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…

removing stickers

Do you want to clean green?
This post was originally published on my first blog, an organized existence.

How do you get those %*&#@! stickers - you know, like price tags and UPC codes - off of things? I just bought a new coffee pot and wooden bathtub rack from IKEA, and both had very tenacious UPC code stickers on them.

Here's my trick: A two-part strategy to foil even the stickiest goo (and this also works for things like labels on bottles and jars).

First, gently try to pull the sticker off. If the manufacturer is kind, the adhesive will have a low tack, and the whole thing may come off without any residue.

If there's still some paper left behind, either soak the item in warm, soapy water, or if the item can't be immersed, dampen a small cloth (like a dish rag or a facecloth), and put the cloth over the paper sticker for several minutes, until you can easily scrape the paper off with your fingernails.

(If the item is glass, you can also use a razor blade in a safety holder to scrape the sticker off.)

If the paper comes off without any problem but there's still some sticky stuff left behind, you can use a product like Goo Gone - but if you want an eco-friendly alternative, try using a pure citrus essential oil.

Citrus oil is the active ingredient in a lot of the newer eco-friendly cleansers, and it's a great solvent for nasty, petrochemical-based gunk (I've used it successfully on adhesives and tar, as well cooking-oil stains and oil paints).

I prefer to buy Aura Cacia essential oils because I trust that they are 100% pure and high-quality. Put a few drops of the essential oil (I like to use lemon) on the sticky areas, and gently rub with a damp cloth until the adhesive is removed. It may require several applications of essential oil if the adhesive is especially stubborn.

If the item is to be used in the kitchen, just remember that essential oils, while preferable to products like Goo Gone, are not food-grade. If you decide you want to use a solvent on items that will touch food, use your own best judgement, weigh the risks, and if you decide to go ahead and use the essential oil, do everything you can to remove all traces of it from the item afterwards.

One last caveat: Essential oils can degrade some plastics - so when in doubt, test the oil on a small, inconspicuous spot first. I once used a citrus solvent on a plastic shower door, and it ate away the surface of the plastic, leaving behind a hazy, pebbly mess.

kitchen floors

A reader recently* e-mailed me with a question. Here's what she asked:

This will likely sound like a lame-o question but I thought I'd ask all the same:

What is the most effective method for cleaning kitchen/bathroom floors?

It seems like a simple enough endeavour (and maybe I'm just thinking it out too much) but the idea of using a mop that incrementally just pushes/sloshes ever increasingly dirty water around the floor, doesn't seem very "clean" to me.

Any tips?

Okay. First: There are no "lame-o" questions. Unless I'm asking them. I ask a lot of lame-o questions, myself. But in this case - not lame.

And yes, I have some tips. Thank you for asking. (Besides - my kitchen floor happened to need cleaning this morning - perfect opportunity to take some photos at 7:00 a.m.)

Second: You are entirely correct. Pushing around a bunch of increasingly dirty water with a mop is not exactly "clean." I remember once reading some household tips from Marlene Dietrich, and her view on floors was that the only way to truly clean a floor was by hand. I tend to concur.

(Just as an aside: MD was apparently a bit OCD about cleaning. Her daughter, Maria Riva, in her memoir of her mother, frequently mentioned MD's habit of carrying around cleaning products with her whenever she travelled, and fastidiously disinfecting every hotel bathroom attached to every room she stayed in.)

Here are my eco-friendlier tips for cleaning kitchen (and bathroom) floors.

Sweep or vacuum the floor first. This is to remove any crumbs, pet hair, dirt, food, toe jam, etc. Vacuuming was my preferred way to get junk off of floors when I cleaned for other people, but honestly I don't like the noise, myself. Plus I'm kind of going "unplugged" with my cleaning these days. Just be aware that sweeping/dry mopping often takes longer, and can be more frustrating if you have lots of pet hair flying around. Just saying.

Sometimes I wish I was a Quaker. Like, in the 19th century. They had pegs on the walls where they could hang their wooden chairs while they swept. When I'm sweeping a kitchen floor, I either move all the chairs to another room, or turn them upside down on the table, if they'll fit. While the chairs are upside down, I usually take the opportunity to remove any pet hair/dust from the felt pads I tend to put on the bottoms of all my chair legs.



My smaller cat, Guy, enjoying the jungle gym created by the upside down chairs. Also: Supervising my cleaning.



