How do you clean your bathroom and keep it germ-free—especially when you have all the members of your household at home 24/7?

clean white bathroom with plants

After discussing what activities one could do while on community quarantine, I had time last week to clean our bathroom. With our caregiver on lockdown in her home town, cleaning and caring for the kids has been largely left to me and my husband.

While we normally have professional cleaners deep-clean our townhouse from top to bottom (I miss the Hygeia PH girls!), the day-to-day cleaning is left to us. Given that we cannot hire cleaners right now, I took it upon myself to do a thorough bathroom cleaning.

My bathroom cleaning tools checklist

But first, here is a quick checklist of the tools I used to clean our bathroom

  • Hand-held brush
  • Cleaning sponge
  • Old toothbrush
  • Multi-purpose cleaner (I used Domex)
  • An antimicrobial sanitizing concentrate and spray solution (I have personally used Milagro concentrate and Milagro household spray for many years now)
  • Apple cider vinegar and baking soda
  • A bucket and dipper, or a handheld shower head (the bidet could be utilized too)
  • A squeegee
  • Several dry rags
  • Broom
  • Rubber gloves
brush sponge and fresh towels in clean bathroom

Below are the quick steps I used to deep-clean our bathroom.

How I deep-cleaned our master bathroom

  1. Clearing out EVERYTHING inside the bathroom is a must. All toiletries, towels, floor mats, etc.—bring them all out. Clearing makes cleaning so much easier.
  2. I first wiped down all shelves and surfaces with a dry rag, to free them of dirt and spiderwebs. I took particular care in doing this for surfaces out of reach, like our high window sill, and those corners near the ceiling that we don’t get to reach during regular bathroom cleaning.
  3. I then swept the floor with a broom, to collect as much dust, hair strands, and other dry dirty stuff before wetting everything down with water.
  4. I mixed two parts Domex with five parts water in a dipper, then used the solution to scrub down all surfaces with a cleaning brush. And I do mean ALL surfaces—I had to get down on all fours to really scrub the floor down, and used step stools for the walls and upper corners. You can opt to use an extendable mop to do this, but I wanted a hand-held brush to make sure I was really scrubbing these surfaces clean.

    Note that I used a cleaning brush for the floor and around the toilet, and a scrubbing sponge to soap down the walls. I didn’t want to get all the germs on the floor and toilet on my walls, which is why I made sure to use separate cleaning tools.
  5. To free those hard-to-reach corners and nooks from scum and god-knows-what, I used an old toothbrush dipped in Domex. I concentrated particularly on those corners in my shower area floor—soap scum tends to collect in those areas, which quickly develop into mold.
  6. I then mixed 1 part of an organic, anti-microbial concentrate called Milagro into five parts water. This serves as a disinfectant, to make sure that surfaces are germ-, bacteria-, and fungus-free. I wet a rag with this solution and went over all surfaces with it—taking care again to use separate rags for the floors and toilet area.

    I also used the same solution on all my tools post-cleaning.
  7. To de-clog the drains, I used baking soda, apple cider vinegar, and hot water. I’ve described the procedure in the next section. Do note that vinegar will react with baking soda, so make sure you pour from a safe distance.
  8. Lastly, I sprayed everything with Milagro organic sanitizing spray, as an overall disinfectant. This particularly applies to the door knob, the shower mixer, faucet, bidet, flush button (or lever), and mirror.
makeup and toiletries on clean bathroom sink

The 5 spots in your bathroom you should clean more regularly

While cleaning, I realized that there are so many areas in our bathroom that we neglect to clean on a regular basis. Doing so allows them to gather, well, you know, the icky stuff that make us all sick. I thought of sharing them here with you, just in case you too will be embarking on a bathroom deep-clean, or perhaps just to update your regular bathroom cleaning tasks.

Note that I will literally be getting down and dirty with this post, so please put that sandwich/cookie/snack down—or perhaps just save it for later. Things might get a little, um, sh*tty.

The area behind your toilet.

This is a spot that we hardly get to clean because our mop doesn’t really fit in that tiny space. Imagine the bathroom is a regularly wet and humid space, so it’s in these small, hard-to-reach pockets where mold and fungus gloriously thrive. I was definitely grossed out, but I knew that leaving it untouched will only give us more of those unhealthy spores that freely float in the air and make us sick. I got on all fours and, with a toothbrush and a bigger long-handled brush, I attacked that area with all soap and disinfectant.

The corners of your bathroom floor

Sure, you mop the floor every day, but mop heads really don’t get into those narrow corners. As expected, I noticed tiny clumps of scum on these spots, so I scrubbed them clean with an old toothbrush dipped in cleaning detergent, and even washed it down with an anti-microbial solution.

The toilet seat hinges

When we clean the toilet seat, we normally spray it with a cleansing solution and give it a good scrubbing or brushing. But unless you anally (uh, pun intended) clean the hinges connecting the lift-up toilet seat to the ceramic bowl, chances are, these hinges will have collected a certain amount of, um, sh*t. I mean, think about it: the underside of the toilet seat gets splashed with everything that drops into the bowl. Okay, I’ll stop there. Just clean the damn hinges 😂🤢

Floor drains

In case you’re wondering why the used water doesn’t go quickly down the drain, it’s probably because your drains aren’t immaculately clear. Hair strands, soap scum, and, well, you get the picture. All these things can clog a drain pretty quickly. I used apple cider vinegar, baking powder, and boiling water to clear our drains.

Start by pouring a cup of baking powder down the drain. After five minutes, follow it down with apple cider vinegar. As vinegar reacts with baking soda, the solution will fizzle—this cuts through all the scum, strands, and other such items that clog the drain. After a few minutes, I pour down hot water to clear the drain of the solution.

Faucets, grab bars, doorknobs, and flush handles

Who knows how many times my children forget to wash their hands immediately after peeing or pooping, then—😱😱😱—touch the faucet, flush handle, and door knobs? These spots that we touch several times a day are breeding grounds for all sorts of germs. I say, spray them and wipe them down with disinfectant!

I’m sorry if this topic totally grossed you out! But in a time when being healthy is of utmost importance, everyone benefits from having all those normally hidden spots in our bathrooms sparkly clean and scum-free.

Don’t you agree?