We all love our pets, but we don’t love their hair. Certain breeds of dogs and cats are just shedding machines and that can’t be changed. As the pet parent to a domestic long-haired cat, I fight the same battle you do every day.
This is Rory, he is the inspiration behind this post.
While I do my best to stay on top of the cat hair in my apartment, sometimes you just can’t help but get busy and fall off track. So how can you make managing the hair easier on yourself? We’ve done some research and here are our best hair removal and prevention tips!
Start from the source:
- Keep your pet clean: The cleaner your pet’s skin is, the fewer allergens are in their dander when they shed. This can help improve a person’s reaction who has allergies toward pets. It also could help lessen the amount of shedding during off-season shedding times. Dogs should be getting bathed about once a month. Cats, should get wiped down with a bathing wipe or given a bath (for the cats who are okay with water) about once a month as well.
- Brush Often: One of your best defenses against pet hair is to make sure you are brushing your pet often. Brushing helps to collect pet hair before it starts to come free. The more hair on your brush- the less hair on your furniture. Get on a brushing schedule with your pet and you’ll see a real reduction in the amount of hair kicking around your place.
Cleaning Up the Hair:
- Rubber glove: My favorite way to get the hair off the furniture in my apartment is with a damp rubber glove. Once you are wearing the glove, run your hand over the surface of the furniture and it will collect the hair. Then just rinse the glove off again and all the hair will slide right off.
- Use furniture polish to help remove hair and dust from wood furniture. Make sure to fully wipe down each section for full hair removal. Furniture polish should stop the hair from being able to stick on for a few days, but will eventually wear off. You might want to dust with furniture polish at least once a week to keep everything hair free!
- Slipcovers are an easy way to keep control of the hair on your furniture. You can just pull them off and run them through the washer and dryer to remove all the hair and dander. Depending on how much your pet sheds, you should only have to wash the slip covers once every 2-3weeks.
- Mix water and fabric softener together in an empty spray bottle. Then spray the mix onto your furniture and wipe up all the hair. The mix helps to loosen the hair and make it easier to just wipe off.
- When you vacuum your carpets, make sure to first go over with the vacuum going one direction then to go back over the carpet again going in the opposite direction. This motion will help get out the hair that is trapped deep within the carpet.
- Vacuum often! I know it’s annoying, but the more you vacuum the less hair will be in your home. I invested in a robot vacuum cleaner which made vacuuming often a lot easier. If you have a pet that sheds, it might be worth considering it.
- On wood floors, make sure to use a dry broom or Swiffer sweeper to pick up hair. Wet mops make it hard to get the hair up and vacuums make it hard to control the hair long enough to clean up.
Like all things in life, you will probably never be able to get your home perfect and hair free. But drastically reducing the amount of hair in your home will no doubt be a major benefit! What are you waiting for? Let’s get cleaning, brushing, and living a less hairy lifestyle!
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