It’s very easy to have to almost never clean your oven: Put all pans on a cookie sheet to catch any spills. If you notice a spill, pour salt on it immediately, and wipe up when clean.
To clean up burned on, greasy crud, put a paste of baking soda and water on at night and wipe it up in the morning. Cheaper, greener, and better than having lye close to food.
Pumice stones can also be used on ovens. Cheap & Green.
You’re a horrible person. I spent a full ten seconds wondering how I was going to get to the smoke detector in the bell tower. That’s ten seconds I could have been thinking about something else.
You clean? Wow, that must be why your apartments and homes don’t smell. I was wondering about that. :smack:
Actually, it’s been interesting moving in with someone who is much better about keeping things clean. I’ve found answers to some of the mysteries in life.
The reason things don’t pile up. – She puts things away after she uses them. I had always assumed that the trash would walk over to the garbage can on its own free will.
Empty sinks. – It helps to wash after each meal.
Towels hanging straight. – Gravity won’t do this on its own, they have to be straightened each time they’re used.
Yeah, it’s pretty much the same in our house, too, except nobody really cleans much. I just don’t complain about him not cleaning since I work part-time and he works full-time plus.
From the product information sheet pdf at http://www.pgprof.com/uk/hk_ss_pdf/MSDS_Viakal_Descaler_Spray.pdf:
“The product is intended for wide dispersive use and is compatible with the down-the-drain disposal route.
The product is not considered harmful to acquatic organisms nor to cause long-term adverse effects to the environment.
The surfectants contained in this preparation comply with the biodegradability criteria as laid down in Regulation EC/648/2004 on detergents.”
So, you’re good.
Hell yes. I have tried CLR (didn’t do crapola as a scrubbing agent, but is good for soaking showerheads and faucet spouts full strength), Limeaway (didn’t work on anything for me), Barkeeper’s Friend (make it into a thick paste and it’s great for rust stains in the tub, sink, and, yes, toilet—if you enjoy getting down on your hands and knees to scrub the toilet bowl) and Kaboom Shower, Tub and Tile Cleaner (excellent for that chalky buildup you get in the shower, not so hot on rust.) When I saw the Kaboom toilet cleaner, I was skeptical, but desperate.
Man, does it do the trick, especially once you’ve got a clean toilet. It took a few applications the first time, though. Now, whenever I notice rust trails developing, I just squirt a good coating under the rim where the trails are, and do a light coating around the rest of the bowl, which results in a goodly amount running down and pooling in the bottom to derustify below the waterline. Let it stand for 5 minutes, swish with a toilet brush, flush. Voilà. Sparkly white toilet.
Muahaha! Vengeance is finally mine!
Beat me to that “Tell a lie! Tell the truth!” joke, willya… 
Heh, I wipe the walls with the long-handled Swiffer thing, but I don’t wash them with soap and water. I do clean the wall by the stove if it gets grease-splattered, but I don’t wash other walls.
My MIL was the same way as yours. She did this massive twice-yearly cleaning where everything got washed. This was in addition to obsessive daily Martha Stewart-like cleaning.
Those “Mr. Clean Magic Erasers” are the best thing since cheese in a can when it comes to cleaning walls. They’re one of those rare products which actually works as advertised. I use 'em for cleaning spots and marks off of my walls, and also for scrubbing ground-in dirt on the linoelum that the mop doesn’t get.
The only bad thing is that they leave behind a faint chalky residue. If your walls are white matte, no problem, but if you use them on other colors or on glossy paints, you have to have a damp rag in the other hand to wipe the wall after you get done using it.
I didn’t use to clean this much. Our old house was a pigsty-- I kept it marginally within Health Code, but otherwise let the clutter and dust go.
Then I bought a house, a huge, beautiful house, and I felt like I *HAD *to keep it clean to be worthy of it. I have a back injury, so the heavy stuff I can’t do. I had to hire a housekeeper to come in once a week.
A housekeeper is the best way to keep your house clean, and it’s not because of the work she does, but because I’d get embarassed if she came and the house was a wreck. (My imagination torments me with thoughts of her going home and saying, “Dear God, those people are disgusting!”)
