Housewide Cleaning Archives

Clean Your Home Before The Holiday Rush

If you plan to have guests over for the holidays, our guess is you’ve got plenty on your plate. With decorating, shopping for gifts, and menu planning, the last thing you want to think about is cleaning the house. We at ServiceMaster By Simons have some tips to motivate you to begin:

Step 1: Organize a Team and Schedule

Start now! Create a calendar for daily tasks. It may seem too early, but time flies when there are so many things to get done.
Don’t try to clean all at once. Involve the whole family and tackle one or two items a day. Start with something that will remain clean until the day the guests arrive, such as windows.
Living on your own? A schedule will keep you on track.

Step 2: Declutter

Throw away clutter throughout your house. Take a heavy duty garbage bag and go from room to room, drawer to drawer and get rid of the things you don’t need or use. Here is a useful list we discovered to help you decide what you don’t need: 200 Things to Throw Away puts your excess items into perspective.

Step 3: Structure Cleaning

Clean the structure of your home first. Wipe down your windows and window trims, doors and door trims, and baseboards throughout the home. You may not notice the accumulation of dust now, however once you remove it, the home will not only appear cleaner, but you will also breathe better—and so will your guests.
If your walls are in need of a fresh coat of paint, but you have no time, wash them instead. Head to your favorite home improvement store and make sure to purchase a cleaning solution specifically for walls and a couple of flat head mops. This job is a little time consuming, so spread it out over two or three days.

Step 4: Furniture & Floor Cleaning

Vacuum your furniture—especially if you have pets. Many vacuum cleaners now have an attachment made specifically to tackle stubborn pet hair from your upholstery. Lint rollers or packing tape also work well for pet hair.
As you move closer to the day of your guests’ arrival, you can begin to wipe down your hard surface furniture. Use a furniture polish to help keep the dust away for a longer period of time.
Begin the floor cleaning process with vacuuming. Be sure to lift up lighter pieces of furniture to clean underneath. Follow by mopping your hard surface floors. Avoid using cleaning products that leave behind a waxy film which builds over time and are difficult to remove.

Step 5: Call ServiceMaster By Simons

If all this seems impossible for you to complete during the busy season, we can get the job done for you in one day. It’s the small details that refresh a home. And that is what ServiceMaster By Simons excels in. Call us soon before our schedule fills up. 773-376-1110

About Us: Co-Authors RESTORE your complete guide to protecting your home as your most valuable asset from water and fire disasters https://www.amazon.com/dp/1952779529. Recipient of 2022 award for Daily Herald Entrepreneurial Excellence. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a SB100 Best of Small Business Award Winner 2021, Bronze Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, recipient of the 2020 Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers.

Why Should You Call a Water Damage Restoration Professional?

When your Chicagoland property experiences water damage, you’re frequently urged to contact a water damage restoration specialist to handle cleaning and repairs. But why? Aren’t you able to take care of it yourself? What’s so great about what restoration professionals accomplish that’s better than what you could do?

The science and resources behind water damage restoration and remediation have advanced considerably since its inception. For example, when the contents of your home or business were damaged, they were usually thrown out, along with water-damaged structural materials. Now, much of it can be saved. Technology is a big reason why. Let’s look at a few examples:

Powerful Truck Mounted Vacuums:

These are useful for removing large amounts of water quickly. A typical truck mount vacuum sucks up about 25 gallons of water per minute. And since they’re so powerful, they can rapidly eliminate most every bit of water from a soaking carpet.

Desiccant Dehumidifiers:

These are used in specific conditions. Desiccants release dry, warm air (110°F and 5% relative humidity) in high humidity conditions to remove moisture from the atmosphere. This is accomplished by using silica gel to absorb airborne water particles. (A tiny example of that is found in the packages of some products.) Desiccant dehumidifiers are very effective and even operate in below-freezing temperatures.

LGR Dehumidifiers:

These can lower relative humidity to as low as 10% and remove up to 25 gallons of water from the air each day. This is a huge increase from a few years ago when simple dehumidifiers could only reduce relative humidity to 40% and remove only 5 gallons of water a day from the air.

Intra-Wall Drying:

This technology dries the insides of walls without removing and replacing wet drywall. How it works is the baseboards are first removed and small holes are drilled through the drywall in that area. Air is then forced into the cavity behind the wall while powerful fans (air movers) blow air on the outside of the wall, causing wet walls to dry much faster.

