If you are a typical house proud person who just must have a sparkling clean house, with spotless windows, a germ free kitchen and bathroom, beautifully vacuumed carpets, shining floors and highly polished furniture - look out! You could be on the wrong track.
Instead of contributing to your family's health you could in actual fact be making them and yourself sick.
House sickness?? -yes, that definitely is a sickness.
Believe it or not, your house can make you very sick indeed.
If you are achieving all this using the numerous chemical and highly toxic products on the market you are really perpetuating the myth that buying expensive synthetic detergents and cleaners is a guarantee of a clean germ free home.
You are actually allowing numerous dangerous and harmful chemicals to sabotage your health.
They become a part of your everyday life and inevitably what follows are allergies, infections and unexplained rashes.
Abrasive chemical cleaners are not only hard on our skin but bad for our general health.
Maybe you have mysterious headaches or you develop nausea and a rash and can find no obvious cause for these illnesses.
You could have an annoying cough, fatigue, an allergic reaction, dizziness, respiratory problems, dry or inflamed skin or eye irritation.
Such symptoms can be caused by exposure to toxins commonly found in our homes - however your medical practitioner will need to check you out.
Environmental hazards can cause or aggravate a wide range of common medical problems.
Short and long term exposure to hazards such as chemicals, allergens, pollution and other toxins can definitely cause environmental illnesses.
Just picture your little one on the floor, happily sucking the thumb that has been in contact with the harshest of all floor cleaners.
Your food being cooked in a pot containing a cocktail of dishwashing liquids, grease cutting, abrasive scourers etc.
(unless you have rinsed it out really well and how many people do?).
These are serious matters and yet I am constantly amazed at the number of people who do not rinse their dishes.
Widespread, haphazard application of the most destructive deadly chemicals occurs around the modern day home inside and out at an appalling rate.
So many products can negatively affect your health, and although we all want to make sure that germs, harmful insects and viruses are kept at bay we do need to think about this and try to achieve the outcome in a more natural and less harmful way.
Yes, nature has given us alternative options and today with the emphasis on preserving our environment it is up to us to make our contribution.
Not only do these synthetic chemicals harm our health but they also do enormous damage, contaminating our underground water and rivers through run off and leaching.
Detergents, shampoos, oven cleaners, dishwashing liquids etc.
are very difficult to treat in our sewage systems.
This results in toxic chemicals in our streams and oceans which ultimately contaminate our fish.
It is a vicious circle.
However, it can be broken, and if we make a start in our homes we will not only be improving the well being of ourselves and our families but also helping to save the earth and all the creatures that depend on it for life.