If you are interested in making your home healthier ASAP, I’ve got you covered! Here at Wholesome Houses, we tackle how the built environment, our homes in particular, influence the health of the individual. So, I thought it’d be nice to give you a simple plan to a healthier home in 30-minutes flat!
These are my top 3 “set it and forget it” tips for improving health inside your home. These simple habit shifts will reduce your family’s exposure to bacteria, viruses, and immune-suppressing EMFs. This means, you are going to make a switch once, and never have to fuss with it again. Each change takes less than 10 minutes, which means you can get a healthier home in less than half an hour. Sweet, right? Let’s get started.
Ditch the Kicks
Get this: one of the best ways to reduce toxic exposure in your own home is super easy and completely free!
Guys, the bottoms of your shoes are disgusting! They pick up everything from urine and feces to fuel and pesticides. Bacteria, molds, and viruses all like to hitch a ride to your floors as well. In fact, researchers at the University of Houston found that 40% of shoes had C. diff (Clostridium difficile) on the bottom![1] C. diff is a nasty bacteria that causes severe stomach pain and diarrhea. It is highly contagious and hard to treat as it is resistant to most antibiotics. Gross!
If you have toddlers who crawl on the floors (and put everything that has been there in their mouths!) ditching the shoes is even more critical! Check out this video about the biogunk stirred up when a baby crawls on carpet.
To make this switch simple, place a shoe rack or basket by the front door so it’s easy and convenient. Bonus points if you incorporate a place to sit so that you can remove those adorable strappy heels or tall rain boots with ease.
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Make Your Own Kitchen/Bathroom Cleaner
Commercial cleaners are loaded with toxic chemicals and fragrances and making your own is a cinch! For a sparkly clean kitchen and bathroom (in a house full of self-professed germophobes), my go-to is vodka.
That’s right, cheap vodka is a natural disinfectant and cleans sinks, countertops, mirrors, and toilets fabulously! Just mix 1 part bottom-shelf vodka with 1 part water in a spray bottle (I use this glass amber one). Feel free to add a few drops of essential oils to prevent your home from smelling like a Moscow mule on cleaning day.
We use this vodka spray for just about everything in our house. Disinfecting door handles and light switches during flu season (did I mention the germophobe thing?), killing germs at the bottom of the trash bin when I remove the old bag, even disinfecting our reusable straws because I’m never convinced they are totally clean.
While I highly recommend making your own vodka spray, I’d like to suggest one thing: if you have kids, maybe just call it “cleaner” so yours don’t run around in a panic looking for the “vodka” when their toothbrush falls on the ground! Not my proudest mommy moment!
Put a Timer on the Wifi
If you have a wireless router in your home, you are filling your home with powerful radiation 24/7.
In a perfect world, we would all have wired technology inside our homes (which is why my wholesome house designs include CAT-5 drops in most every room), for most people the convenience factor makes home Wifi more popular than ever.
There is a middle ground, however, and it is turning off the Wifi overnight. There is no reason to bombard your family’s bodies with electromagnetic radiation while they are actively attempting to restore and repair.
For less than $15, you can set a timer that turns off your Wifi while you sleep (this is the programmable timer I use).
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Jump on board and get a healthier house today!
Helpful information! We already take off shoes and use vodka as disinfectant (you should see the looks when a mom of 4 walks into the liquor store with the kids in tow!), but I’ve never thought about the
wi-fi. The timer is a great idea! Thanks for the tips!
Thanks, Kalina, glad you found it helpful! Totally been there on the liquor store thing!