Surfaces covered in pet hair?
You gotta love ‘em, and at Auckland Kennels and Cattery we certainly do, but is Snowy the cat leaving her white fur all over your house?
Is your sweet little Fluff the pup leaving hair everywhere: on your furniture, beds and clothes?
If you have a pet, you basically just have to resign yourself to pet hair and accept the cleaning you’ve got to do, but you can still be smart about how you do it. You can actually reduce the amount of blood, sweat and swear words pet-cleaning-up-after requires.
Don’t bother chasing your pets around with one of those lint rollers, sticky tape, or even the vacuum cleaner. When you’re dealing with pet hair, there are some ways to manage its removal from furniture to floors to your laundry that beat other methods paws down.
We’ve listed a few of the things we’ve learnt after taking care of dogs and cats at our Auckland boarding kennels and in our homes over many years.
Pet hair removal tactics:
Hard floors and hair
Try an electrostatic or Microfibre dust mop for pet hair on hard floors instead of a vacuum cleaner, for at least for the first pass. Vacuum exhausts can send hair flying around and back onto surfaces, which doesn’t help anyone. The microfiber cloth can actually catch the hair in place and trap it.
Pets on the sofa
For hair on upholstery, try a damp clean sponge, a dampened rubber glove or even a rubber squeegee – anything with a bit of drag to it.
Carpets and cat fluff
If you have carpets, dust some baking soda over the carpets prior to vacuuming. Why? The baking soda not only loosens the hair from the carpet fibers, it also helps deodorise at the same time vacuum. However, the operative word here is ‘dust’. You should not use heaps.
Pet hair and chairs
To deal with pet hair on non-upholstered furniture, try using an ever-so-slightly damp Microfibre cloth. The cloth has an electrostatic charge which will attract the hair and the wee bit of water helps make it stick. However, if you use too much water, it’ll be useless; you’ll just leave trails of hair all over the place.
Picking up the gauntlet – kind of
If your carpet corners and edges are darkened, it means you’ve got a hefty build-up of pet hair.
To deal with that, your humble rubber glove and a bit of water is all you need. Just wet the glove and run it around the edeges by the skirtings, and over all the other places Snowy’s left a furry trail. It’ll pick up the hairs better than anything else. (Just make sure you give it a wash before using it to do the dishes. Better still, use a different glove.)
Pet hair on your clothes
And finally, the issue of pet hair on clothes that have just come out of the wash. You could go through endless metres of lint roller, or you could read on.
Clothes are staticky and pet hair is fine, sharp and gets woven into loose fabric. So, if you can loosen the pet hair on clothes before washing them, you have a much better chance of getting rid of it. Try pre-treating your clothes by putting them in the dryer for 10 minutes on a heat-free, tumble only cycle. This will soften the fabric and help loosen the hair. (Remember to empty the lint trap in your dryer afterwards.)
Then wash as you normally would – you can even add in a half cup of white vinegar which will help relax the fabric fibres even further to loosen any stubborn, deeply embedded hair.
Use this little routine and you should find your clothes come out significantly more hair free than before – you’ll be impressed.
Groom your pets
Also, of course the best way to keep your home pet hair free is to brush your pet often.
It is good for both cats and dogs and good for you; every hair you remove with a brush is one less hair you have to clean up.
Great pet care in Auckland
If you’ve got to be away from home, and you’re looking for a comfortable, safe and secure environment for your dog or cat where you know they will be very be well looked after, and spolit, call 09 299 7415 to ask about our fees and conditions.
Inspections are welcome between 10.00am and 4.00pm each day.