These are the things you will need to clean a kitchen or bathroom floor. (The types of surfaces that this post applies to include vinyl, tile, sealed cork and terrazzo. For wood, laminate and stone floors, some of these techniques could potentially damage the floor. Proceed at your own risk. I'll deal with those kinds of floors in another post, BTW. Sometime.)

A) A bucket. Mine is stainless steel, from Lee Valley. (Actually, it's a compost pail. But I use it as a cleaning bucket.)

B) Vinegar. Any kind of vinegar will do, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend balsamic, because that's kind of yucky. Also: Expensive. I usually buy white Heinz vinegar in 4L (4 quart) bottles, to use for cleaning. More on vinegar, below.

C) Rags. I prefer terry cloth rags, because they hold more liquid.

D) Rubber gloves. These are actually optional, but if you do a lot of cleaning, or at least a lot of cleaning ALL AT ONCE, your hands will get all chapped from being wet and dry and wet and dry. Just saying.

E) Knee pads. Because, dude - if you're going to wash a floor on your hands and knees...



My knee pads. I bought mine at a local hardware store. You can also find them at lumber or home improvement stores, I think. Being made of some kind of foam, they are not so eco-friendly. But they are waterproof, which is useful for washing floors on your hands and knees. Plus they last a long time.



Okay, here's the vinegar I use. You'll notice that it's pickling vinegar. The difference between picking vinegar and regular vinegar is that the former is a little more concentrated - 7% acetic acid vs. the 5% acetic acid in regular white vinegar. You can also buy 10% acetic vinegar in the eco-friendly cleaning supply section of major grocery stores and health food stores, but in that case you need to be VERY CAREFUL with the vinegar. Like, always wear gloves, and don't splash it on your skin. Which is a total drag. Buying 7% just means that it will last longer, because you'll need less than if you used the regular kind. That's all.



Add some vinegar (about 1/2 cup) to your bucket.



Fill the bucket about 1/4 full of hot water. I like hot water for washing floors because A) it's not quite so bone-chilling on the hands, and B) it dries faster. I do realize hot water is not so eco-friendly because of the energy taken to heat it up, okay? Enough said.



Example of what 1/4 full looks like.



The bucket of vinegar-water and some clean, dry rags, ready to wash the swept floor.



I almost didn't take pictures of the process, because A) I was actually washing my floor, and didn't want to stop and take my gloves off to use the camera, and B) I thought people could figure out how to wash a floor by hand... but then I kind of experienced some doubt about the latter, so: Immerse a clean rag in the bucket of vinegar-water, wring it out, and wipe a section of floor with the damp rag. I usually do an area about four feet wide by two or three feet deep with each "wring" of the cloth.



I should probably add: I use vinegar because it is a mild disinfectant (it's used for pickling because it kills some germs, and therefore preserves food), and it's safe enough to use with pets and children around. My cats will not leave me alone when I wash a floor. I would never dream of using anything stronger than vinegar with them around.



I like to wipe my floor dry as I go - basically because of the cats, who will just walk across a wet floor like it was nothing... and then get wet kitty paw prints all over everything else they walk on. Also: My apartment is really humid right now, and wet stuff takes a long time to dry. If you dry the floor as you go, you can walk across it almost immediately after you're done. Just use some clean, dry rags, and change the rags often as they get wet.

(Below is a snapshot of the above scene, about two seconds later - providing compelling proof that cats WILL walk on wet floors. At least, mine will.)



Repeat the dip-wring-wipe and dry steps until you've finished the entire floor. Yes, it will take a while if you have a really large floor. I've done whole houses like this, and it can also be really tiring. But I actually find it harder on my body to use a mop to wash an entire house, believe it or not.



Above is my bucket, after I've finished the floor. I should probably add that if your floor is REALLY dirty, you can change the water in the bucket part-way through the job. As many times as you want to or need to.



My floor - all clean and dry. Hard to see in this photo, but my floor is not a perfect, shining surface. I live in a building that's about 80 years old, and the floors have seen a lot of wear and tear. I NEVER use floor wax - it only attracts dirt, and adds another chore to your life. My floor may not have a glossy sheen, but it has a soft glow, and reminds me of the lives that have been lived in this place, long before I came along.

*Okay, a confession. The e-mail was received in October 2009. Yes, I realize the date on this post is June 14, 2007. I am apparently a time-travelling blogger, alright? Cool, eh?

Actually, I saved a draft for a post on kitchen floors on this date, and didn't actually publish the post until October 2009. My bad. But anyhow - it doesn't matter as far as the content is concerned, just wanted to explain why the photos were of my new apartment (with cats), and not the apartment I was living in in 2007.