After the scorching heat of the summer, we eagerly wait for the monsoon to arrive. The dark clouds, windy weather, and pitter-patter send a positive vibe. The fresh spells of monsoon rains are not just refreshing, but they also play with our mood. The petrichor, the fresh, lush green leaves, and the serenity around us lift our mood instantly. It feels as though the season has breathed new life into Mother Earth.
The monsoon feels awesome and welcoming for the first fortnight; after that, it becomes troublesome, because there are a lot of problems associated with continuous rain, making ‘Monsoon Home Care’ a Herculean task.
In this blog, Gharpedia shares some handy information about monsoon home care, such as
- Need for Monsoon Home Care
- Monsoon Home Care Tips For Rainy Season Problems
- Electrical Safety Precautions During the Rainy Season
- Clean Drains Before It Rains!
- Check If Doors and Windows are Fine
- Take Precautions for the Leakages
- Check Your Terrace Level Difference
- Take Care of Furniture
- Arrange In-House Space for Tie and Dry your Clothes
- Dos & Don’ts During Rainy Season
Let’s have a detailed look.
Need for Monsoon Home Care
With the onset of the monsoon, there is an unusual odour in the home, garden, and wardrobes, which can be a complete turn-off. Different types of insects and pests surface, making life difficult.
Monsoons prove scary when the house is full of filthy odour, mosquitoes, flies, pests, moss, moulds and fungus. In the rainy season, there are air-borne diseases and water-borne diseases, which pose serious health threats. Soon, our positive vibes seem to disappear, and the worries prevail as we have little or no choice! However, the monsoon demands that we be cautious and take extra care of our homes to combat many rain-induced problems wisely. After all, only a healthy home can be a happy abode for healthy people!
As a homemaker, your responsibility doubles in monsoons, making monsoon home care your priority. You must be extra careful because germs breed faster in the rainy season.
Bring a few amendments to your monsoon home care routine to keep your place clean and germ-free.
Monsoon Home Care Tips For Rainy Season Problems
Home is the reflection of our personality, and this reflection must be kept intact through all weathers. Summer, monsoon, spring, or winter, never compromise your house’s health. It takes some extra care and safety precautions during the rainy season, and you are good to go. So, let’s get started and know how to take care of our home during the rainy season.
01. Electrical Safety Precautions During Rainy Season
We must have safety precautions in place during the rainy season, covering a range of perils, including electric mishaps and fire accidents. Check all the electrical points, wiring, and plug sockets; ensure that drains and cracks are all checked, serviced/repaired, and electrical boards are in shape. If there are issues, treat them on a priority basis to avert large-scale damages.
Negligence in maintaining electrical wiring cannot just force people to live without power during the initial days of the monsoon, but sometimes it could also be fatal.
Repair the damaged electrical sockets and wiring before the onset of the rains. For more details, refer to our electrical safety tips for monsoon.
It is better to get things inspected properly by the home maintenance technicians. They can rule out the shortcomings and take up repairs accordingly as part of your monsoon precautions.
02. Clean Drains Before It Rains!
- One of the first monsoon precautions to take before the onset of the monsoon is the cleaning of the drains to prevent clogging during heavy rains. If not done on time, clogged drains will disrupt the flow of garbage, causing a lot of inconvenience/damage to your surroundings.
- Clogged garbage will attract flies and mosquitoes, thus affecting your health. Always check the ‘jaalis’ on the top of the drain pipes. If there is an accumulation of dirt, plastic, or dry leaves, clean it. This, if left unattended, will lead to clogging. Check the drains on the rooftop so that rainwater does not accumulate on the roof.
- Take the help of plumbing technicians and get the water outlet pipes connected to the municipal corporation connection. Check if the manhole collecting the rainwater from your compound or the gutter is choked due to leaves, dust, papers, and plastics. This can be a nightmare, especially when it rains heavily. Sudden downpours during the night can be a cause of concern as the water may enter your house when you do not have instant help available. Hence, it is always good to pay attention to monsoon safety tips to clear the drains and remain safe.
- If you look at the dos and don’ts during the rainy season, the most ignored area on the list is the canopy and the protruded ‘chajjas’ without spouts. Most of the dirt accumulates on them. Clean them thoroughly with a hard metal brush so that no dust or waste remains there, blocking the path of the water. If it is not cleaned, water will accumulate and seep into the adjoining walls, thereby damaging your paint and walls.
03. Check If Doors and Windows are Fine
Next in the monsoon home care tips is the wood! The wood swells in the rainy season due to moisture-laden air. The swelling makes it difficult to lock the doors and the windows properly. Request scrutiny by a carpenter and get it repaired. Get the locks, bolts, and hooks checked and ascertain if they require a replacement. Also, see that all the eyes and hooks onf the windows are in working condition. If you have a sliding window, check that it closes properly. In a season like this, you will not be able to keep windows open throughout the day. Hence, check if the windows and doors can be shut properly.
In case you have faced some swollen door problems, then go through our below blog, which will help you fix your problem.
How to fix Swollen Doors? Know the Causes and Remedies!
04. Take Precautions for Leakages
- Get the cracks treated so that there is no leakage inside the house or in the basement.
- Want a perfect ‘Monsoon Home’? It begins with covering hollow crevices so that reptiles don’t coil in and pose a threat to the dwellers.
- Correct the roof leakages, if any.
- The most important maintenance check that a prudent house owner must do is to repair the source of leakage, particularly from the terrace or other vulnerable areas like joints between the ‘chajjas’ and wall, joints of aluminum window frames and walls, or sills and jambs. A skilled agency must attend to these issues.