Those “Mr. Clean Magic Erasers” are the best thing since cheese in a can when it comes to cleaning walls. They’re one of those rare products which actually works as advertised. I use 'em for cleaning spots and marks off of my walls, and also for scrubbing ground-in dirt on the linoelum that the mop doesn’t get.
The only bad thing is that they leave behind a faint chalky residue. If your walls are white matte, no problem, but if you use them on other colors or on glossy paints, you have to have a damp rag in the other hand to wipe the wall after you get done using it.
I didn’t use to clean this much. Our old house was a pigsty-- I kept it marginally within Health Code, but otherwise let the clutter and dust go.
Then I bought a house, a huge, beautiful house, and I felt like I *HAD *to keep it clean to be worthy of it. I have a back injury, so the heavy stuff I can’t do. I had to hire a housekeeper to come in once a week.
A housekeeper is the best way to keep your house clean, and it’s not because of the work she does, but because I’d get embarassed if she came and the house was a wreck. (My imagination torments me with thoughts of her going home and saying, “Dear God, those people are disgusting!”)
I love those Mr Clean Magic Erasers!
But I’m still not washing the walls as a regular thing. Maybe for a spot or something.
Washing the walls… who the heck does that?
And here I thought fish-shaking would be your only form of retribution. How naive I was.
I have never washed a wall in my life … and I really don’t plan to start now. My house is lucky I take a swipe at cobwebs with a broom now and then.
My mother does. I’ve never understood it. Cleaning off spots and marks is one thing, but unless you’re getting ready to paint, does the wall really need to be washed from top to bottom? I can never tell a difference, and it’s incredibly labor-intensive.
My walls have a stucco-like finish. I use one of those fluffy nylon dusters on a pole to wipe over them occasionally so dust doesn’t cling to the little bumps, but damned if I’m gonna go get a bucket of water and spend hours on something that doesn’t seem necessary.
Another housekeeping thing I just discovered: My stairs are carpreted in the center, but hardwood on either side of the runner. I used Pledge Wipes* on them last week because the package claimed that it would keep the dust down. By gum, it seems to have worked. Wheras I could usually see the dust starting to build up two days after the housekeeper cleaned them, now they stay pretty dust-free all week. (Or at least they look that way, which is all that matters. )
*Museum Girl speaks up again: never use these on antique furniture, or anything you intend to designate as a family heirloom.
What about decent wood furniture that you just bought & want to keep nice-looking? Will they ruin it? What’s the issue? I’m really curious now, as we have a dusty house, and I just can’t keep up.
You know those big fluffy synthetic featherlike dusters? I found out it’s a Bad Idea to dust hot light bulbs with them! The fuzzy thing not only melts, but it sticks to the bulb. Then, if you panic like I did, and try to pull it off the bulb, you break the bulb right off, in a spray of sparks.
I do know how to wash walls. I learned from a friend of Mom’s that you need a natural sponge to wash sand-finish plaster. At the factory, I washed a lot of walls. I don’t like it. I haven’t washed any of my own walls in 35 years, though. I paint instead.
Mom was a pretty good cook, once she learned to stop cooking while it’s still food. Her mom cooked everything into submission. Mom knew nothing of spices, though, and I had to learn all that on my own. She knew how to use a pressure cooker, which is why I was the only kid I knew who didn’t hate vegetables.
The issue is build-up of the waxes and chemicals on the finish of the furniture. Over long periods of time, this can damage the finish, and it’s almost impossible to remove without causing further damage.
If your furniture isn’t something you imagine that your family will want to keep as an heirloom for hundreds of years, you’re probably okay in using it.
Personally, I don’t find the cheese in a can all that effective for cleaning walls.
I’ll just second getting a cleaning person. Nothing motivates me to keep my place clean like worrying that she’ll think I’m a pig.
I like this bit. My MIL was like this, and I never quite knew how to express it - ‘cooking it into submission’ is just what she did. And she knew nothing of spices, either.
Great - the only people who’ll get my furniture when I’m gone is my step-daughters, so what do I care?
Sure it is, if you’ve got a dog.