Works for Me Wednesday: Cleaning my cans June 27, 2007

Trash cans. Nobody really wants to mess with them. But a nasty trash can can make for a nasty room. So I try to clean mine (i.e., wash them, inside and out) about every 3 months. It’s not as bad as it may seem. Take the cans outside, spray ‘em down inside and out with your preferred cleaning solution. Vinegar does a great job on ‘gunk,’ so I use diluted vinegar with some Borax and a bit of essential oils. Let it sit for a few minutes, then spray it down. Scrub off any ‘leftovers’, and then leave it in a sunny spot. The sunlight will kill any organisms (mildew, etc.).

When you bring the cans back inside put a dryer sheet and a sprinkle of baking soda in the bottom (between the can and the liner). It’ll keep them fresh longer. And fresh cans make for a fresher room! Head over to Rocks in My Dryer for more Works for Me Wednesday tips!

Bleach alternatives June 19, 2007

A full 50% of the searches that lead people here have to do with bleach. I have a feeling there are people out there who are bothered by bleach (for health or ecological reasons) but don’t know how to clean without it. So, here are some suggestions. The main purposes for bleach are to whiten and disinfect. So here it is:

• To whiten stained spots on clothing: put some lemon juice on the spot, rub in a bit of salt, and leave it in the sun for an hour or two. It lifts the stain.
• To clean spills from health contaminants (raw meat or eggs in the kitchen, urine in the bathroom): Straight vinegar is a great disinfectant. I advise keeping a sponge with vinegar near your cutting boards for frequent use.
• To whiten laminate counter tops: Bon Ami – it’s a powder found at the grocery store in a canister – usually right next to Bar Keeper’s friend (which also works relatively well. But we prefer Bon Ami – it uses less elbow grease, and less elbow grease means more cleaning stamina!). We’ve removed coffee stains, raspberry, blueberry, and strawberry stains, and marks from the bottom of pots and pans.
• To disinfect:
  • Borax: buy it in the supermarket where they sell detergents – in my grocery store it’s next to the powdered dishwasher detergents. Borax is a powder and is safe to mix with virtually anything. Combine it with some vinegar, lemon juice, or just plain water to clean virtually anything. It’s completely harmless and safe to use. Gloves and ventilation not required (as opposed to bleach).
  • Vinegar: it disinfects, kills mold, bacteria, and germs. (As an aside: bleach does not kill mold – it just whitens it so you don’t see it. But bleach will leave living mold spores that will continue to grow.) Vinegar’s potency is released when combined with salt, so for a nice strong disinfectant add some salt to your vinegar, dilute with water if you’d like, and spray away. I just used it to clean the toilet seat in the bathroom where my little girl is potty-training. It works remarkably well.

Any more alternative uses you need for bleach? Let me know and I’ll fill you in!

Product review: Simple Green June 9, 2007

I’ve never been a huge fan of Simple Green, even though it was my first foray into healthier cleaning products. In fact, I learned about it and got my first sample and coupon at a Baby Fair (no, it wasn’t a fair selling babies, silly! It was a product fair for people with babies!). I liked it, it did an okay job for me, and through it I learned about the health hazards to me and my baby from regular household cleaners.

That said, Simple Green always seemed to me like it did everything half way. It was half-way environmentally-friendly, and half-way healthy. It did a decent job cleaning, but nothing I’d write a blog about. Now, before I move on to tell you why I’m a convert, let me elaborate for a moment on the chemical composition of Simple Green. It’s made from a solvent called 2-butoxyethanol, which is a known environmental hazard, and it causes a whole range of health problems. But, according to the MSDS sheet, upon completion of the manufacturing process, Simple Green® does not possess the occupational health risks associated with exposure to undiluted 2-butoxyethanol, it is non-carcinogenic and non-mutagenic. Simple Green’s Clean Building products (lemon scent is not included) have also received the Green Seal, which is pretty trustworthy for making steps toward environmental accountability. The good: it’s safe, concentrated, and healthy. The bad: it has a pretty big footprint in the grand scheme of things.

Now, on to cleaning capabilities. I wasn’t impressed – at first. I found that it cleaned most surfaces just as well as other cleaners, with no difference in effort or time spent cleaning. So if I’m not going to save myself time or effort, I might as well go with something that has less of an environmental footprint. Right? Until I cleaned my stove top and oven with it tonight! Oh. my. goodness. I breezed through my stove top. The stove backsplash didn’t clean as easily – it’s a softer vinly-ish surface so I had to use a scraper (my scraper from Pampered Chef is perfect) to get off some of the grease spots there. But I’ve never cleaned my stove top faster than I did today. And I was so impressed, I decided to give it a real test and try it on my oven then and there! Now, this never happens. I have 2 toddlers. In other words, I only have time for one cleaning task at any given moment. But, I was actually so excited about cleaning that I couldn’t stop myself! I cleaned my oven. And it was easy!

So, as a degreaser (which is basically what you need for stovetop and oven), Simple Green is amazing. I’ve compared it to most of the other oven cleaners out there, and there isn’t an oven cleaner on the market that equals (much less beats) Simple Green when it comes to health and environmental concerns.

Thursday’s tip: Sqeegees! June 7, 2007

Wanna know the best way to clean your shower? Don’t let it get dirty! How do you do that? Squeegee it every day! Really, it doesn’t take long. Just a few flicks of the wrist and you’re done. It’ll keep mold and mildew from growing, it’ll keep the soap scum and lime deposits from building up… There’s not much it won’t do! (Except your shower head… you’ll still have to use other means to clean that.)

This is an especially helpful tip if your house is on the market. Save yourself hours of scrubbing the tile and shower doors by taking a couple minutes after each shower to squeegee. It’ll keep that shower bright and shiny – and buyer-friendly! Get a cute squeegee like this one, and it even looks kind of decorative!