Air Movers:

These are very powerful, high CFM fans. These work much more efficiently and faster than a typical box fan. The high movement of air they produce greatly speeds up the evaporation process. This not only dries your property quickly but also helps to ensure no further water damage can occur.

Floor Mat Systems:

These enable professional water restoration contractors to dry hardwood floors fast. Applying the power of a high-pressure blower, these mats vacuum water vapor right through the surface of the floor. At one time, wood floors that had been warped by water were immediately torn up and replaced. These floor mat systems can save hardwood floors in many instances.

The Benefits of Advanced Drying Techniques

Besides the benefits of professional drying equipment that were already mentioned, there are also these:

Mold prevention –

Faster drying times decrease the danger of mold growth, thus helping to prevent health issues, including respiratory infections and allergic reactions. Lower humidity levels don’t allow mold to grow.

Lower expenses –

Many building materials once automatically disposed of now can be restored and not replaced. Reduced drying times also mean lower restoration costs and allow lives and businesses to return to normal more quickly.

As water restoration equipment has advanced, so have the procedures and training undertaken by water damage restoration professionals. Chicago’s own ServiceMaster Disaster Restoration By Simons uses the latest equipment and we put our staff through IICRC continuing education (CE) classes. Our certified and experienced team uses the most advanced scientific methods along with sophisticated equipment to get your Chicagoland home or business back to pre-loss condition quickly, professionally, and with personal attention to every detail.

How Your Possessions are Saved After a Disaster

After the last flames of a fire have been snuffed out or water damage from flooding or a burst pipe has been repaired in your Chicagoland home or business and you’ve called ServiceMaster By Simons, what happens to your damaged treasured possessions, irreplaceable family keepsakes, or retail inventory? Are they forever ruined and unsalvageable?

In the past, that may have been the case. But we employ an extensive contents restoration system that’s devised to return your possessions and property to their pre-damaged condition, whether they were damaged by fire, smoke, water, or mold – even objects that were once thought to be unrecoverable!

First, our specially skilled staff will cautiously pack up your damaged property, handling them with care, before moving them to our protected warehouse for cleaning, deodorizing, and storage. Privacy and discretion are always preserved as the content restoration work proceeds.

After an expert examination of each of your damaged items, we’ll determine which type of cleaning is most appropriate for each piece. It’ll be contingent on the item’s composition, framework, sturdiness, and the type of damage it suffered. Once that’s determined, we’ll employ one or more of the following procedures and/or equipment:

Drying chambers
Ultrasonic cleaning
Laundering/dry cleaning
Spray and wipe
Heat agitated immersion cleaning
Odor Removal (Using Ozone and Hydroxyl Methods)
Deodorization

These methods efficiently clean, dry and deodorize even problematic items like china, silver, brass, delicate figurines, ceramics, electronics, mini-blinds, chandeliers, plastics, and stuffed toys. Ultrasonic machines effortlessly eliminate smoke residues, mold, water damage, and rust.

ServiceMaster By Simons utilizes assembly-line contents cleaning procedures for any disaster restoration job. Once your items are cleaned, we carefully wrap them up in bubble wrap and paper then cautiously pack them in boxes and warehouse them until your home or business has been restored when they can then be returned.

How Do Ultrasonic Machines Work?

Ultrasonic machines carefully and successfully remove contaminants from your belongings. This is done by immersing objects in a tank of liquid while high-frequency sound waves create imploding bubbles that generate a scrubbing brush-like action that acts on impurities adhering to surfaces such as metals, glass, plastics, ceramics, rubber, and even electronics. This action infiltrates holes, cracks, nooks, and crannies so that it systematically removes all traces of contamination and malodors. This technology allows us to clean your possessions faster, more carefully, and less expensively.

How Does Ozone Treatment Work?

Contents that need deodorization are put into an ozone chamber. Ozone, occasionally called “activated oxygen”, contains three oxygen atoms rather than the two atoms we usually breathe. It’s the second most effective disinfectant in the world and may be used to obliterate bacteria, viruses, and smells. When they collide with ozone, they’re totally destroyed by oxidation. In the process, that extra atom of oxygen is annihilated and there’s nothing left – no odors, no bacteria, no extra atom, only oxygen.

