Entries Tagged as 'Cleaning that mess'

Thursday’s Quick Tip to Curb Clutter

September 3rd, 2009 6 Comments

Heather says:

Remember last week’s Put Your Crap Away? It’s about as close to a magic pill as a person can find.

If you work outside the home, it won’t be as intensive a process. Get ready to go a few minutes early. Then just before you leave, take a walk through the main living area. You see that magazine lying in the middle of the floor? You’re done with it. Put it in the recycling. That newspaper? Same idea. The throw on the couch, the cereal bowl on the coffe table? Straighten and put away. If you don’t, tonight or tomorrow those items will attract friends. In the case of the paper clutter, it’s just easier to add to the pile. The cereal bowl invites friends of a different sort.

Is it perfect? No, but it won’t be as difficult to face in the evening. Go to work, have as good a day as possible.

Those of us who stay or work from home need to do the same thing, but it must be repeated after each meal. Why? Because the more chaos already in a room, the easier it is to be lazy. Suck it up and put it away. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the house is a wreck. Get into the habit of picking up after yourself throughout the day. If you have children, it takes more effort -but seriously, what doesn’t when there are mulitple children involved?- As soon as they are steady on their feet, it’s time for them to put their cups, bowls, and plates in or by the sink. It’s not cruel to expect a person to clean up after themselves.  Yes, I know it’s a pain in your butt, it’s just another one of those less fun parenting moments.

It will get easier.

Tags:

Cleaning a Grungy Grille aka the Cover of the Central Air Return

August 30th, 2009 10 Comments

Heather says:

I wish I'd been able to have input on the placement of the air return. Seriously.

I wish I'd been able to have input on the placement of the air return. Seriously.

Builders and contractors don’t always use common sense when planning the layout of a home’s heating and cooling duct work. Sometimes the grille, or vent cover, is right in the middle of a wall. Even though I frequently run the soft brush attachment over the grille and occasionally spray it off with the hose, our vent cover was gross. After giving it some thought, I realized this was due to pollen. Each year, despite common sense, we throw the windows wide open and invite the fresh air in. There is something wonderful about airing out a home, those first warm days.  Unfortunately riding on the breeze comes pollen in all its sticky, tacky glory. Over time, dust clings to pollen and forms an unholy bond. I know this, because I have tried scrubbing the grille with soapy water and brush with less than stellar results.

Two days ago I was hit by inspiration.

Somewhere in the recesses of the cleaning supply cabinet was a can of fume-free oven cleaner. Why we have this, I’m not really sure*.

I think the oven cleaner may have arrived when a friend passed along what the movers wouldn’t pack. We have a self-cleaning oven, I can’t imagine what would possess me to buy a can.  The oven cleaner caught my eye and I decided, what the heck it’s this or buying spray paint. I removed the grille and took it to the bathroom -it was raining. After chasing the kids out of my make-up and out of the room, I sprayed down the entire grille, turned on the exhaust fan, and walked away. Ten minutes later I used the shower to rinse off the oven cleaner. To my delight, the grille looks brand new.

Is this a great cleaning tip for everyone? Not necessarily, as I hope most of you don’t have air returns smack in the middle of your living room. If your air return is in the ceiling, it’s less likely to have the pollen problem. It’ll still get dusty, but a quick wipe with a damp rag or the soft brush of a vacuum cleaner should be sufficient.

Have you ever stumbled on a strange solution to a cleaning problem?

*Am I the only one who has mysterious items show up in their home? Today we found a child’s shoe that does not belong to any of our children.

Tags:

Crying Over Spilled Milk

August 26th, 2009 No Comments

Dear Home Ec 101,

How does one remove dried milk from wood? Every low surface in my kitchen (chair legs, table legs, cabinets) is full of dried milk spots from spills that always go farther and cover more area than you can initially see. No matter how I try to clean them, I get the same result: it looks clean while it’s still wet and I think I’ve won, but as soon as it dries, the spots are still all there!

Signed,

Sobbing Suze in Toddler Town

Heather says:
Chin up, chicky the solution isn’t that difficult. Grab a bucket, or two if you’re lazy like me and hate getting up and down from the floor. If you take the two bucket approach, you might as well grab two rags. Fill the first bucket with a healthy dollop of dish soap like something like old fashioned Dawn the plain, dark blue, nothing fancy added dish detergent. Add just an inch or two of water.  Now, swish and swish the water until you have a lot of frothy suds.

In your other bucket just use clear water.

Wet the first rag with just the soapy bubbles, don’t dip it down into the water.  The world won’t end if you do, but try to get it as soapy, with the foam as possible. Now scrub off the milk spots and use a little elbow grease while you are at it. Next take your second rag, dip it in the plain water, wring it out, and wipe off the soap. Be sure to rinse this rag frequently.

