Everyday Cleaning:
1. Beds should be aired and made.2. Dishes should be washed immediately after use.
3. Floors should be swept.
4. The entire house should be dusted.
5. The latrine should be scrubbed.
6. The food safe should be inspected for any food left over, and this should be dealt with.
A normal cleaning routine in a well-run house could be as follows:
1. Monday: the big family wash and ironing.
2. Tuesday: turn out the bedrooms.
3. Wednesday: turn out the kitchen.
4. Thursday: turn out the bathroom and scrub the verandah.
5. Friday: turn out cupboards and store, clean the windows.
6. Saturday: turn out the living-room.
In this way every corner of the house is cleaned thoroughly once a week and no big clean is needed, but it most be done with good method and only about 1 hour's extra work each day, depending upon the speed of the housewife and the size of the house.
The house, like a car, must be maintained carefully, and repaires should be carried out regularly to preserve it well. Leaks in the roof, damage to the walls from animals and children, attacks by ants, the ravages of the weather–both rain and sun–must all be repaired at once to ensure that the house lasts for years.
Ever member of the family should have a box, drawer, or cupboard in which to keep his possessions and clothes; children should grow up having a place of their own which they can learn to keep tidy. Nothing should ever be put away dirty as this encourages moths, mould, and rot. A tidy house, apart from being a pleasant place to live in, is a safe house, because people do not fall over things left lying around, and children do not poison or burn themselves so easily.
To keep healthy people need to live in clean water surroundings, and for this the housewife must know how to clean with good methods, as this saves time and energy and is much less effort if jobs are done daily and weekly. For this she needs cleaning materials and equipment; these need not be expensive and some can be made easily at home.
Sweeping brush or broom: this can be made from special grass taken from the bush and bound firmly at the top to make a handle.
Ceiling brush: this can be made from dried, divided palm leaves and bound onto a stick at the required lenght.
A useful dustpan can be cut from an old tin.
Dusters and cleanin rags can be cut from old clothes, linen, or towels.
Soap (which can be homemade), detergent (expensive), polish, and kerosine; bucket or bowl or an old kerosene tin.
Different surfaces need cleaning in deferrent ways
Wood should be cleaned first with soapy water, or vineger and water, with a soft cloth if it is very dirty, as furniture often becomes sticky wher children have been playing or eating. After washing and drying, it can then be cleaned with a little polish and then rubbed following the way, or grain, of the wood with a clean soft cloth; for this a bit of old blanket is ideal. Wood needs polish occasionally to preserve it, and polishing it up and down the grain is much better for this.
Paint-work and metal surfaces can be washed with soapy water or a little Vim and then dried.
Floors are made of many different materials but are important in the tropics as so many insects live on dirty floors, especially jiggers (sometimes written 'chigoe flea').
Wood: this should be washed and dried if very dirty, and then rubbed with kerosene and later polished with floor polish.
Cement: this should be scrubbed with soapy water and then dried, and if desired rubbed with polish.
Tiles can be scrubbed with soap and water or polished.
Terrazzo: this is special surface made from granite chippings and cement, and is scrubbed with soap and water and dried.
Linoleum tiles or coverings: these can be scrubbed occasionally with soap and water and dried or polished. Linoleum tiles tend to get loose if scrubbed too often, and make unsatisfactory floors in th tropics.
Mud: this should be swept daily after sprinkling a little water, and once a week smoothed over with mixture of cowdung, soil, and DDT to give a hard surface and to fill in all the holes in order to discourage insects, and also prevent people from falling.
Glasses: ornaments or utensils should be washed in soapy water and rinsed with hot water, then dried with an old, clean, non-fluffy cloth.