Ozone arises quite frequently in nature, most often as a consequence of lightning strikes that occur during thunderstorms. That “fresh, clean, spring rain” smell you may detect after a Chicago area storm most frequently results from nature’s creation of ozone.

If you have questions about how our other cleaning procedures work or would like to schedule a free consultation and estimate, call ServiceMaster By Simons at 773-376-1110.

About Us: Co-Authors RESTORE your complete guide to protecting your home as your most valuable asset from water and fire disasters https://www.amazon.com/dp/1952779529. Recipient of 2022 award for Daily Herald Entrepreneurial Excellence. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a SB100 Best of Small Business Award Winner 2021, Bronze Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, recipient of the 2020 Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers.

You Often Get What You Pay For

When you need a fire or water damage restoration company, time is of the essence. If you do a quick internet search, you’ll find many in Chicago to choose from. And since it’s an emergency, you may just pick the one that’s closest to you. That’s why you should do your research before a disaster ever strikes to find a company you know you can trust.

With the economy the way it is, many may be tempted to go with the company that offers the lowest prices. That would seem to make your decision easier. Yet, the cost isn’t the only aspect you should consider. A cheap disaster restoration contractor may underestimate the cost of a project, or worse, add hidden fees after the job is completed. So that low-cost company could cost you more.

Problems With Hiring Cheap Disaster Restoration Contractors

Here are some reasons you may want to avoid a low bidder:

They give you a killer price to lock you into a deal and then the costs start to rise.
They’re not insured. This puts you and your property at risk.
They’re disorganized. This means that the job of putting your Chicagoland home or business back together will take much longer and will be of lower quality.
The estimated time of completion gets longer and longer. This is not just due to disorganization but in their ability to hire enough qualified workers.
A high-quality restoration contractor has methods of removing dust, garbage, and dirt during the job to keep your home cleaner. They’ll also completely clean up after the job is finished. Low-budget contractors will leave you with a mess to deal with.
To cut costs, they use inferior products when rebuilding. These can not only be unsafe but will lower the value of your property.

So, low prices aren’t always the best deal. As the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for.”

Choosing the Right Disaster Restoration Contractor

Now that you know the reasons to avoid a low-cost contractor, the following lists qualities to look for in a reputable one:

Comfort Level – do you feel at ease with them, or are they pushy and put down their competition? Do you feel a high level of trust?
Transparency – are they open and honest about the restoration process? Is there a clear point of contact you’ll be able to rely on throughout the job?
Experience – have they shown you their portfolio of other similar types of jobs they’ve completed? How long have they been in business?
References – a reliable contractor will offer you references from their past customers. Also, check out the BBB and other customer review sites online like HomeAdvisor and Angi to see if people who used their services were happy or not.
Price – if their price is lower than others, ask them directly why and have them lay out a detailed plan to keep that price low.

At Chicago’s own ServiceMaster By Simons, we understand that sometimes price has to be your first consideration. That’s why we let you know upfront what you can expect. But we refuse to substitute quality work and materials for a price, because a cheaply and poorly done restoration is unsafe and will always cost you more in the long run.

About Us: ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a SB100 Best of Small Business Award Winner 2021, Bronze Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, recipient of the 2020 Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers. For more information, call 773-839-5542 or visit www.servicemasterbysimons.com or info@servicemaster-rbs.com

Why Dirty HVAC Filters Are Costly and Unhealthy

There is a list of items in your Chicago home that need regular maintenance, such as cleaning out your gutters, replacing the battery in your smoke alarm, cutting the grass, etc. But there’s one item on that list that’s often ignored for too long. That’s replacing the filter in your HVAC system.

Is it such a big deal if it’s not done regularly? Most Chicagoland homeowners aren’t aware of the harmful effects of a dirty HVAC filter on their unit. A clean filter performs two functions: it helps keep your home comfortable and increases the HVAC’s efficiency. So homeowners should make replacing their HVAC filter a top priority.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that most of us spend about 90 percent of our time indoors. They also say that inside air is nearly 5 times dirtier than outside air. So for the majority of our lives, we’re breathing air that’s been circulating through an HVAC system. But regularly replacing its filter will mean cleaner air for your family to breathe. That’s a major benefit. But what other plusses are there to a clean air filter?

