I’ve been cleaning for sometime now and its as much a passion as it is a living for me. I’ve worked with a number of cleaning companies prior to starting my own cleaning business. I find one thing to be a troubling point, a reluctance by cleaners to use enough towels!

What I have found …

Some cleaners opt to use rolls of paper towels, this isn’t completely bad but the problem comes when you add water. Typically, when I have seen paper towels used by cleaners they use water and cleaning products on a minimal basis. This is simply because, the wetter a surface becomes the more towels needed.

Next, there are the cleaning companies that use cloth towels, the usual number I have found and what my staff share with me, is a number of around 5 towels to clean an average home. Not even close to enough.

In contrast, at Dust Bunny, we use about 30 freshly laundered microfibre towels to clean an average home. We use coloured towels with each colour tied to a certain type or use of cleaning. Here is how we use our towels…

  • First we need a lot of towels because, we always wash surfaces using soap and hot water … with our specially mixed cleaning products which offer a hint of lemon, eucalyptus, and tea tree following a pattern of – wash – sanitise – and polish… it always sparkles!
  • We use towels according to the following schedule:
    • (3) towels for living room/rumpus room areas, just each sofa and TV requires 1 towel each.
    • (5) with kitchens we use at least 5 towels
    • (3) laundry area
    • (2) each bedrooms – windows sills – counters – door handles – 2 towels
    • (2) each bathrooms – sinks – 2 towels
    • (2) each showers – really it’s 2 to 3 towels each shower
    • (2) towels for each toilet – one for sanitise and wipe (initial cleaning) and then the 2nd for polish and shine. We do not reuse any toilet towels over. 2 toilets = 4 towels.
    • (1) towel special towel for mirrors and window surface spot checks
  • For a typical three bedroom, two bathroom house this is:
    • (1) kitchen, (5) towels
    • (3) bedrooms, (6) towels
    • (2) bathrooms, sinks and counters, (4) towels
    • (2) showers, two towels each, (4) towels
    • (2) toilets, two towels each, (4) towels
    • (1) each living room/rumpus room area, (3) towels
    • (1) each laundry area, (3) towels
    • Final walkthrough and spot checking, (1) towel
    • (30) towels are required to clean an average home.
    • Our towels are not reused and are always washed prior to their next use, using the highest possible water temperature, with sanitisation cleaner, and always dryer-dried to insure that the towels remain highly water absorbent for our client use.