Looking at the photo below of one of our homes, you would be forgiven for thinking, "Oh my gosh, how on earth do you clean that thing?!?!"

Well, you will be thrilled to hear two things:

1. Each week, you only need to do a quick spot clean - which is very easy!
2. Every couple of months, you'll need to do a deeper clean - this takes a bit more time... but it's also a perfect opportunity to re-design your hamster's set up!

Hamsters are much cleaner than many would have you believe! Smells only become an issue if they don't have the proper space and set up and if you're not doing regular spot cleans.

If they have plenty of space and bedding, they tend to be pretty consistent with the areas they will use as a loo - which makes weekly cleans nice and easy.

These are the simple steps you need to take to do your weekly spot clean! It should only take about 15-30 minutes.

1. Remove any soiled bedding! With most bedding, this part should be pretty easy. Their little poops are easy to spot & pee turns bedding yellow. Hamsters will tend to repeatedly use the same spots as a bathroom. The first place you should check is in their multi-chamber hide! Top up the bedding as needed.
2. Sift out the sand bath! Hamsters have an uncanny habit of absolutely trashing their sand baths! Within a week, you'll find it filled with bedding, forage and miscellaneous debris. You can use a sieve for this part to save you doing this by hand! Replenish the sand if you need to.
3. Wipe down surfaces. The wheel, the lid of the multi-chamber, any hides you have. Particularly the wheel - hamsters will almost certainly go for a mid-run pee on it. Use a non-toxic cleaning spray and a wet cloth and then leave them to dry before re-introducing them to your hamster's home. 
4. Replace any stale sprays. You'll want to use this as an opportunity to replace any sprays that look like they've seen better days! Either because they're starting to wither away or because your hamster has eaten them clean.
5. Top up dig boxes as needed. Hopefully you've got a couple of dig boxes / substrate dishes in your hamster's home filled with stuff like coco soil, cork chunks, corn cob pieces or moss. If anything is looking like it's seen better days or smelling of ammonia, then it's time for a replacement & top up!

On a much less regular basis - roughly every 2 months - you will need to do a deeper clean. You will notice quite quickly that your little hamster will spend a LOT of their time in the tunnels they dig in their bedding! Over time, your hamster will stash a tonne of food there and inevitably, occasionally, go to the bathroom down there too.

Hamsters don't love it when you tear up all their tunnels and disturb their stash. But little kids don't like bath time either. Your are the parent in this relationship & your hamster's health & wellbeing needs to be the priority.

We only do these deeper cleans on a more infrequent basis so we don't stress them out more than necessary!

So what exactly do you need to do to deep clean your hamster's home?

1. Empty out the whole thing! You take EVERYTHING out of the enclosure - moving your hamster to their play pen / a carrier temporarily whilst you clean.
2. Save approximately 1/3 of the bedding. You do this for two reasons. One, it means you keep a strong level of your hamster's scent for the enclosure. Two, it saves you money! You only want to save the cleaner bedding that isn't obviously soiled. You can bin the rest & replace it with fresh supplies!
3. Wipe down the bottom of the enclosure. Give it a clean with a wet cloth and a non toxic spray and then make sure it is 100% dry before doing a fresh set up!
4. Remove any spoiled food. You will be astounded by how much food your little floof will have stashed down there! A big part of your hamster's stash is nromally dry food, but you'll need to make sure nothing fresh made its way down there to go rotten! You can put the rest back where you found it.
5. Follow steps 2-5 of the spot cleans. 
6. Time for a fresh set up! This is your chance to do a bit of a re-arrange! Changing the layout, maybe swapping out some hides, trying a new grapevine branch - you get to be a hamster architect all over again!

If you have any questions at all - feel free to reach out via emotionalsupportanimals@bandaby.com or DM us on Instagram at @we_are_bandaby