Collaborative post by another author. The bathroom is quietly one of the most essential areas of the home, even if we don’t like to acknowledge that fact too often. It is also one of the hardest to keep hygienic, particularly in a full household. Improving hygiene conditions in your bathroom is not necessarily a major task, but it can be hard to know where to start. With this in mind, what should you be thinking about?

Ventilate the Space

One of the most important – and most overlooked – ways you can improve the hygiene conditions in your bathroom is to improve its ventilation. Ventilation does not simply mean the expulsion of undesired bathroom odours, though proper ventilation systems can have a profoundly positive impact in this regard. Rather, ventilation systems enable moisture to leave the home – dramatically reducing humidity levels, in turn reducing the likelihood of mould growth and the development of poor health consequences.

New building regulations require bathroom window replacements to include trickle vents unless a pre-existing ventilation system is in place; otherwise, the only regulatory requirements are that the bathroom’s ventilation is at least equivalent to pre-renovation levels. As such, there is no legal incentive to invest in better insulation – but your health and the condition of your house should be incentive enough.

Address Fixtures and Fittings

Hands-on hygiene issues tend to be thought of as relating to surfaces in your bathroom. These, however, will receive the most attention from you when it comes to bathroom cleaning; it isn’t the sink or window sill you should be concerned about, but the state of the fixtures and fittings around your bathroom. You should be replacing your toilet seat, for example, on a regular basis. There are many nooks and crannies in toilet seat hinges and fitments that are impossible to clean, and can accrue grime and bacteria as a result.

If upgrading, soft-close toilets make closing the toilet seat between uses quieter – making closing the toilet seat after use less involved a process, and improving bathroom sanitation overall as a result. Toilet flushes can throw moisture, particulates and microbes out across the whole bathroom, so this would be one of the more impactful quality-of-life changes you could make regarding hygiene.

Adopt a Cleaning Schedule

The final piece of the puzzle is, of course, your cleaning schedule. Bathrooms should be getting cleaned on a regular basis anyway, but re-addressing your approach to bathroom cleaning could be instrumental to improving cleanliness. A rota, with a list of core tasks and the frequency with which they should be completed, can make this far easier to manage on top of other household tasks. Simple, highly regular tasks like pouring hot water down the bath and sink plugholes can prevent the slow buildup of blockages, and one day a month could be dedicated to a full-scale deep clean.