But it turns out that I’m not the only one who doesn’t really clean their toilet brush. On social media, we polled our users on how often they cleaned their toilet brush, and around 77 percent of you bravely admitted to never cleaning it.
I don’t need to consult an expert to know that those of us who have never cleaned a toilet brush should probably be doing it more often, but exactly how often should we be cleaning the brush and when is the right time to replace it? Here’s the verdict from experts.
When should we clean our toilet brushes?
Toilet brushes should be cleaned after each time they are used so that any germs that are picked up in the toilet do not sit in your bathroom, says Vera Peterson, president of cleaning company Molly Maid.
You can clean it on a weekly basis if you have a weekly routine of cleaning your bathroom, says Kadi Dulude, founder of Wizard of Homes, a cleaning business based in New York City.
When should we replace a toilet brush?
Some would suggest replacing your plastic toilet brush every six months, but if you clean yours regularly, there should be no need to replace it until the bristles become discolored, get bent out of shape, or fall out, or if your brush is smelly even after cleaning, says Stephanie Canal, senior product manager of cleaning tools at consumer products company Oxo.
What’s the best way to clean a toilet brush?
For a quick cleaning, use a disinfectant spray for the brush and a disinfectant wipe for the handle. Afterward, rinse the toilet brush with hot water and let the brush drip-dry—you can place it between the toilet seat and the toilet base so that the seat is holding it in place—before placing it back in the holder, Vera says.
For a deeper cleaning, you can soak the brush in a mixture of equal parts bleach and water.
What about the toilet brush holder, which can also be disgusting (my words, not the experts’)?
Similar to the cleaning of the toilet brush, the toilet brush holder should regularly be sprayed with disinfectant and then rinsed with hot water. For more thorough cleaning, you can soak the holder in equal amounts of bleach and hot water, Vera says.
Anything else we need to look out for when cleaning?
When you’re using chemicals to clean your bathroom, open the windows and doors for improved ventilation, says Chris Regan, an engineer who oversees the testing of toilets at CR.
And if you’re using bleach to clean your toilet brush, make sure it doesn’t get mixed with cleaning products that contain ammonia or acids—bleach doesn’t react well with either, and the combination will produce toxic fumes. In general, there are a lot of different chemicals in cleaning solutions, and you should be careful not to mix two different ones together.
Are there any good alternatives to cleaning a toilet, apart from using a toilet brush?
For a quick cleaning of your toilet, a toilet brush is still pretty handy, Kadi says.
But if you want to give your toilet a deep clean, you can sprinkle baking soda in the bowl and use a sponge to scrub the toilet. Just make sure you aren’t using the sponge to clean other parts of your home—you definitely wouldn’t want that sponge to be used to clean your kitchen sink, for instance.
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Originally Appeared Here