Why You Should Regularly Change Your Filter

A dirty air filter can cause air ducts to become home to dust, allergens, and mold that can invade your breathing space.
Air filters in homes with pets or smokers can become blocked with fur, dander, smoke particulate matter, and secondhand smoke.
A clogged air filter can diminish a humidifier’s effectiveness.
Dirty air filters make your system work harder by reducing the airflow within the system. The harder it has to work, the less energy efficient it is, shortening its life span and causing higher utility bills.
During the summer, a clogged air filter can cause the evaporator or cooling coil to freeze up.
Clogs during cold weather can lead to ineffective operation of the entire system, meaning you may experience hot and cold spots in your home, making it difficult to reach your chosen indoor temperature levels.

Can you remember the last time you changed your air filter?

How Do I Change My Filters?

First of all, set a reminder on your phone or a notation on a calendar for the first day of every third month to remind you to change it out. The actual process is very simple. If you don’t know how to do it, have a friend or family member show you. Or just look it up online.

Be aware that it’s possible to install them backward. But each filter will have an arrow somewhere on its side indicating the direction of airflow. Be sure that the arrow is pointing into your system, not out.

Can I Clean Dirty Air Filters?

Some air filters — permanent and semipermanent models — can be cleaned as part of regular HVAC system maintenance. But even washable filters have a life span — usually just a few years.

But most homes in Chicago have HVAC systems that use disposable filters. You might be tempted to try and clean yours instead of swapping it out with a new one. However, this simply won’t work for these reasons:

Disposable air filters are manufactured from soft mesh and other flexible materials that can’t survive the wear and tear of washing. It won’t completely dry after washing either, creating a moist breeding ground for mold and mildew.
Vacuuming an air filter does remove some of the buildups on the outside, but it can’t get to all the dust, pollen, and dirt that collects on the inside of the filter which blocks it from doing its job and causes wear and tear on your HVAC system.

Do My HVAC Filters Remove Odors?

HVAC air filters are designed to improve your home’s air quality and protect your unit. But if you have a serious odor problem caused by smoke from a fire or another pungent source, they are not designed for that. For those types of issues, you’ll need professional help to remove the source of the odor, along with high-tech equipment to permanently remove those smells. Be sure to contact ServiceMaster By Simons for any odor problems you may be experiencing.

Your Indoor Air Quality Can Be Adversely Affected Year Round

Each year as the northern hemisphere tilts toward the sun, trees and plants begin to bloom and the air smells fresher. Around that time we feel the need to throw open the windows and let that freshness in – and maybe vacuum under a rug or two. This “feeling” is part of a global occurrence known as spring cleaning.

Spring, of course, isn’t the only time of the year we clean. Otherwise, we’d be up to our armpits in dirt and garbage. But if you’re only performing a thorough cleaning once a year in your Chicagoland home, you’re doing yourself a disservice, especially if you suffer from allergies.

Seasonal Pollen and Mold Spores

Depending on where you live, allergies can affect you almost year-round. For example, some people are allergic to pollen from trees; others to pollen from grasses. Pollen mixes with household dust and may be the true cause of a dust allergy.

In the Chicago area, these are the allergies you’re most like to suffer from and their peak seasons:

Grass pollen – May to June
Tree pollen – March to May
Weed and Ragweed – Mid-August to the first freeze
Mold – spring and fall

But sometimes plants pollinate early as a result of mild winter temperatures. And a wet spring can boost rapid plant growth and add to an increase in mold, causing symptoms that may last far into the fall. So deep cleaning seasonally is the best way to improve the air quality in your home.

Don’t Kick Up the Dust

Allergy symptoms are usually worse during or immediately after you vacuum, sweep, and dust. The cleaning process can stir up dust particles, making them easier to breathe in. Therefore, the more frequently you clean, the fewer of these particles will be around to trigger allergies. Using a vacuum cleaner that contains a HEPA filter can keep those particles from escaping. And wet mopping after sweeping will pick up and trap pollen, allowing you to safely wash it down the drain.

When you dust, your best bet is to use a microfiber cloth. They’re made with a microscopically tiny weave that holds ten times more dirt per square inch than cotton cloths, so you’ll collect more dust and keep it from redepositing when you clean the next surface. If you don’t currently have any microfiber cloths, use a soft cloth dampened with water that also won’t release dust and pollen into the air.

