5 Home Maintenance Tasks to Do to Give Your Home Some TLC During the Quarantine

For many of us, being unable to leave our home may be difficult, but at least we now have more time to do things we might not have been able to do before! For busy parents, the quarantine means more time to be with family and to focus on different tasks around the home. Here are some home maintenance tasks you can do during the quarantine:

5 home maintenance tasks to do during the quarantine 

1. Declutter. 

You can even involve your kids in this task! Christine Dychiao, a Filipino mom and licensed KonMari consultant, says teaching kids how to tidy up is a life skill that will serve them well even when they become adults. Have your tots go through their belongings and see which they can get rid of.

2. Clean and disinfect surfaces.

One way to protect your family from COVID-19 is to make sure all high-touch surfaces (e.g., tables, doorknobs, light switches, sinks, toilets, phones) in your home are cleaned and disinfected daily. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), you should use soap and water to clean surfaces and an EPA-registered household disinfectant to disinfect surfaces (click here for some options). Remember to wear disposable gloves.

If someone in your house has COVID-19 or shows symptoms of the disease, wash his clothes separately using regular laundry soap and hot water for at least 30 minutes, says the Department of Health (DOH). Avoid shaking the patient’s dirty clothes inside the house to minimize the possibility of the virus clinging to objects or surfaces there.

3. Repurpose a room. 

If you have a spare room or extra space in your house, you could transform it so you can use it for other functions. For instance, if you are working from home, turn that space into a temporary office. If you’ve been meaning to try a new hobby, you can arrange that space into a place that will allow you to practice it.

4. Check if anything needs repair. 

Are there burnt-out bulbs, cracked paint, leaky faucets, or damaged appliances in your home? Use the quarantine to fix those by yourself. Every homeowner needs to know how to do basic maintenance repairs. If you don’t, here are some guides that can help you.

5. Prepare a safety zone. 

We don’t want anyone in our families to become ill, but it can be helpful to prepare for such a possibility ahead of time. The DOH says a person who shows symptoms of COVID-19 needs to use a separate bedroom and bathroom (or stay at least one meter away from everyone else if he can't use a separate room), so you can designate the spaces that will be used for that purpose now. Remember to clean and disinfect those areas regularly.

This story originally appeared on Smartparenting.com.ph.

* Minor edits have been made by the Realliving.com.ph editors.