With the different anxieties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, people need a safe environment at home. This means ensuring that the house is safe to live in and taking care of what makes it a home.
Home maintenance
Indoor air quality
Staying at home more means spending more time indoors. To ensure good physical health, harmful particles in the air should be eliminated. Hence, air duct cleaning is necessary to get rid of mold, dust, pollen, and other micro-particles that can potentially enter the body. This is especially necessary for households of people with allergic rhinitis and respiratory issues.
Pests
Sometimes, people don’t detect pests until the damage has become too big. Think about Gilmore Girls’ Lorelai Gilmore only discovering her house has been infested by termites when her foot fell into the floor of the porch, and she needs $150,000 to repair all the damage.
Careful inspection of the nooks and crannies of the house can help avoid this problem. Look for discoloration, dents, trails, and other damages. Consider spraying pesticides in cabinets and bathrooms to avoid cockroaches and other unwanted critters.
Unkempt garden
A well-maintained garden makes the house pretty, and taking care of plants has a lot of health benefits. However, when the garden goes on years without the right TLC, things can go crazy. Weeds can grow tall and take up all the nutrients from plants. Vines can invade the entire wall. Worse, you’ll never know what lives in the corners of the lawn.
Luckily, gardening experts know exactly what to do when the situation goes out of control. Cleaning out the garden will get rid of potential risks like mosquitoes breeding in stocked water or rodents hiding in the bushes.
Home life
The figurative structure of the house is the family. This means that taking care of each other should be on top of the list.
Physical health
You and your family can take simple steps such as taking your vitamins, getting enough sleep, and exercising to boost your immune systems. Helping each other take care of their health can be a fun bonding moment for the family:
- Doing yoga and following home workouts together
- Follow a routine that includes spending time with each other (ex. watching movies, exercising, or playing with your pets)
- Cook healthy recipes together.
Mental health
One of the side effects of the pandemic is how taxing it is to one’s mental health. Because of the fear and the growing uncertainty surrounding this disease, people are experiencing stress that can lead to insomnia, changes in appetite, and using vices as a way of coping. Sadly, mental health is still taboo, and this hinders conversation surrounding the topic while perpetuating the stigma.
As a family, one way to break down the barriers is to check-in on each other. This doesn’t need to be a deep, heart-to-heart conversation all the time. Sometimes, it can start with “Have you seen the news lately?” and then ask them how they feel about it. Simple gestures like this can make the family feel like they are going through this worldwide problem together.
Because the whole world is encouraged to stay at home, it’s essential to make the house livable for the family. This doesn’t only mean the house itself but also the ways in which each member of the family coexists with each other.