Disinfect your sponge! June 3, 2007

I just read that your kitchen sponge – the one you use to wash your dishes – has more bacteria in it that your toilet seat. Eww! The good news? There are 2 simple ways to clean it!

1. Throw it in the dishwasher when you’re ready to run it.
2. When you’re done washing dishes, rinse it, wring it, and zap it in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Really! It’s that simple. Use either method and get rid of that bacteria! We also use 2 different sponges in the kitchen – one for dishes and countertops, and one for floor spills. That way we never get the gunk from the floor spread around our counters and dishes.  And make sure you clean your sponge after you’ve used it to clean up raw meat spills or raw eggs. No sense putting your family at risk via sponge!

And consider replacing it now and then – if you’re still using the same sponge you had when Reagan was president, it’s probably past its prime.  We’d recommend replacing your sponge every 2 months actually.

Thursday’s tip: Shine your sink! May 31, 2007

Have you ever noticed how much difference it makes when your sink is clean and shiny? It makes the whole kitchen look cleaner! And even better, you can have that clean, productive, instant gratification in only a couple of minutes! It’s so worth it.

And it’s easy! Use a bit of Bon Ami, Bar Keeper’s friend, or even some baking soda will work if you don’t have those, sprinkle in your sink and use a sponge to shine all sides of the sink and around the edges. For an extra special treat, add some lemon juice to your sponge. It’ll leave a clean, fresh scent and give your sink that extra shine. To get the most bang for your buck (or bang for your minutes), run the garbage disposal when you’re done with your sink – as the Bon Ami or baking soda washes down, with or without the lemon juice, it’ll help your disposal run clean.

Home-made recipe to polish wood furniture May 29, 2007

The Green Guide’s tip last week was most helpful! They suggest making a furniture polish with a vinegar or lemon juice base, so that it doesn’t make your furniture ‘gunky’ like an oil-base would. Check it out here!  I just tried it – and I love the results!

Thursday’s tip: Sweep entryways to control allergies (and asthma too)! May 24, 2007

Truth be told, I only sweep my front porch and back deck once every several months. Well, once or twice a year to be brutally honest. But times, they are a-changin’! I just read at the IIRC website (they have some great cleaning tips) that regularly cleaning the outside areas of your home that people regularly enter through can cut down on allergies. Apparently, less pollen and debris get tracked in that way. Who knew?!

Now, one thing we do right in our house (though for other reasons) is we take our shoes off when we come in. I remember going to a friend’s house as a kid where I was told to take my shoes off when I came in. I thought they were so persnickety about cleanliness – just because they didn’t wear shoes inside. Just think. What got on your shoes the last time you were in a public restroom? How much of it actually came off on the way home, and how much was still on the soles of your shoes when you entered your house? If you have crawling babies or toddling kids, think of the effect that has on them. (ew, gross!)

Now as an aside… Another perspective on the whole shoes thing – and this is why we don’t wear shoes in our house – is that in many Eastern cultures people just don’t wear shoes inside. They’re seen as dirty, cumbersome footwear that should be traded in at the door for cozy, homey slippers. It’s cleaner. It’s comfier. It fits more with the ambiance and is more appropriate to the environment. And when you visit someone else’s home, it’s one of the small ways you show respect. It’s the same idea as zero footprint. The less mess you leave for your host (and the less dirt you track into their home), the less time they’ll spend cleaning it. And that shows you respect their time and effort to invite you as a guest. Consider that.

Anyhow, it does make for a cleaner home, and I can see it when I wash my kids’ socks. They’re used to taking off their shoes inside, so they do it wherever they are. When they’ve been at home, their socks are usually the same color they were when they were freshly washed. When they’ve been at someone else’s house who wears shoes inside, their socks are almost always darker on the soles. I can tell how clean my floors are by the sight of my kids’ socks…

Spring cleaning tips May 23, 2007

The IIRC (Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration) has some great tips to keep your home healthy this spring and into summer. Check this out:

Spring into Cleaning With April showers and May flowers come dust and pollen that can leave your home in desperate need of a seasonal makeover. Spring cleaning may not be one’s idea of fun in the sun, but the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) has a few tips to make cleaning a breeze. HVAC filters – Use quality electrostatic filters that attract particles to the filter. To keep filters in top shape, clean once per month. Control moisture and humidity – Maintaining humidity at 50 percent or below prevents the growth of mold and the infestation of dust mites; two of the most common allergens. Increase vacuum frequency – Since about 75% of carpet soil is dry particulate, vacuuming more often prevents soil from embedding deep into carpets. Vacuum heavy-traffic areas slowly and repeatedly. Use high efficiency filter bags – High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) double-lined vacuum filter bags filter out 99% of particles that cause respiratory irritation. For professional cleaning jobs, look for an IICRC-Certified Firm – Confirm their technician’s training and certification in the type of work to be performed and always obtain a written estimate.

Reclaim your time! May 12, 2007

Are you one of those people that the day just gets away from? You have so many things on your to do list that you look over it at the end of the day and wonder how it is that you didn’t get to half of it? Cleaning your house may not rank as high on the list as it needs to – or at least doing some of those mundane tasks cleaning the venetian blinds…

So, on days where you can’t fit in a ‘cleaning session,’ reclaim the time you spend doing other things. Vacuum during commercials. Dust while you talk on the phone. Empty the dishwasher while you help your kids with their homework. Scrub a wall of your shower while you’re in there.

And when you do have a few minutes of peace and quiet, set a timer for 5 minutes. Use that time to do a quick cleaning task or two. When the timer beeps, stops cleaning and go back to your day.