Helping Your Houseplants Enjoy Summer

 

As the weather warms up, consider giving your houseplants a vacation outdoors this year. With a little care, your houseplants can thrive on your patio, balcony, or deck. Most houseplants enjoy warm temperatures. If you expect nighttime temperatures to fall below 40 degrees, plan on bringing your plants indoors. Until the nights stay warm, continue to move them outside during the day and inside at night. Houseplants generally do not like direct sunlight. They will usually get enough reflected light by being outdoors even when they are in the shade all day. Being outdoors will dry out your houseplants more quickly, so be sure to water more frequently. They should be fed a liquid fertilizer on a regular basis. Be prepared to re-pot some of your houseplants when you finally do need to bring them back in for the winter. They usually will grow larger and need larger pots after the warm summer months. www.pfeifferscleaning.com       Image courtesy of hyena reality - www.freedigitalphotos.net

Backyard Safety

 

The sounds of summer always include children playing outdoors. To ensure that your children will be safe as they enjoy their summer vacation, use this checklist to inspect your backyard swing set and play equipment. - Are the bolts tight? Be sure to tighten all bolts before your children use the equipment. - Do the ends of the bolts have safety caps on them? Children can be seriously injured from a puncture by an uncapped bolt. Most hardware stores sell replacements caps. - Are handrails rusted or loose? Tighten all handrails and ensure that there are no loose or sharp edges. Any other metal parts should be checked for rust and rough spots. They should be filed down and recoated before children use the equipment. - Are there any rough spots on the wood? Most manufacturers recommend that the wood on wooden play sets be stained every year to extend the life of the unit and to prevent splinters from forming. www.pfeifferscleaning.com   Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fragrance Free

According to a Danish study of allergens, after nickel, fragrances were the second most common cause of allergic contact dermatitis, which is inflamed skin. Over the last decade, fragrance sensitivities in dermatitis patients have increased up to 13 percent. These substances can also cause allergic reactions when inhaled. If you are sensitive to these substances, you can help alleviate your exposure. Experts recommend looking for fragrance-free products, double-rinsing all detergents, avoiding fabric softeners, and avoiding perfumes, colognes, aftershaves, fingernail-care products, and hairspray.
We at Pfeiffer's can also do a Fragrance-Free cleaning at your request. Be sure to let us know at the time of scheduling so we can make sure our Carpet Care Technician is notified.

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Don't Skip That Sunscreen!

It's no secret that we Washingtonians don't see the sun very often... and when we do, it's hard not to be out and enjoying every minute of it! Next time you go out, just take a few extra minutes to apply some sunscreen. 

There is nothing more you can do to prevent melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, than to use sunscreen every time you go into the sun. You might imagine that people who have survived melanoma would be extra careful. But a new study by researchers at Yale University’s School of Medicine reveals that more than 25 percent of melanoma survivors never use sunscreen when heading outdoors.

Everyone should limit exposure to the damaging effects of ultraviolet (UV) light. This means putting sunscreen on every time you go out, staying in the shade as much as possible, wearing protective clothing and a hat, and avoiding tanning salons.

The good news of the study is that over one-third of melanoma survivors always wore sunscreen. Other studies have revealed that only about 17 percent of Americans wear sunscreen all the time. The researchers believe that better education of the melanoma survivors increases the rate at which they use sunscreen.

With almost 77,000 cases of melanoma diagnosed each year in the United States, it is critically important for everyone to understand the risks of sun exposure. An estimated 9,500 American will die of the disease this year. But with better education about basic precautions, that number could be reduced significantly.

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How Not to Spring Clean Your Home

Spring is in full swing and thoughts turn to annual spring cleaning chores. Spring cleaning can be hard enough to squeeze into your busy schedule. But it can be even more difficult if you make some of the common mistakes people make when performing this annual ritual. To make your spring cleaning tasks easier, stay away from these common pitfalls. Don’t try to tackle cleaning a room without a plan. Start by decluttering any area that you wish to deep clean. If you try to clean without removing items that are out of place or that need to be discarded, you will find that it takes much longer to accomplish your goal. Don’t use the wrong cleaning products. Read the labels before using to ensure that you are using the correct type of cleaner. You should also be aware of any safety precautions you should take, including whether you need to have high levels of ventilation. Don’t take on more than you can handle. It is admirable to have a goal of cleaning your whole house in a weekend, but it is sometimes better to only tackle one room a week. By doing this, you will ensure that each room is cleaned well and that you won’t suffer from burnout. Don’t hurt yourself. Take care when lifting heavy objects and moving furniture. If necessary, ask for help before attempting strenuous tasks. Don’t be distracted. Let your answering machine handle any incoming phone calls and keep visits from family and friends to a minimum. If you focus only on your spring cleaning job, you will finish faster. In fact, if you are constantly interrupted, you may end up simply abandoning the job at hand and could find that you have trouble getting back to it. Don’t put it off. Spring cleaning is such a big job because we only do it once or twice a year. If you try to keep up with cleaning jobs throughout the year, you will find it easier to tackle annual spring cleaning work. Ignoring these chores only means that they will get bigger and bigger. www.pfeifferscleaning.com

House Cleaning Tip

Most manufacturers will not admit it, but using more of a cleaning product is not necessarily going to do a better job. This is also true of many concentrated detergents and cleaners. To see how much you really need, try cutting the amount you normally use in half. If you are seeing your laundry, floors, dishes, and bathrooms just as clean as you did before, you may be able to cut the amount down even more. For example, you only need about two tablespoons of a standard floor cleaning product in a gallon of water to get a floor really clean.

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How old is your dog?

Have you ever heard that one dog year is equivalent to seven human years? This ratio of 1:7 is a good general guideline, but is not accurate in all cases. Different species or breeds actually age at different rates. There are a number of other factors involved too, including nutrition, genetics, and environmental factors.

A better way to judge the relative age of your pet is to consider the first year of a puppy’s life as equivalent to the first 15 years of a human’s life. The next year brings your dog to about the same maturity as a 24 year old person. Then after that, each dog year is equivalent to about four human years.

It may be even easier to know that your dog goes through many of the same developmental stages as people do. You can expect different behavior as your puppy grows from an infant, to a toddler, child, adolescent, young adult, middle-aged adult, elderly adult, and finally geriatric adult. Your dog has different needs at each stage, so understanding those stages, and knowing how best to meet your pet’s needs, will have benefits for you and your dog.

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