toilets

Do you want to clean green?
When I had my cleaning business and strangers asked me what I did for a living, I liked to joke that I spent my day I scrubbing toilets. (Which, of course, I did.) For some people, this is the most dreaded cleaning job, but strangely enough, toilets are (generally) one of my favorite things to clean. Porcelain looks so nice when it sparkles.

What's the problem?
With toilets, the biggest cleaning challenges are: drips on the rim, down the outside of the bowl, and all over the floor from careless male users; spatters on the inside of the bowl; build-up below the water line from "letting it mellow" (which can occasionally lead to very severe gunk + lime scale); mold growth on the tank.

Old school:
Dump a bunch of toxic, corrosive chemicals into the bowl. Let sit, scrub and flush.

The greener way:
The toilet brush is your friend. Buy a good one - that will reach under the rim, and deep inside the "exit passage". Replace brushes as soon as they start to wear out - exposed brush wires can permanently scratch the inside of the bowl. And make sure the brush you choose has a large, stable base in which to rest when it’s not in use. That puppy will be germy, and will drip water all over your bathroom floor otherwise.

To cut down on extreme toilet maintenance, encourage all toilet users to scrub the bowl whenever they create a "mess". They know who they are, and what they’ve done. This kind of thing is SO much easier to clean up when it’s fresh, rather than after it’s been allowed to dry – at which point it will require all sorts of curse-inducing elbow-grease.

Once every week or two, give the inside of the bowl a thorough scrub. There are eco-friendly toilet bowl cleaners on the market, but I never bother with them. If you want some suds, squirt in some eco-friendly dishwashing detergent.

And don’t fret about finding a replacement for the traditional chlorine bleach toilet cleaners. I mean really – how long do you think that toilet is going to remain “germ free”? If you want to disinfect the brush between uses on the other hand, spray it well with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide (see detailed instructions in the posted item on disinfecting with vinegar and peroxide).
You can even keep the brush soaking in hydrogen peroxide when it’s not in use. It’s much preferable to soaking the brush in chlorine bleach, which is highly corrosive and could be a hazard to pets and small children. Note that continually soaking a brush will often cause rust damage to the brush, though – and you will have to replace the peroxide frequently, since it naturally loses its potency upon exposure to air and light.

To clean the rim, seat*, bowl sides and tank, liberally spray them with vinegar (or use the vinegar/peroxide disinfection technique), let sit for a few minutes, and wipe dry with a clean, dry rag. DO NOT CROSS-CONTAMINATE SURFACES by using the rag for anything else afterwards. It goes straight to the laundry room, okay? And wash your hands immediately after cleaning any toilet.

*If you have a painted wooden seat and lid, be aware that vinegar can etch the finish. Don’t let the vinegar sit after spraying, but wipe it up immediately with a dry rag.

Preventive maintenance:
Flush after every use. If you're worried about water consumption, replace your old toilet with a newer, low-flow or dual-flush one. "Letting it mellow" - even just overnight - causes the worst build-up of unspeakable gunk below the water level.

I’ve read that slipping a 1000mg tablet of vitamin C (or a package of citrus drink crystals) into the bowl and letting it sit for several hours will help prevent lime scale build-up. It’s the ascorbic acid that does it. Don’t pee into the acidic water, though – a toxic vapour may result.

Special circumstances:
Some toilets will develop rust stains starting underneath the rim at the water holes, and spreading down the inside of the bowl. Alternatively, you can put off cleaning a toilet so long that a thick, gross-looking lime scale develops, usually creeping up from the outflow hole. Both can be treated by a (toxic and corrosive) commercial-grade calcium, lime and rust remover. I have yet to find an eco-friendly alternative to these extreme problems.

Another challenge in some bathrooms is a pervasive urine smell around the toilet. I don’t like to point fingers, but the blame for this always rests with men in the household who stand to pee. Urine that “misses the mark” can seep underneath the toilet, and urine spray in the air can spread to the walls and underneath the toilet tank. I’ve noticed this is a special problem in wallpapered bathrooms where the paper absorbs the urine, and the smell is almost impossible to remove.

