Vinegar is a great home cleaner:
[ul][li]1/2 cup of white vinegar in your rinse cycle will soften clothes better than any commercial fabric softener and will help the fabric to release detergent to rinse more completely. Your clothes will wrinkle less, feel better and most importantly, last longer.[/li][li]A 1:1 solution of white vinegar and water is an excellent everyday cleaner. Mix it up in a spray bottle and go. (Don’t use on marble.) It deodorizes and even lightly disinfects, and can be used in the kitchen and bath. That same 1:1 ratio can also be used to mop your floors, including sealed wood.[/li][li]A 1.5:1 ratio of vinegar to water will take soap scum and scale off of your shower walls and door. Be sure to rinse well, as the vinegar should not sit on your grout longer than necessary.[/li][li]Straight vinegar will clean your toilet as well as any caustic chemical. Flush the water level down, pour the vinegar around the rim of the bowl and scrub as usual.[/ul][/li]
Plain old baking soda (bicarbonate) can be used for a variety of household chores too. [ul][li]Make a paste of baking soda and water to clean stains off of your countertops or to get stubborn stains out of your food storage containers. If you need abrasion, add a bit of salt (esp. kosher salt) to the paste. If the stain is really stubborn, use a cut lemon to rub the paste into the stain.[/li][li]6 tablespoons to 1/2 cup of water makes a good stain fighter for colorfast clothes. Rub into the stain, let sit for 10 minutes or so and then wash as usual[/li][li]If a crayon finds its way into your washing machine, rewash the load in the hottest water possible (for the fabric) with half a box of baking soda.[/li][li]Sprinkle it on your carpets and let sit for 15 minutes before vacuuming to absorb musty smells.[/li][li]Sprinkle baking soda into your shoes to neutralize bad odors.[/li][li]An open box of baking soda will freshen your fridge or freezer, and your closet.[/li][li]Brush your teeth with it! It’ll freshen your breath and brighten your smile. (But it won’t protect against cavities so use your fluoride rinse or follow it up with toothpaste.)[/ul][/li]
Eating an orange? Juicing a lemon? Put the peels down your garbage disposal to freshen the drain.
Cheap vodka (actually the cheaper, the better) sprayed onto clothing, draperies and upholstery will neutralize odors much more quickly – and without any masking perfumey scents – than Febreze type products.
The best releaser for a blood stain? The saliva of the person whose blood it is. (Gross, but true. Remember those old “Era” ads that claimed that protein gets out protein stains? Same principle, but in this case, its your own proteins joining up topull the stain out of the fabric.) If that’s impractical or impossible, dampen the stain and rub in… baking soda!
When removing a stain from clothing, always wipe from behind the stain first. That will push the stain out of the weave of the fabric rather than further into it.
And if you don’t have a stainless steel sink, you don’t have to buy a special bar or ball, you can use a stainless steel spoon or fork from your silverware drawer and it’ll work just as well. Rub the spoon all over your hands as you rinse in the hottest water you can stand.
Also learn to use the large triangular picks as well. There’s the added bonus that if you break off a point of the triangle, just rotate it real quick to finish the song. Then you can pitch it and dig out another for the next song.
A cloth dinner napkin is a wonderful thing to carry in a guitar case for wiping off strings and surfaces. And I cannot sing the praises highly enough for a small toolkit with wireclippers and Allen wrenches.
If you have to get up briefly in the middle of the night and need to turn on a light, keep one eye closed when you turn it on and keep it closed. When you turn off the light, open that eye and close the other one. You’ll keep your night-vision and make it easier to get around until you can get back in bed.
One of the still useful things I learned in Boot Camp.
Myself, when it’s thin but before if gets too tiny, I wet both it and the new bar then press them together. The next couple of times use the side of the soap away from the small piece and they graft together nicely.
Microwaves themselves have no inherent sterilizing effect. Any effect would be due to heating of water. This may indeed kill some bacteria, but will kill neither viruses nor spore-forming bacteria. Spore formers include Clostridium botulinum (botulism), food poisoning bacteria like Bacillus cereus and Clostridium perfringens, as well as soil-based pathogens that cause things like tetanus and gangrene.
Regardless, microwaves heat unevenly, so there is no guarantee that a given microwave session kills all the bacteria that is could.
So while micro-waving a cloth might give you a nice warm cloth, and make you feel a bit better having killed some bacteria, it is far from sterile. Just let’s nobody use a cloth to wipe up raw chicken juice (or Ebola Monkey juice :D), microwave the cloth thinking will be “sterile”, then use it to dry your vegetables… okay?
