Cleaning

on the calendar for tomorrow: mop floors, clean tubs
have already dusted and swept floors 1x this week

if it gets to be too tedious, i may ask you tell me about this steam mop
atm i am still mildly enjoying the physical act of mopping but at the corners of my vision i can see it getting old

i have never been much of a fan of mopping either, feel u LL

i have been wiping down the bathroom sink every day with paper towel ... it's feeling habit forming!

honestly making a concerted effort at tidiness & it's not as boring as i thought

Cleaned the bathroom woodwork with a magic eraser this morning, especially where the cats rub against the door frame and paw frantically to GET IN THERE.

As I've mentioned, we hire a housecleaner to clean every other week. However, IMO, in between her visits certain areas of our house get pretty scrungy, especially the bathroom. I have devised a way to in-between clean the bathroom in about 15 minutes that may be useful to some of you. This is also good for when you you have company coming and don't have time to clean for real.

You will need:
Broom or vacuum
Two rags
Toilet cleaner and toilet brush
Disposable cleaning/disinfectant wipes (like these, but any brand) of at least two more rags
Spray cleaner of your choice

Step one:
Close the shower curtain. You're not going to clean the tub since it's probably fine until the next time you properly clean and closing the curtain makes the bathroom look neater and also hides the 28 different kinds of conditioner you've accumulated in the last six months.

Step two:
Take all of the linens out of the bathroom. Bath towels, hand towels, guest towels, wash cloths, bathroom rugs. Throw them in the hall. PRO TIP: Buy two washable cotton bathroom rugs so you can have a clean one ready to go.

Step three:
Take everything that is on the floor (except the toilet brush) out of the bathroom and put it in the hall. Scale, trash can, space heater, decorative toilet paper cover in the shape of a cat wearing a prairie dress. Then take everything that is sitting on the sink or the back of the toilet (soap dish, toothbrushes, jar of cotton balls) and put it in or on the side of the tub.

Step four:
Put some toilet cleaner in the toilet.

Step five:
Thoroughly sweep or vacuum the floor.

Step six:
Take one of your rags and use it dry to wipe off the sink and the toilet. This and the sweeping with get all of the hair and weirdness that gets stuck to bathroom surfaces and makes wet cleaning so gross and frustrating. Throw the rag in the hall with the dirty towels.

Step seven:
Use the disposable wipes and wipe off the sink, paying extra attention to all the water spots on the faucets. Throw used wipes into a pile in the hall as you go. Wipe off the outside of the toilet, then the lid, seat, under the seat and the rim. (Goes without saying, but don't use those wipes on anything else.) I will often take this time to really get at the light switches and outlets in the bathroom, too, since the house cleaner can be a little cavalier about these (she has other things to do, anyway) and those wipes are good for that kind of thing. You can also use spray cleaner and a rag for this - just make sure you do the grossest part of the toilet last and put that rag in the dirty pile right away.

Step eight:
Use the wipes or a clean rag to wipe off all the stuff you took off the sink and the toilet and put it back where it goes. If you use an electric toothbrush, this is a really good time to pull the brush off and clean all that nasty gunk out of it. Wipe off all the stuff that normally sits on the floor that you put out in the hall back in step three.

Step nine:
Clean the toilet.

Step ten:
Wet the other rag and squeeze it out. Using the spray cleaner, spray a section of the floor and wipe it with the rag. Something like this will make this easier, especially if your bathroom is larger than ours. Spray and wipe until the floor is clean.

Step eleven:
Put all the dirty linens and rags in the laundry. Throw away the used wipes. Put the broom or vacuum away.

Step twelve:
The floor should be dry by now, so put down the clean rug, bring the trashcan and what not back in, and hang clean towels.

DONE. Your bathroom looks shiny and smells clean!

rmde

"of at least two more rags" should be "OR at least two more rags"

"This and the sweeping with get" should be "this and the sweeping WILL get"

i have been doing ^^ that a couple of times per week, only minus the wipes and + the good-smelling vinegar solution i made

just finished sweeping/mopping/wiping (?) the whole place
so glad to be done
enraged at my dog b/c he pooped in the basement

two more weeks til this happens again!!

also that is a good step by step guide carl!!

also i am totally going to get a croissant when i go to the grocery store after FINALLY taking a fucking shower

What is your good smelling vinegar solution?

white vinegar + water + essential oils of my choice (geranium, clary sage, and cedarwood atlas for fresh + woodsy)

when i got the apt cleaned before we left, i overheard the cleaning ladies talking en español about vinegar so i figured it was a good thing to make a cleaner out of...?

feel free to laugh at me if this is not the case

No! Vinegar is a great thing to make cleaner out of. I buy gallon jugs of white vinegar for laundry (put it in a Downy ball and use as fabric softener) and cleaning. I wondered what you used to make it smell good.

