Ever found yourself scratching your head, wondering how often you should be vacuuming your home and its various inhabitants? You’re not alone!
Today, we’re on a mission to demystify the vacuuming schedule. We’re rounding up all the things that deserve a good vacuuming and dishing out recommendations on how often you should roll out your trusty vacuum cleaner.
Trust me; you might be in for a surprise when you learn how frequently certain items in your home require a date with your vacuum. Get ready to uncover the secrets of a cleaner, tidier space with our vacuuming guide!
The Home
Let’s start with the important one first. A general rule is to vacuum as many times a week that you have people or pets in your home.
So if you have 2 adults and one dog, then you should be vacuuming 3 times a week. If you have 3 people, 2 cats, and 2 dogs, then you need to vacuum every day.
This is just a general rule to follow, and only you can determine how much you should vacuum. I will say if you have more than 2 people/pets in your home or you have bad allergies then the bare minimum of vacuuming you should be doing is twice a week.
If you have severe allergies vacuuming more often can help a lot especially when you have a vacuum that has a HEPA closed filter system.
Through my site, I like to recommend every home have a Shop Vacuum like this one here (Amazon Link Ad) and a regular vacuum like this one here (Amazon Link Ad) for all the messes you’ll have to deal with. I recommend the shop vacuum mostly for homes that have kids or pets as you’ll never know what nasty messes you’ll need to clean up and a shop vacuum can handle them better than an ordinary vacuum cleaner.
How Often To Vacuum With Dogs or Cats
Like what we talked about above, it’s best to vacuum as many times a week that you have people or pets in your home. So if it’s 1 person with 2 dogs, then you need to vacuum 3 times a week.
If you hate vacuuming or your pets hate the sound of the vacuum cleaner then I have found that using a Carpet Rake (Amazon Link Ad) can be an excellent way to free the hair from the carpets.
In fact, I recommend you use a carpet rake first and then vacuum to make sure you get all the pet hair out of the carpet. You’ll be surprised by how much hair an ordinary vacuum cleaner misses.
Hardwood Floors
How often you vacuum hardwood floors or any non-carpeted area should be as much as you vacuum your carpeted areas.
When it comes to hardwood floors, you’ll want to use a vacuum cleaner that doesn’t have a beater brush or has one you can turn on and off. The beater brush is the rotating brush on the bottom of the vacuum. This brush can damage floors, even the ones that are made for hardwood floors.
The best thing to use on hardwood floors is those Swiffer Sweepers with the Vacuum (Amazon Link Ad) on them. Those things attract and suck up all kind of things to help you clean your floors.
Also, don’t forget things like dust bunnies and hair ends up in the corners of most hardwood floors so make sure to use a vacuum cleaner’s long reach hose to clean all edges and corners of your home. Even clean behind furniture as this is where dust and hair like to hide the most.
Sofa And Other Furniture
I recommend vacuuming the sofa as often as you vacuum your home, if not then at least do it once a month. The sofa and other furniture items can get just as dirty if not dirtier than your floors.
If you sit and eat on the sofa, then you need to be vacuuming the sofa every time you vacuum your floors. The sofa can hold crumbs and attract bugs like roaches, and you don’t want that problem.
Some people laugh when I tell them I vacuum under the sofa by moving it out of the way. I don’t see anything funny about it when I show them how dirty under their furniture gets.
For items that are too big to move, I either have my robot vacuum go under them, or I use the long hose on my vacuum cleaner to clean under it. I have severe allergies, and I find this helps a lot for me.
If your pets and their hair are covering some of your furniture, then you may notice that even the strongest and best vacuum cleaners in the world won’t get the hair out. The best thing I’ve seen to get pet hair out of furniture is a Rubber Pet Hair Removal Brush like this one here (Amazon Link Ad).
Mattress
Did you know you should be vacuuming your mattress at least twice a year? Many people don’t know this, but it makes sense. Your mattress is this big flat object, much like a floor, that attracts dirt and dust of all kinds. The great thing about mattresses is that people wash the bedding often, but dirt, bugs, and dead skin still finds its way to the mattress.
You can clean your mattress with a standard vacuum cleaner but only use the hose to clean it. Never place an upright vacuum cleaner on top of your mattress as you can damage it and the bottom of it is dirty.
You can get mattress vacuum cleaners (Amazon Link Ad) that have the UV light on them to kill germs and such.
If you have stairs in your home, then I recommend using the vacuum cleaner that is used for them on your mattress.
If you’re wondering how often you should vacuum under the bed, then I have a post on that here.
Stairs
You should be cleaning your stairs as often as you vacuum your entire home. When it comes to stairs it’s best to use an upright vacuum with a long hose or use a small handheld vacuum cleaner like this one here (Amazon Link Ad).
Using a handheld is perfect for cleaning stairs especially when they have a hose with a crevice tool on it. Plus, the stair vacuum can also be used to clean your mattress as we mention in the mattress section – so it is worth it to get a handheld vacuum cleaner for many reasons.
If you have pets, just like how we talked about using a carpet rake to get the hair freed and then vacuum you’ll want to do the same for stairs. Most carpet rakes are too big for stairs, but you can use a Rubber Pet Hair Removal Brush (Amazon Link Ad) instead.
Fleas
You should vacuum every day if your home has fleas. You need to be vacuuming everything and anything as often as possible if you want to get rid of the fleas.
The good news is that research has said vacuuming fleas can kill most of them, here is more info on that here.
Curtains
You should vacuum your curtains every week or every other week depending on how many people live in your home.
You should only vacuum heavy-weight curtains or drapes as the lightweight ones can get damaged by the vacuum cleaner.
You should also only use an upholstery brush attachments on your vacuum cleaner.
A better option is to check the care label on the curtains to see if they can be washed in the washing machine. Just shake off the dust on the curtains and put them in the washing machine if the care label allows it.