When I have to set my alarm clock for half-past the hour (or any other time not on the hour), the next time I need to set it for on the hour, I set it for :59 instead. That way, I can set it back an hour with a single click if desired.
Example: On Monday, I want to get up at 9:30. On Tuesday, I want to get up at 10:00, and on Wednesday I want 9:00. Monday night, I set the alarm for 9:59 instead of 10:00, and then Tuesday night, I can just hit the minute button one more time, instead of hitting the hour button 23 times.
All these wonderful tips and no one has a solution for getting waxy deoderant stains out of t-shirts? (post #15) Well, dang. I thought for sure somebody out there would know the solution for this.
Here’s one little trick I use when faced with a hard-to-open jar. Instead of pounding it on the edge of the counter (or pulling a muscle, trying to open the darn thing), I take the hook part of a manual can opener (or the pointy end of a bottle opener) and slip it under the rim of the lid, gently pulling upwards until I hear the seal release. The lids usually come off with minimal effort afterwards.
I doubt it, if you’re using the 800ml needed for Hamburger Helper. It only takes like 20sec to get really hot water out of my taps. Plus, you can start running it a little bit before you’re ready for it
When changing pillowcases on big, king-sized pillows. Turn the pillowcase inside-out, now reach in to the very bottom of the case and grasp the top of the pillow . Do a little flip-fold.
For the deodorant stains on the armpits of t-shirts. First try a soak in water with a cup of white vinegar. If that still doesn’t do it…um, the trivia guy L.M. Boyd was always finding new uses for a paste made out of Cream of Tartar. Try it on a t-shirt that u don’t mind if things go awry.
The -unsalted- meat tenderizer, the stuff with papaya enzyme (papain) in it, makes a right dandy treatment for insect stings of all kinds. Mix with water, make a little paste out of it and spread the paste on the sting area. This for minor insect stings. If you have allergies, it’s a -big- bite/sting, etc… go to a doctor!
Ants. (As posted in another thread. How does one link threads? ). Find out if they prefer sweets or oils by putting out plastic yogurt containers that have honey or sugar in one and peanut butter or vegetable oil in the other. Punch holes in the plastic cup that are big enough to let the ants in. When it is clear which they prefer, mix a big batch of their preference with about equal parts of boric acid powder. Not particularly toxic or anything, but keep the lid on to keep dogs and cats etc out of it. Let the ants eat and eat and eat. The boric acid crystals make scratches in their bodies, yet they keep bringing it back to the nest. The scratches dries them out. Kills an entire nest in a little more than a week. I think this was originally posted for roaches, but works for ants too.
In MS-Windows, using Windows Explorer, go to Tools, Folder Options, View and now UN-check the box that says “Hide extensions of known file types”. Apply this to all folders. Can’t begin to remember all the folks that I’ve helped by that simple little uncheck.
About the only good thing that came out of my relationship with a particular ex-girlfriend was this fashion/costuming tip:
When wearing fishnet stockings, first put on regular pantyhose underneath. This keeps your toes from poking through the holes. You can also get the support and control-top benefits of your regular pantyhose.
I believe there are fishnet stockings on the market with closed feet and control tops, but I’ve never seen any so they can’t be easy to find. This tip is much simpler.
You don’t need to buy these to absorb oil from your face when you’re in a hurry. Instead, you can use a little bit of tissue paper. It works just as well, and most people have some around from old gifts.
When you’re writing on a blackboard or whiteboard, work the board from right to left if you’re right-handed. That way, you’re not obstructing what you just wrote. For lefties, go left to right.
This also works very well when you’re moving and you’ll need to reconnect all the components for your television, stereo, etc. when you get to the new place. Snap a pic and you’ll know exactly which cable goes where.
Soak them in a diluted mixture of white vinegar and bleach. Then wash.
To get blood stains out of a carpet, try 2 Tbsp ammonia and 1 Tbsp mild detergent in 1 cup water. If the blood has dried, first make a paste of cornstarch and cold water. Rub it in and let it harden. Then break it up with a hammer and vacuum. Follow with the ammonia/detergent mixture (soap may be substituted for detergent). This works even for large stains that have dried overnight.
To remove blood from leather furniture, use hydrogen peroxide. Dry with a cotton ball – or for larger stains, a cotton cloth.