Professionally Improve Your Indoor Air Quality

One way to improve your home’s indoor air quality is to have the air ducts cleaned. Indoor air pollutants like pollen are pulled into the HVAC system and re-circulated up to 5 to 7 times a day. Over time, this re-circulation produces a build-up of pollutants in the ductwork.

If you’re too busy or your health doesn’t allow strenuous activity, you may need help with seasonal cleaning. That’s why ServiceMaster By Simons offers House-Wide General Cleaning packages. Our team of professionals will give your home a thorough cleaning to your specifications to ensure that you experience fewer allergies and better indoor air quality.

Concentrating on Cleaning Products Can Save You Money

Riddle: When is a gallon of all-purpose cleaner not a gallon of all-purpose cleaner?

Answer: When it’s really 20 gallons.

Puzzled? Consider this: usually when you purchase a gallon of a product, that’s all you get. If you buy a gallon of gas, you get a gallon of gas; buy a gallon of milk and you’ll only get a gallon of milk. But many cleaners, disinfectants and deodorizers you use to clean your Chicago area home or office are sold as concentrates. If you buy those and mix them correctly, you’ll greatly increase the usable amount of product, making them very inexpensive. Depending on the product, sometimes one gallon of concentrate can produce up to a hundred gallons of a RTU (ready to use) cleaner. So that 99¢ jug of RTU glass cleaner at your local Chicagoland box store might not really be such a terrific deal after all.

It might be enticing to try to make the concentrated cleaning products you buy go even further by diluting them more than recommended. But the suggested concentration dilution rate is much more cost efficient than watering them down because weakened chemicals take longer to do the job and you would probably have to repeat the cleaning process to accomplish the desired results. Your time is valuable; add that to the additional aggravation and you wouldn’t be saving a dime.

Precise Mixing Makes a Difference

Clearly, concentrates necessitate adding water to dilute them according to the precise directions on the product labels. Most comprehend that, but the means of communicating the amount of water to mix with the concentrate can be a little more complicated and leaves room for error.

For instance, the common method for stating dilution rates is by using ratios, but occasionally you need more info. For example, which does a ratio of 1:8 mean? Is it:

one part concentrate mixed with seven parts water to produce eight parts of solution?
one part concentrate mixed with eight parts water to produce make nine parts solution?

You need to get it right because, in this particular example, an error adds up to a 12.5% variance! That means either your cleaning effectiveness will decrease 12.5% or your costs will increase 12.5%, neither of which is a desired result.

What’s confusing is that each way of describing the ratios shown above is defensible. So always examine product labels for a thorough explanation of its mixing ratio. If details aren’t included, then go to the source and contact the manufacturer. It’s worth a little extra effort.

Help for Deep Cleaning

When it comes to deep cleaning, sometimes you need a little help. And with Covid-19, using the required disinfectants is vital. Without question, virus cleaning, removal, and disinfection services are foremost in the thoughts of many homeowners and business owners throughout the Chicagoland area today. ServiceMaster By Simons uses an EPA hospital-grade disinfectant that fights 99.99% of bacteria so that you as a business or homeowner can have peace of mind whether you work inside or outside your home.

About Us: ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, recipient of the 2020 Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers. For more information, call 773-839-5542 or visit www.servicemasterbysimons.com or info@servicemaster-rbs.com

Water Damage Invites Termites Into Your Chicagoland Property

You’re probably already aware that water damage is more than a nuisance. It may also elicit severe damage to your Chicagoland home or business. But there’s another side effect of water damage you might not know about. It also attracts insects – both the kind that can cause disease and those that can destroy your home.

The types of bugs that are drawn to water damage include carpenter ants, termites, silverfish, beetles, roaches, etc. They enter a building when its walls and foundation are weakened by water damage, using electrical wires as superhighways throughout a structure. The insects that can cause the most destruction are termites. But what attracts them to a water damaged structure?

Termites, like other insects, need to be surrounded by moisture to survive. Normally they live underground in cool, damp environments, so water soaked wood makes a perfect replacement home for them while supplying them with an almost endless buffet. That’s why water damage that’s ignored can promote termite infestation in any structure.

Termite infestations are extremely destructive to a property and expensive to fix. Usually they call for a whole-house treatment. The problem can start unnoticeably and often an owner won’t even be aware of the damage until he hires a professional restoration service like Chicago’s own ServiceMaster Disaster Restoration By Simons to do a water damage inspection.

