How Often Should You Clean Your Toilet?

Cleaning the toilet ranks among the grossest chores that need to get done around your house—which is why people tend to procrastinate on giving it a scrub. (After all, who wants to get down and dirty down there?) But properly cleaning the toilet on a regular basis is important to help prevent bacteria and mold growth—not to mention keeping your bathroom guest-ready and not-so-gross for anyone who’s using it.

That said, you’re probably not doing it often enough. “How often you should clean your toilet and how often it actually gets cleaned are two wildly different things,” says Cian Ballentine, founder of Cannonball Cleaners. “And I’ll be the first to say that that’s okay. So if you’re not cleaning your bathroom on a strict schedule, no judgment, at all.”

Still, if you’re trying to determine whether you’re scrubbing your toilet often enough, here’s what to consider when you’re determining when to break out the scrub brush.

Questions to Consider When Deciding How Often to Clean the Toilet

There are a few factors which could affect how often a particular toilet in your home needs to get cleaned—from how often it’s used to who exactly is using it. Consider these questions as you’re trying to suss out if it’s time to scrub.

How often has the toilet been used?

Obviously, a toilet that gets used multiple times a day will need a refresh much faster than one that gets occasional use, such as a guest bathroom.

How messy does the toilet get?

This is where it gets a little sticky. If your toilet is regularly used by kids and guys who miss their mark, those little spills and messes may mean that you’re breaking out the wipes or brushes far more often—while a toilet that’s only used by one neat adult may need less frequent touchups. “If there are men and boys in the house, you’ll be doing it more often, unless you teach them to sit down to minimize accidental overspray,” Ballentine says.

Has someone in the house been sick?

We’ve all seen the gross details about how bacteria and microbes can spread from the spray from a toilet flush, and obviously germs are spread on high-touch areas like the toilet handle. If someone in your house has been ill, you’ll want to clean it at least daily, especially if it’s a toilet that other people in the house use, to minimize the chance of spreading a virus, according to the CDC.

Make sure you get the other high-touch areas in the bathroom, like faucets and doorknobs, as well—and don’t forget to change out towels, and have the sick person use a separate towel.

Is this the guest bathroom?

To minimize the cleaning scramble when you’re having guests over, you may want to keep the bathroom that your guests use as clean as possible. That way you may only need a quick touchup or a fresh towel when they’re on their way.

How Often Should You Actually Clean Your Toilet?

Experts recommend giving the outside of your toilet—the seat, the handle, and the exterior—a quick wipe down often. That should happen daily if it’s a high-use toilet with a lot of mess happening, and weekly for a rarely used toilet. The bowl itself, ideally, should get a weekly scrub-down to avoid letting stains set in or dangerous microbe growth.

But Ballentine says that you can also just go by your senses. “Clean it when it looks gross and smells gross. If you think it’s maybe the toilet that smells weird, or if you’re thinking about it and say to yourself, ‘I don’t remember the last time I scrubbed the toilet’—do it.”

How to Clean a Toilet Effectively

Even if it’s an icky job, there’s one good thing about cleaning the toilet—it’s a fast job. You can get the work done in just a few minutes—especially if you give the cleaner a little time to do its thing.

Start by putting a toilet bowl cleanser with bleach into the toilet, and give it at least five minutes to go to work on any stains and mess. Meanwhile, use an antibacterial bathroom cleaner and a microfiber cloth to wipe down the outside of the toilet, starting with the handle and the less messy parts, then ending with the foot of the toilet and the seat.

Once you’ve given the exterior a once-over, you can use your scrub brush to finish up the bowl, making sure to get under the rim.

You may want to finish up with disinfecting wipes on high-touch areas, especially if someone has been sick in your home.