- If you have a rainwater harvesting system recharging your borewell, then make sure that you clean all the filter beds in the system. Also, clean the terrace/sloping roof so that the dust and other materials on the terrace don’t choke your filter beds. Remember to set your valves in such a way that the first rainwater from the terrace does not flow into the borewell. Instead, it must flow into the stormwater drain.
- Clear moss growth on any surface because this can cause someone to slip, fall, or sustain serious injuries.
05. Check Your Terrace Level Difference
As per Late Mahadev Desai, CMD of Sthapati Designers & Consultants Pvt. Ltd, which is a leading multidisciplinary consultancy firm in India, in most houses or even in apartments, the common detailing mistake that occurs is that the terrace slab and the slab of the staircase cabin, i.e. the top step of the staircase, are kept at the same level.
“Actually, the last step should be 150 mm or 6” higher than the terrace slab so that when you do waterproofing, the level of the terrace does not go above the stair cabin/step level, Desai had said, adding that when this procedure is not followed, the terrace actually comes to a higher level.
“You do some threshold work with stone or make some other arrangement so that the water from the terrace does not enter the house. This is a serious mistake, and if it exists in your house, then you must attend to it and correct it immediately so that you solve the problem not only for this monsoon but for all monsoons to come,” he had suggested.
06. Take Care of Furniture
Furniture are especially prone to humidity because they absorb moisture from the air. Make sure the room is well-ventilated, preferably cross-ventilated, so that wet air does not remain trapped around the furnishings. To protect the wooden furniture from rain, move it at least six inches away from the wall and place it in a spot that receives direct sunlight. Monsoons cause moisture to build on the walls, which can destroy wood furniture. Furthermore, provisions must be made to ensure that sufficient natural light reaches the room. This would greatly minimise moisture damage to furniture.
Clean your furniture regularly. Cleaning will help to eliminate any dirt, dust, or water droplets that may have gathered on the furniture. One of the most fundamental wood furniture cleaning suggestions is to dust it with a dry cloth. A damp cloth may damage your wooden items. Moisture causes mould growth, which is detrimental to both you and your wood furniture. Overall, the motto is to keep damp garments away from your wood furniture.
Check out our detailed article on how to take care of furniture in monsoon:
How to Take Care of Furniture During Rains: Expert Tips for Monsoon Season Protection
07. Arrange In-House Space for Tie and Dry your Clothes
Another basic guide to a perfect ‘Monsoon Home’ is to buy cloth rails or drying cloth stand and use inner spaces such as the bathroom, head on the washing machine space etc. to tie and dry your clothes. The Sun will be on holiday so you require space inside the home where you can spread out damp and washed clothes. It is a challenging task in case of continuous rain. Ample cloth stands are available in the market; bring one, and analyse your space and utility.
Another important safety precaution during the rainy season is to take an exit from an AC room and change your clothes immediately if your clothes are wet. Thus, make every possible arrangement and mechanism handy as well as ready for drying your clothes during monsoon.
Dos and Don’ts during Rainy Season
There are many dos and don’ts during the rainy season, which if followed will make a lot of difference in your monsoon home care routine. Let’s have a look at them and gear up for more monsoon precautions.
- Place a shoe rack at the entrance and ask people to leave their footwear on the stand before entering the house. By doing this, you can save a lot of time and energy spent on cleaning the floors. This is one monsoon precaution that can ensure health within the family.
- Make sure every family member cleans themselves properly before entering the house. This is an important monsoon safety tip.
- Get rid of wet clothes as soon as you enter the house and change into dry cotton clothes.
- Use good-quality disinfectants to clean the house so that it is free from mosquitoes, insects, and flies.
- Allow fresh air to enter the home premises. Do not lock the doors and windows all the time. Keep it open so that the fresh air circulates and wards off foul smells from your perfect monsoon home!
- Do not keep the floor wet. Wipe it with an absorbent mop so that nobody slips and falls over. Further, wet floors help molds, germs, and fungi to grow.
- This is again one of the basic monsoon safety tips. Clean washrooms regularly with strong disinfectants, and use the exhaust fan to ward off foul smells and keep the area dry. Wipe the taps and showers dry; they are the best breeding grounds for mold and germs. Clean with baking powder and vinegar once a week so that the germs and bacteria don’t develop.
- Clean up the clutter and dispose of all the garbage around you. Such places are the best spots for mosquitoes and insects to breed.
- Get the open area cleaned with bleaching powder and lime. It will clear the dampness of the floor and clean grasses and other growths. Thus, it will be safe to walk on. Clean these places periodically throughout the rainy season.
- Take extra care of your pet so that the pet and the dwellers are free from infections. Animals catch infections easily in the rainy season. Keep them clean. Dry your pet’s paws daily after a stroll. Use good pet soap and shampoo to protect them from ticks and fleas.
- Last but not least, in this list of dos and don’ts during the rainy season is an important point to remember in your monsoon home care routine: clean your kitchen tops, chimney, and table tops with salt and vinegar after preparing the meal to ward off insects and flies. These are the great carriers of germs and diseases in the rainy season, which can fail all your monsoon home care plans.
Takeaway
Monsoon season can be a joy if you follow all the above-mentioned ‘monsoon home care tips’ religiously. Clean surroundings give rise to clean and clear thoughts, ushering in positive vibes.
Indulge in playful activities with kids at home and let them enjoy the rainy season to the fullest.
Well quoted by ‘Rajuda’, from Goodreads Quotes – “Rain clouds come floating in, not to muddy my days ahead, but to make me calm, happy and hopeful.”
Have a Happy Monsoon!!!!
With these monsoon home care tips, you will surely like to read our blog on monsoon home décor tips and also some cleaning tips for house,
Home Decor Tips for this Monsoon!
Here’s a video to sum up all the points mentioned above: