How to Clean Your Toilet When Apartment Living

I want you to take a second and think about what your toilet looks like. When was the last time you cleaned it? Do you see a ring of grossness? Whether you have guests coming for the weekend, you are moving out of your apartment, or even just doing your weekly cleaning, this article is for you. Keep on reading for tips on how to clean your toilet while living in apartments.

Deep-Clean Your Bathroom in 7 Steps

By Real Simple

What to do: Start by pouring a cup of baking soda into the bowl. Let sit for a few minutes; brush and flush. Still seeing spots? A damp pumice stone is abrasive enough to remove stains caused by mineral deposits and lime scale but gentle enough not to damage surfaces (try US Pumice Scouring Stick; $26 for 12, amazon.com). Then tackle the toilet brush itself, which you should be cleaning after every use. Here’s how: Secure the brush handle between the already-cleaned seat and the basin so that it hovers over the bowl; pour bleach over the bristles. 

Why: Gerba says that a flushing toilet, when viewed in slow motion, resembles a fireworks display. And since germs linger in the bowl even after flushing, bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella can fly into the air and land on the seat, the handle, and other surfaces at any time.

Best practices: Always close the lid when you flush, and use the vent fan (it sucks up bacteria before they can settle). If you’re not already storing toothbrushes and contact lenses inside the medicine cabinet, you may want to start now.Once you have your toilet sparkling clean, you can keep it that way for up to three months by installing the Kaboom Toilet Cleaning System, Smallin Kuper says. Three months free from toilet scrubbing? That’s $11 well spent.

[To read the other 6 steps click here.]

How Often Should You Clean?

Most people do a light cleaning once a week or sometimes once every few weeks. But how often should you really clean things? NBC News says that, "If you saw what lived on your surfaces under a microscope, your skin might crawl" which means you should clean more often than you think.  

But what exactly should you be cleaning? How deep of a clean do you need to go? Completing a general clean once a week is good for apartment living, but a deep clean should be completed several times a year to get rid of all the unwanted germs and gunk that seems to stick to everything. Download our Seasonal Deep Cleaning Checklist to get a list of all the places that should be really cleaned, it'll save you from thinking "did I get everything or am I missing something."