With a damp cloth, thoroughly wipe down all surfaces surrounding the toilet, including the underside of the tank. Spray vinegar and hydrogen peroxide into the crack where the toilet meets the floor. Teach your men to sit when they pee.

Pet peeves:
I have a special aversion to tschochkes on top of toilet tanks – and homeowners who never dust this area as a result. What’s with those little dolls that hide toilet rolls under their skirts? Please. The only thing that should be on top of your toilet is a box of Kleenex (if that). Dusting problem solved…

rags

Do you want to clean green?
In previous posts (here and here) I've mentioned how much I love my cleaning rags. I switched to rags from cellulose sponges (which are made from wood pulp, and therefore natural and biodegradable, but manufactured) when I realized how difficult it was to keep sponges sanitary - after using them to clean toilets, for example. I didn't want to risk cross-contaminating different surfaces within a client's home, or between clients' homes.

What do you use for your own cleaning? Be aware that some sponges are made from petrochemicals. Kitchen sponges especially are a breeding ground for microbes. Paper towels are more hygienic, but their one-time use makes them wasteful. (If you must use paper towels, buy the highest recycled-content ones you can find. In Canada, Loblaw's President's Choice Green paper towels are made from 100% post-consumer waste.)

Rags are a great way to recycle old clothing and household linens. The best rags for cleaning (with a few exceptions) are made from 100% cotton or linen. Old sheets (especially flannel ones) and old t-shirts make great dusting cloths, and old terry towels are my choice for general cleaning. I find used towels at yard and rummage sales, for anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar apiece. (In a pinch, you can also buy new fabric rags at hardware or home improvement stores, but they're usually very poor quality, and fall apart after a few washings. Not to mention the fact that they're brand new, and usually covered with fabric finishes that make the rags less absorbent.)

I cut towels into pieces the approximate size of a facecloth, and finish the edges with a wide zigzag stitch on my sewing machine so that the rags don't fray in the laundry. If you don't finish the edges, the rags won't last as long. (It's not as crucial to finish the edges on non-terry rags).

Old t-shirts are a great substitute for microfibre cloths, as long as they're 100% cotton. And old linen tablecloths with holes or stains make great dishtowels if cut to the appropriate size and hemmed.

The more worn the original fabric is, the better rags you'll have. If the fabric has been washed often enough, the finishes will have been washed out, and the fibres will have softened and become more absorbent. When a thick terry rag gets too thin for general cleaning, I use it for more specialized purposes - attaching it to the bottom of my Swiffer drymop, or using it for finer cleaning jobs or quick hand-drying.

I go through a lot of rags each time I clean. When I had my cleaning business, I could easily use 30 terrycloth rags at a single client's home. I keep a basket of them in my kitchen for everything from dishwashing to wiping counters to lifting pans out of the oven; once they're dirty or wet, I hang them to dry on a wooden drying rack and store them in a large pail until I have enough rags to make a full load of laundry. (That's my pail full of rags in the photo at the beginning of this post.)

I wash windows or mirrors by wetting a clean rag, wringing it out, and wiping it across the entire glass surface. I then use a dry rag to wipe off the water, replacing the rag whenever it gets too wet.

In bathrooms I start by cleaning the mirror, then take the wet rag and clean the rest of the fixtures, either ending with the toilet, or doing the toilet separately at the beginning with other rags. More clean rags are used for wiping the fixtures dry and polishing the faucets. I finish by throwing another clean, wet rag in a bucket of water to wash the floor, and if I want a clean shine I also dry the floor with more clean rags.

As I mentioned in another post, you shouldn't use fabric softener (liquid, or dryer sheets) when laundering rags. It will leave a waxy residue on the rags that will cause smears when you're dusting or cleaning glass. To wash my rags I just use hot water and a quarter-cup of washing soda with a tablespoon of TSP crystals. If you can let the rags soak in the washing water before agitating, even better. A half-cup of vinegar is added to the rinse water. If you've got the space, hang your rags to dry. One of my favorite memories is the smell of line-dried rags in the summer. Otherwise dry them under the normal setting in the dryer.