Why It Matters More Here, and More in Winter
A Saskatoon winter keeps everyone indoors with the windows shut from November to March. Kids bring home whatever is going around at school, and the same few surfaces get touched by everyone, dozens of times a day. That's the setting where cleaning habits make a difference. You won't sterilize a house, and nobody should try. The aim is to cut the number of germs on the handful of surfaces that pass them between people.
Two words get used as if they mean the same thing, and they don't. Getting them straight is most of the job.
Cleaning and Disinfecting Are Two Different Steps
- Cleaning with soap or detergent and water physically removes germs along with the dirt. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is clear that it doesn't necessarily kill them.
- Disinfecting uses an approved product to kill or inactivate them.
PHAC's guidance is to clean a surface first, then disinfect it. Grease, food film and the grime on a fridge handle shield germs from the disinfectant, so spraying straight onto a dirty surface wastes most of the product. On most surfaces in a healthy household, a good clean is enough. Disinfecting earns its place on the high-touch spots, and whenever someone in the house is sick.
How to Tell a Disinfectant Is Approved in Canada: the DIN
In Canada, hard-surface disinfectants are regulated as drugs. Health Canada assesses each one before it can be sold and issues it an eight-digit DIN (Drug Identification Number), which appears on the label. If a spray claims to disinfect and there's no DIN on it, it hasn't been through that assessment.
Two practical points follow:
- A homemade vinegar spray is a cleaner, not a disinfectant. It has no DIN. It's fine for glass and for hard water scale, but it isn't what you reach for on a sick person's bathroom.
- "Eco" and "disinfectant" aren't opposites. Some plant-based and hydrogen peroxide products carry a DIN. Our eco-friendly products guide covers the certifications that mean something.
Contact Time: The Step Everyone Skips
Every disinfectant label states how long the surface has to stay wet for the product to work. That's the contact time, sometimes called dwell time, and PHAC tells you to follow it. It's often several minutes. Spray-and-wipe-immediately is the most common way people disinfect, and it's also the most common reason disinfecting doesn't work.
The fix is simple: clean the surface, apply the disinfectant, then go and do something else. Come back after the time on the label, and wipe or let it dry as the label says. The label is also where you'll find whether you need gloves, and whether the surface needs a rinse afterwards (anything that touches food usually does).
Diluted Bleach: Health Canada's Ratio, and Its Rules
If you don't have an approved disinfectant, Health Canada gives a diluted bleach recipe for high-touch hard surfaces. It's based on regular household bleach at 5% sodium hypochlorite:
| Water | 5% household bleach |
|---|---|
| 250 mL (1 cup) | 5 mL (1 teaspoon) |
| 1 litre (4 cups) | 20 mL (4 teaspoons) |
That gives a 0.1% solution. The rules that come with it matter as much as the ratio:
- Pour the bleach into the water, never the water into the bleach.
- Never mix bleach with anything else, especially glass cleaners, anything containing ammonia, or acids such as vinegar. These combinations give off toxic gas.
- Make only what you need for that one job. Health Canada says not to store leftover diluted bleach.
- Ventilate during and after: open a window or door and run the exhaust fan. In January a few minutes of open window is still worth it.
- Keep bleach and every other cleaning product in its original container, tightly closed, out of sight and reach of children and pets. If someone swallows or inhales something, call a poison centre (infopoison.ca lists them) or 911 in an emergency.
The High-Touch Spots in a Saskatoon House
PHAC's list of high-touch surfaces is short: door handles, light switches, phones, remotes, toilets, countertops, tables, toys and tablets. In a real house that turns into this:
- Entry: the front door and storm door handles, the deadbolt, the garage door keypad and the inside door from the garage. Those are the first things everyone touches coming in from outside.
- Kitchen: the fridge and freezer handles, the microwave button panel, the kettle handle, the tap, the cabinet pull under the sink where the garbage is, and the countertop.
- Bathroom: the toilet handle and seat, the tap, the light switch, the door handle on both sides, and the towel hook.
- Living areas: remotes, game controllers, the thermostat, stair railings, light switches and the dining table.
- Electronics: PHAC suggests 70% alcohol wipes, such as alcohol prep wipes, for devices that can take them. Check the maker's instructions for phones, tablets and keyboards first.
In a healthy household, a few times a week on that list is a sensible rhythm, alongside a normal weekly clean.
When Someone in the House Is Sick
PHAC's influenza guidance for home settings is specific and practical:
- Clean high-touch surfaces daily with a household disinfectant while someone is ill: door knobs, light switches and the rest of the list above. PHAC notes that influenza virus can survive for several hours on surfaces.
- Clean the bathroom the sick person uses every day with a household disinfectant. If you have a second bathroom, keeping the sick person to one of them makes this easier.
- Give them their own room if you can, ideally a well-ventilated one, kept apart from others where possible.
- Laundry and dishes don't need special handling. PHAC says items used by the sick person can be washed in the usual way. Wash your hands after handling them.
- Hands are the other half. Wash them after touching anything the sick person has touched and after emptying their garbage, which is worth lining with a bag.
If the person who's ill is an older parent you care for, the extra daily cleaning can be a lot on top of everything else. Our senior home support includes light housekeeping and laundry. We provide non-medical support only, so medical care stays with their health team.
Common Mistakes That Undo the Effort
- Disinfecting a dirty surface. Clean it first.
- Wiping the disinfectant off straight away. Leave it for the contact time on the label.
- Using the same cloth from bathroom to kitchen. Use one cloth per room, or a fresh side for each surface, and wash cloths hot. Professional crews colour-code their cloths for exactly this reason.
- Mixing products "to make it stronger." It makes toxic gas, not a better cleaner.
- Treating a "fresh scent" as clean. Fragrance tells you nothing about germs.
Prevention Beyond the Cleaning Cloth
Cleaning is one layer. In recent seasons, Saskatchewan has offered the flu and COVID-19 vaccines free to residents six months and older, booked through the Saskatchewan Health Authority's online booking system or by phone at 1-833-727-5829. Check saskatchewan.ca for this season's dates. For symptoms and health questions, HealthLine 811 is available around the clock.
When You'd Rather Hand It Off
A week of flu leaves a house behind on everything. Our same-day cleaning page is honest about when we can come at short notice. Through the winter, a regular clean keeps kitchens and bathrooms on schedule so the high-touch work happens without anyone thinking about it. For shared workplaces, where one sick colleague becomes five, see our office cleaning, which follows the dwell times on the label.