The Experts Chime In

The University of Kentucky’s College of Food and Agriculture wrote a highly informative Q&A article on termite infestations. In it they talk about what and how much damage termites can do to a home, what a homeowner can do if there’s an infestation, and how difficult it can be for homeowners to ascertain if termites have infested their home or business at the early stage of infestation:

“Oftentimes, there will be no clear indication of infestation. Termites are cryptic creatures and infestations can go undetected for years, hidden behind walls, floor coverings, insulation, and other obstructions. Termite feeding and damage can even progress undetected in exposed wood because the outer surface usually remains intact. Confirmation of termites often requires the keen eye of a professional — however, even the most experienced inspector can overlook signs that are hidden.”

As previously mentioned, termites love moisture and humidity. If a home or business isn’t adequately ventilated or has unrepaired leaks, a termite infestation can take place. That’s why the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warns against not repairing leaks and water damage sources immediately. On the EPA official website, they discuss how to prevent these pests from invading your home.

The National Pest Management Association (NPMA) also emphasizes the termite’s love for wet weather, moisture, and humidity. It indicates that pests, including termites, could swarm during wet and warm weather. Pestworld.org published this NPMA warning:

“Residual winter moisture will create ideal conditions for mosquito larval habitats to form in standing water and will allow termite populations to flourish. With [rainy weather], expect increased cockroach and ant pressure as they move indoors for shelter.”

The bottom line to all this information is simple; never, ever, allow water damage that’s occurred to your Chicago area home or business go unrepaired. It must be addressed immediately to avoid an infestation of termites and other damage from wreaking havoc to property. Call the water damage cleanup professionals at ServiceMaster Disaster Restoration By Simons immediately whenever water damage occurs. Whether the destruction is large or small, we can take care of it.

About Us: ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a 2020 recipient of the Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers. For more information, call 773-839-5542 or visit www.servicemasterbysimons.com or info@servicemaster-rbs.com

How Environmental Hygienists Find Mold You Can’t See

Once upon a time if you couldn’t see something you generally weren’t worried about it. Today, with the advances in science and technology, we now understand that gases and micro-pollutants in the air – even those that can’t be seen or smelled – can affect our health and well-being. So, air quality can no longer be judged by our senses alone, especially indoors. And one of those invisible micro-pollutants that can affect the quality of inside air is mold.

How Mold Enters the Airstream

Molds are fungi often hidden away in warm, humid corners of your Chicagoland home. Although they look stationary, molds have ways of getting into the air and thus into your lungs. To reproduce, they release spores into the air. And if the mold dries out, fragments will break off and attach to existing dust in your air where they can harm both the air quality and your health. Molds can stimulate allergic reactions, and some toxic molds might even weaken your immune system.

How Technology Helps Find Mold

During mold remediation, environmental hygienists test the air during and after mold cleanup to determine how effectively the contaminants are being removed or contained. This is done by using a laser particle counter to determine the number of airborne particles. This device draws in a sample of air, shines a laser light across the air stream inside of it and electronically counts the particles that cross the path of the beam. In contaminated environments, the amount of particles will be very high, but after a thorough cleaning, they’ll be significantly lower.

Laser particle counter measurements show over 99% of the particles floating in indoor air that are one micron (1/1,000,000 of a meter) or smaller. The EPA calls these lung-damaging particles because they can lodge deep in the lungs when inhaled. Although a particle counter can’t differentiate between spores, skin fragments or cotton fibers, using one can help determine if the property is experiencing a mold problem and can be used for additional quality-control and post-remediation checking.

Certain websites allow mold testing companies to enter data from a particle counter and get prompt online results so that you’ll have an answer quickly, instead of having to wait days or weeks for results.

ServiceMaster By Simons Works With Environmental Hygienists

Many of our customers who research mold cleanup, mold removal, or mold remediation services may be surprised to discover ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons provides professional mold remediation, cleanup and removal in Chicago and its suburbs. After an independent environmental hygienist has tested and observed the air in your home or business and a positive report is received, our licensed technicians identify the problem and possible causes, such as water leaks or moisture issues.

Our IICRC Certified technicians follow a systematic and well-planned mold abatement and remediation process to clean up mold and repair your property to your satisfaction. Contact ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons today for free on-site estimates for mold removal and remediation in the Chicagoland area.