"Greening Your Cleaning," Toxin Hysteria, and Mrs. Imus

[Contrapuntal]

@rayh

How do you kill a dead cow?

Exactly!

[KneadToKnow]

@rayh

How do you kill a dead cow?

With my spear and magic helmet.

[Anne_Neville]

@Larry Mudd

She kept trying to feed me aconite supplements, too.

I’m an expert on aconite, having read quite a few murder mysteries that involved it. I say she was trying to kill you.

@Unauthorized Cinnamon

I have two basic cleaning products - orange oil cleaner and dilute bleach solution. OK, I do use the flushable toilet scrubbers, because that makes it much more likely I’ll actually clean the toilet. But I do agree that people who have buckets and cabinets full of different cleaners, and particularly things like air freshener and super-specialized cleaning products, are a.) overdoing it, and b.) exposing themselves to more potentially harmful fumes and residues than necessary.

I suspect they’re also potentially exposing themselves to risks when they use more than one of those cleansers at the same time. Bleach and ammonia are common ingredients in cleansers, and really shouldn’t be mixed.

So if there’s a book that sensibly talks about what products are really necessary for health and safety (something to kill the scary bacteria, viruses, and molds) and what products are largely marketing hype, and reasonably outlines the risks of common ingredients, and provides alternatives where the scarier stuff is unnecessary, I would be interested in that book.

No book to recommend, but some common-sense advice:

Most bacteria, viruses, molds, and what have you that you find around the house are not likely to kill you, unless you have a compromised immune system or get them into an open wound or something. Getting a cold, or getting sick for a couple of days, is not the end of the world. In fact, there’s a theory that so many people have allergies these days because we’re keeping our home environments too clean and germ-free, so our immune systems get bored and go after other stuff.

[bouv]

@KneadToKnow

With my spear and magic helmet.

Spear and magic helmet?

[Larry_Mudd]

@bouv

Spear and magic helmet?

Either a phallic pun, or a reference to RPGs.

Either way, it involves dorks.

Actually, Bugs Bunny.