Pet Hair Problems: Tips to Clean & Reduce Pet Hair in Your Home

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While cats and dogs are very different, they share one thing in common – fur! And just like humans who lose up to 100 strands of hair every day, pets shed some of their fur too. Although both cats and dogs typically have 1-2 major shedding cycles per year, they will still lose some hair on a daily basis. This is why you find pet hair all over the house a day after you’ve cleaned it!

Speaking of which, have you ever wondered whether your methods for cleaning up pet hair are efficient enough? Perhaps you’re spending a lot more time than you would like on removing pet hair from every nook and cranny of the house. Well, today, Simply Maid is here to help you solve your pet hair problems in the household. From tips to clean pet fur efficiently and effectively from various household surfaces to measures you can take to keep the hairs in your home to an absolute minimum; read on to learn all about it!

Quick Ways to Remove Fur from Household Surfaces

Pets enjoy exploring their surroundings, even in their own house. They also like to follow you around, snuggle with you, and run around and play; that means finding fur in practically every room in the house and on a lot of different surfaces. To clean up pet hair from these different areas, we have found the following methods and tips to be extremely effective and quick in removing fur. 

How to Remove Pet Hair from Carpets Thoroughly

Anyone with pets and carpets or carpeting will understand the struggle of removing 100% of pet hair from the fibres they are entangled in. Even vacuuming is limited to removing loose pet hair from carpets, or strands that are not tangled up deeper in the pile. 

For a thorough clean that includes removing fur from both the surface and weave, you will need to gently agitate the carpet fibres with a soft-bristled brush. First, vacuum the carpet roughly to remove the loose pet hair on the surface so that you don’t end up moving around too much fur with the brush. Then, gently brush the carpet to bring the rest of the pet hair that is tangled deep between the fibres to the surface; vacuum thoroughly thereafter. It may sound like a more time-consuming method, however, going over the same spot repeatedly with your vacuum cleaner will take just as much time and yet, won’t deliver the same thorough results!

How to Avoid Leftover Pet Hair When Cleaning Your Floor 

Because pet hair is fine and lightweight, it moves around a lot, especially when you’re sweeping the floor. For this reason, vacuuming hard floors is way more effective. With that said, it’s important to use an appropriate attachment head when cleaning different areas of the floor. For example, to remove fur from corners and tight spaces, a narrow or nozzle attachment is required.

If you don’t have a vacuum cleaner or prefer to avoid lugging around the appliance, sweeping can also be a quick and effective cleaning method if you are using the right broom. There are plenty of innovative sweeping tools on the market that are designed to pick up dust, pet hair, and fine debris, one of which is the electrostatic broom/mop. As you may have guessed, pet hair clings to the fibres of these cleaning tools and therefore, leaves you with a fur-free floor! 

How to Clean Pet Hair That Clings to Upholstery

If you’ve ever tried dusting off pet hair from upholstery or patting the material to dislodge the fur, you’ll know that neither of those methods is effective. Like carpeting, pet hair can really cling to the material of your upholstery and stay there until forcefully removed! If you’re looking for a quick way to clean pet hair from your couch, chairs, and other upholstery, check out the many pet hair removers available online. These tools are convenient to use, very effective, affordable, and easy to clean off. They are generally equipped with a concealed roller brush inside that picks up the fur with one quick swipe/roll.

You can also opt for an upholstery brush attachment to vacuum your sofas and upholstered chairs, however, different types of materials require specific attachments so as to not damage the fabric. Therefore, it’s important to research the cleaning requirements of your upholstery before attempting to vacuum it. If you find any pet hair leftover after vacuuming, a good tip to finish off the job is gliding your hands over the material whilst wearing a pair of rubber gloves. The friction causes fur to stick to the rubber and hence, does a thorough job at removing pet hair from your upholstery.

How to Remove Pet Hair From Furniture With One Swipe

There’s nothing more frustrating than having to wipe over furniture again and again because dust and fur settle on the surface just seconds after it has been cleaned. This result can be attributed to using the wrong dusting tool to clean your furniture. 

As much as we all love microfibre cloths, even these must-have cleaning tools don’t provide desirable results in one quick swipe. The alternative, which may come as a surprise to many, is used or unused dryer sheets. Whether you’re cleaning wooden furniture, plastic pieces, or metal, using dryer sheets is the best type of dusting tool because fur sticks to the material as opposed to pushing it, which is the case with many types of fabric dust cloths.

Tips to Reduce Pet Hair in Your Home

While cleaning is important to get rid of pet hair in your home, as long as you have pets, there will be fur on your carpet, floor, upholstery, furniture, and other household surfaces! To curb this problem, the solution is to keep the fur in your home to a minimum. 

Here are a couple of things you can do to reduce pet hair in your house.

    1. Groom Your Pet: Believe it or not but most of the pet hair in your home is caused by a lack of grooming. Therefore, one of the most important things to do to minimise the amount of fur in your home is to brush your pet outside the house at least once a day(also don’t forget to remove their dog harness while doing so!). During their shedding cycles, it is advisable to do this twice a day – morning and evening.
    2. Bathe Your Pet Regularly: Weekly baths will reduce the amount of fur your pet sheds on a daily basis. It is, however, important to observe whether the type of shampoo/soap you are using on your pet is doing more harm than good. 
    3. Keep Their Bed Clean: Some of the loose furs on your pet’s bed will only get transferred back onto the animal which ultimately ends up somewhere in your house with a single shake.
    4. Clean the House Regularly: This is an obvious one but it should be mentioned; keeping your house clean will limit the amount of fur that gets moved around with foot traffic in the house. In other words, the more fur you remove daily, the less you will see around the house.
    5. Keep the Carpet Clean: Like their beds, the carpet is another place your pets can pick up loose fur and transfer it elsewhere. A daily vacuuming and weekly brushing for a deeper clean is a great way to keep your carpets clean and free of pet hair.

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that pet hair in the house is a given when you have a cat or dog (or both) running around the house. Therefore, the goal is to reduce the amount of fur at home rather than strive for perfection which is impossible. If you don’t have time to clean up your pet’s daily sheds, book a recurring cleaning service to keep your home as fur-free as possible!

Karen Saunders

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