The toilet is just NASTY. Cleaning the BOWL of the toilet is not really difficult. There are a plethora of products to choose from. Some idiot even invented a step on pedal that will dispense cleaner into the bowl. BAH HUMBUG.
My best go-to for cleaning the bowl is several shakes of Comet cleanser and I use the toidy brush and scrub like mad.
No, the nasty part of cleaning the toilet isn’t the BOWL. If you pick up the seat, you’ll find the RIM of the bowl, right under the seat, is a dandy catch-all shelf for everything nasty about a human body.
I buy those Clorox wipes, and wiping down the toilet parts is a job that screams for that particular tool. Scrub all that nastiness and throw the wipe away. Under the seat is almost as nasty–use another wipe, throw THAT away. Get a clean wipe, do the seat and the lid. Especially the underside of the lid, because when a man pees, he splatters, and there will be little dried pee-pee drops on that lid. Then get out another wipe, and head for the Nasty Land that is BEHIND the seat. How in the HELL does that place accumulate such filth? And you need to use your thumbnail in the wipe to clean the glop that accumulates around the bolts that attach the seat to the toilet. Finally, take a new wipe and do the exterior of the bowl (look at all those drips in the front! EEECCHCHHHHH!) and around the bolts that mount the toilet to the floor.
I wanna know what creature is sneaking into houses at night, depositing such filth and nastiness to the toilet!
Before you scrub the bathroom floor, vacuum well. It always looks like a gorilla uses the bathroom as a place to molt his winter pelt.
Two things that require the least amount of time but yield huge results:
Don’t wear your shoes indoors. Keep a shoe rack or boot mat and tray at the door with everyone’s slippers. Change out of of them as soon as you come in the door.
If you have forced air, get these filters. They are absolutely incredible. They’re Filtrete Elite. I have NOT seen them at Home Depot or Lowe’s. They have a dark blue Filtrete variety that’s not as good as costs just as much as the Elites on Amazon. Go with the Elites on Amazon. If you have allergies, consider them non-negotiable.
I have it on the front, just because it’s easier to tape it there on my fan. I don’t think it matters, really, as long as the filter’s pointed in the right direction.
IMPORTANT CLEANING INFO: The Mister Clean Magic Eraser has been mentioned upthread.
This is a miracle cleaning device that EVERYONE should use. Look for generic brands. I bought a case of 300 at a factory outlet and we use it for everything but brushing our teeth!
~VOW
I’ve never been much of a cleaner (I described myself as a Half-Assed Housekeeper for a long time), but I’m finding two things that help me be much better at it. The first is that I have made a list of things that I think need to get done on a weekly basis (on Friday for me), and I have developed a habit of doing all the things on my list every Friday. For me the weekly list is:
Clean both bathrooms (toilet, sink, mirror, sweep floor)
Tidy up kitchen.
Sweep floors.
Vacuum throw rugs.
Tidy generally.
It isn’t a tremendously long list and it doesn’t take that long, but it does keep our house not perfect, but acceptable. If someone dropped by unexpectedly, I wouldn’t be cringing at them seeing the squalor we live in.
Seconding (thirding? fourthing?) the Clorox Wipes suggestion. It’s the perfect cleaning tool, as it allows you to clean anything non-glass immediately and instantly. It’s especially good for bathrooms, countertops, and stovetops. It will take you 14 seconds to clean your counter and stove after a meal.
I use baby wipes for all sorts of cleaning - the non-branded ones are way cheaper than those intended for cleaning. They’re also good for dusting, since they actually pick up pet hairs rather than just redistributing them. I wipe my (fake) leather sofas down with them every day or so, because they still accumulate hairs. They’re also good for home-style dry-cleaning - they get marks off clothing so easily without leaving a stain or crumpling things.
The only thing I’d never use them for is cleaning babies’ bums.
Marigolds/rubber gloves help you do proper deep scrubbing and cleaning, especially in nasty places like the toilet.
Do little tasks while waiting for or doing something else, such as wiping down the sink area while brushing your teeth, or wiping the kitchen counters while boiling the kettle or in between flipping burgers.
I also find it helps to have a certain limit on how messy you will leave things before you go to bed; like, making sure there’s nothing festering in the kitchen sink before you go to bed, making sure all coffee mugs are collected up, etc. It stop mess building up to the stage where you give up in defeat because the task seems too huge.
We give our house a good cleaning once a year before the holidays in Decemeber, whether it needs it or not. Is that too much wear and tear on the house and furniture? Should we cut it back to every other year?
Great One thing about the floor vent ones – they can reduce the efficiency of the furnace, depending on how old your furnace is/how old the house is, etc. So just try to see how the output is now vs when you put in the floor vent ones.
ETA: I said this in another cleaning thread, but wanted to mention it again – I actually enjoy the Target brand wipes better than the Clorox ones. Dunno why, I find them more textured, more able to pick stuff up somehow. I also enjoy the “fresh” scent better; it’s very benign, not strong like either scent of Clorox is.
Well, reading all these posts inspired me and my house is now spotless. I’m just waiting with baited breath for my handheld steam cleaner to arrive in the mail. I ordered it last week. I’m so excited!
I recently got one of those Shark steam cleaners with the tank that separates and lets you clean other surfaces beside the floor.
I LOVE it. Cleaned everything and no chemicals. I can’t stand the smell of bleach or ammonia. Instant headaches for me.
Seriously if it had a vagina I would be going down on it right now.
I always forgot this stuff, so years ago I subscribed to Motivated Moms (awful name, but hey…) who publish a calendar of chores. Each day there is a list of things to do. There is obvious daily stuff and weekly and monthly, even yearly things to do.
It now comes as an app for smartphone which is even better because I can colour code the jobs (or assign them to different people), turn of the daily bible reading, and hide any jobs that don’t apply, for example clean microwave. etc.
It’s really helped me keep everything under control, but I like lists and love ticking things off!!
This is the tip I came in to offer. I am about as far from a “serious housekeeper” as it’s possible to be (seriously, my place is a mess) but in my youth I worked very briefly (I think I lasted two weeks) with Merry Maids. I don’t remember anything else they taught me, but the pumice stone thing is wonderful. Takes stains and buildup out of toilets and bathtubs and causes no scratching. I still keep one around for this purpose.
The Motivated Mom app sounds like what I’ve done to my Google calendar… minus the daily bible verse. Why does housekeeping advice so often come packaged with that? Cuz heathens are filthy?
The one I ordered from Sears was delivered to the wrong outlet and the one near my place suddenly closed so I just told them to cancel the order because I don’t have a vehicle and it was going to be too much of a hassle to pick it up.
Then I found one on Kijiji and arranged to have the owner deliver it for an extra $15 but she was a no-show.
I went to a Walmart super centre, Canadian Tire, The Bay…none of them had a freaking hand-held steam cleaner! Today I decided to just deal with it and took the bus out to Sears and bought a Bissell Steam Shot and brought it home.
I’ve been steaming like a freaking steaming freak! I think my whole apartment has been disinfected and is now ready for surgery!
As a side-note, my budgies love the sound the steam makes.
One thing about the floor vent ones – they can reduce the efficiency of the furnace, depending on how old your furnace is/how old the house is, etc. So just try to see how the output is now vs when you put in the floor vent ones.