When the chair legs are dry, give them a polish. I’m not huge on recommending brands, but I am a fan of the Method Wood for Good. I mean seriously, I don’t even like perfumes and it smells fantastic. I’m sure those with nut allergies are about to send well punctuated and tactful e-mails describing my insensitivity. Y’all get a pass, you don’t have to like the scent, save your ire for when I sing the praises of peanut butter.

Send your domestic mysteries to helpme@home-ec101.com.
We won’t always be nice or even prompt, but we will eventually answer.

Tags:   ·

Household Management: Determining Your Management Style

August 11th, 2009 10 Comments

retrochick.JPGIvy says:

As I’ve said here about 50 million times, Mr. Ivy is a restaurant manager. One of the common themes in our conversations is how other people manage the restaurant and how it meshes (or doesn’t mesh) with his own management style. Within your own household, you and your significant other will have different management styles as well. So let’s look at a few types of management styles and what works best together.

The Micromanager: The micromanager is the sort of person who is on top of everything. I know a woman who you could ask anytime, any place, how many cans of peaches she had in her pantry and she could tell you exactly how many she had and exactly where they were. Heather’s a good example of a micromanager. She sets you to a task and keeps on top of whether or not you’ve done the task. Micromanagers are best paired with idealists.

The Idealist: The idealist is good at figuring out better ways to do things. Idealists tend to be scattered, however, and sometimes fall down on the actualizing part. When paired with a micromanager, who plows through and gets tons of things done, they can accomplish miracles. I’m a perfect example of an idealist. I come up with ways to organize things, or a new method of laundry doing. I just don’t always get the actual work of it done. With the help of my minions children and Mr. Ivy though, I do get a lot done.

The Steady One: The steady one has a set routine. They don’t work particularly fast, they don’t work particularly slowly. When a decision needs to be made, they may deliberate far too long when an answer needs to come right away. But they are like clockwork with getting things done and making sure others do their fair share as well. They are best paired with firemen.

The Fireman: Yeah, I’d like to be paired with a fireman, too. Oh, wait. Not that sort of fireman. Like real firemen, these people spend a lot of time lounging around until an emergency happens. When the emergency (aka surprise mother-in-law visit) happens, they spring into action. They make quick decisions which means they are paired well with the steady one.

And finally:

The Slacker: Identified by piles of junk in the closet, cupboard, or just out in plain sight. The slacker can usually be turned around and made to work hard, but it takes a real taskmaster to do it. Best paired with: Nobody

So, Home Eccers- I must ask you, what is your management style? What’s your partner’s style?

Tags:

When Cats Go…On The Bed

July 16th, 2009 7 Comments

Dear Home Ec 101,

We recently adopted another stray cat, and while two of the other three cats have adjusted fine, my oldest has not. He decided instead of getting chased around by the new guy, he would instead take up residence on the top floor of the house (where he was always most happy anyway, sunning in the windows, etc.). However, I didn’t realize it until it was too late that he was not going downstairs to use one of the two litterboxes. One day I went upstairs to go to bed and realized that sometime in the past two days, he had relived his bladder all over the bed! (My husband and I fall asleep on the couch a lot and hadn’t slept upstairs the previous two nights, or we would have noticed it sooner.)

I immediately stripped the mattress and washed the sheets and comforter several times, and the smell is gone from those items. I soaked up as much of the urine as I could with paper towels and sponges, and then headed to PetSmart to buy some Nature’s Miracle cleaner. I followed the directions and completely soaked the spots where the urine was, and then three days later repeated the process with a different Nature’s Miracle product (one targeted specifically for urine).

But here’s my new problem: It’s been a week, and while my husband swears he can’t smell the urine anymore, I still get whiffs of something–whether it’s urine or just the cleaner, I’m not sure. But it smells funky, and I don’t know what to do! I was hoping HE101 might be able to suggest something else I could do to make my mattress smell fresh again. It’s a pillow-top mattress so I can’t flip it, and we just don’t have the money right now to go out and buy a whole new one yet.

Thanks!!!

Stinky in Stanton

retrochick.JPGIvy says:

Ah, man, I’ve had a cat that peed on my bed. It’s not a good thing at all. First suggestion for the cat: make sure you have a litterbox upstairs for him. And make sure you have the magic number of litterboxes as well. Now, let’s deal with the bed.

Cat pee is really hard to get out of things. The Nature’s Miracle works well, but I agree with you that it leaves a faint smell of…I dunno. Something that’s not good. What I have found that works is to take a box of baking soda and sprinkle it heavily over your bed. Let it sit like that for at least an hour or two. Then vacuum it up. There are all sorts of ways to get that smell out, but I feel like this is the way of the least work, mess, and cost.

Tags: