our homes but also in buildings and offices. It is just right that we also make necessary arrangements to ensure harmony and prosperity ensues the office all year round.

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Here are a few tips that can help you, whether you own the office or just an employee:

DECLUTTER

It’s hard to keep track of the things you need and don’t need on a daily basis because of work schedule. Take the time before Chinese New Year to throw or give away the stuff you don’t need anymore so that luck and fortune will have a space to flow through (or stay) in the New Year. Throw away broken or unused items, especially electronic items. This applies not just on your work table, but at the main entrance as well. 

(Hey, we can help you with sorting out stuff in your office or even at home! We have a reliable Premium Assistant service. )

LET THE SUNSHINE IN

Natural light is more energizing than light bulbs, and most of all, it’s free! You need all the people in your office to be full of energy to get things done and on time. If this not possible, make sure your office is well lit. Switch to LED bulbs get the most illumination and best energy efficiency. If your office have upgraded to LED lights already but still seem gloomy, you might need a detailed office cleaning which ensures your light bulbs are rid of dusts and cobwebs.

RE-ALIGN WITH THE STARS

If you’re a business owner, or an employee with the liberty of rearranging furniture in the office, re-position the desk to create harmony among you and your colleagues.

If you are the owner, president, or a manager, place your table at the “Command position” – back end of the office facing the others or facing the door. This way, you will have a view of who is present, who is working, or simply, you wouldn’t be surprised about anything good or bad.

If you are an employee, do not sit or set your table back-to-back or face-to-face. It brings disharmony. If this is inevitable, place a divider or a potted plant between the two of you. 

REJUVENATE WITH COLOR

No matter how good the pay is or the benefits are, there are some people who tend to idle, or is unsuccessful in their career, or simply inclined to to be lazy in the office, and it might be due to the colors surrounding them. The walls or furniture might be sending the wrong energy or signals to them. A fading white wall, a worn out red office chair, a faded brown carpet or a dull green sofa doesn’t quite portray the image of harmony and fortune. As simple as repainting your walls to light green will enhance creativity in the office or perhaps orange to give motivation. Switching to blue office chairs inspires success and loyalty. Perhaps a carpet shampoo or sofa shampoo will bring back the luster and hue of the already auspicious colors in your office.

GO NATURAL

There’s a modern Chinese proverb that goes “When you use plastic for Feng Shui, you get plastic results”. If you are going to use plants as indoor ornaments, as dividers, or for blocking “Poison Arrows”, use natural plants as much as possible. Place a water fountain at the entrance instead of using a Bluetooth speaker to emanate sound of water, or buy actual fish to place in fish tanks instead of plastic ones. Aside from bringing luck and fortune, they also help filter the air inside the room.

May the coming Chinese New Year bring you good health and fortune! Welcome the New Year with a smile and stress-free.