I use vinegar on my floors I put some with a little hot water on my microfibre mop, it works a treat. Good for windows in a pinch too!

Carl, that is an excellent bathroom tidying plan.

i got a magic eraser yesterday and it is so weird! am i supposed to get it wet? i opened the package and just started rubbing it on things to see if they if it worked and it did. lots of fingerprints gone. hehehehe.

Yeah, you're supposed to wet them. I need to get some more.

i have to clean my ceiling fans. they are the worst.

i'm afraid to turn them on in their present condition

Tiiiiime to de-mildew my bathroom!! Roommate leaving for a month, tiny quiet little woman subletter coming in, and presumably she's seen the place already but I'd like her to not quail at the sight of the tub.

hmm one weird ceiling fan trick the dust mites don't want you to know

Step 3: Fill a spray bottle with water and 2 tablespoons of distilled white vinegar and use it to spritz the inside of a cloth shoe bag or pillowcase. Put on a baseball cap.

Step 4: Standing on an extra-tall stepladder that puts you about a head above the blades, slip the bag or the pillowcase over each blade, pulling it back to trap dust (you can use the same one for all the blades—just keep maneuvering it to find a clean spot). Use a cotton cloth for residual grime and to dust the base and the light fixture.

that sounds like it'd work
i have been enjoying my vinegar cleaning mixture quite a bit, would recommend to those who need pleasant smells to coax themselves to clean -- it smells great! smelling it is a reward for cleaning. that's the kind of mental subterfuge that works for me :-/

not only pleasant smells, but bonus no contribution to big disgusting company that markets cleaning products almost exclusively to women

Ew, yes. I stick to the oldies but goodies--Pine-Sol, Murphy's Oil Soap, ammonia--but I have the disturbing impression that some products are supposed to smell "floral"?

http://static.navarro.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/f/a/fabuloso_lavender_28_image1.jpg

I usually refer to that as "Grape Fabuloso" because of its uncanny resemblance to a bottle of grape drink, but it's supposed to smell like lavender. Fabuloso also comes in "passion fruits" and "ocean paradise" scents.

A+ for the product name, and for being available at the dollar store, though.

oh i give all of those products a pass for being off brand and cheap, even Gain (because I have never in my memory seen an ad for Gain) -- i'm talking about companies that spend their money on television commercials with women gathering to drink wine and comment on each other's scented candles OR the ones that show women dancing with cleaning products/tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqDzKad2Q3M

brownie! i read about a really rad sounding ceiling-fan-cleaning trick that you might want to try?

I haven't tried it yet but I plan to. Though honestly it only works if you have a bunch of old pillowcases lying around.
http://lifehacker.com/5823341/clean-your-ceiling-fan-easily-with-a-pillow-case

oh wait, carl already posted it

lol nvm

the magic eraser people sent me my replacement mop after I had the hassles with the stripped plastic attachment screws

AND

the replacement mop has METAL attachment screws! weeee I'm so exited to use it this weekend.

oh wait, carl already posted it

lol nvm

I posted it! carl has a team ceiling fan eunuchs doing her cleaning

It's true!

I was going to push the fan brush (b/c it's a gadget!), but the pillow case is good b/c it contains the dust.

lollol "Grape Fabuloso" That's fucking horrible and I'm going to wind up saying that around a small child one day and then I'll get blamed for Fabuloso toxicity.

I must have heard you call it "Grape Fabuloso" b/c I realized that that's how I think of it.

You did! When we were in Home Depot the last time.

cleaned my ceiling with that one weird trick and it worked! it was so dirty i used two pillow cases.

*ceiling fan

awesome

We're getting a new oven as we speak and the delivery guys offered me the opportunity to clean where the oven goes in the process of replacing it and HOLY SHIT it was so fucking disgusting under and behind there. ;_; I may never be the same knowing what happens under an oven. Also some fucking idiot put a glue trap in a little crevice to the left of the oven behind the cabinets that would be impossible to get to unless you disconnected the oven and moved it away from the wall so if something had died on it (thank god it was empty) it would have just filled our kitchen with the smell of rotting rodent and we would have had no idea what or where it was. Also in the process of getting the fucking thing out of there, I got glue trap glue on my house slippers and now my right foot sticks whenever I walk.

That said, our new oven is fucking sweet.

You can buy "goo gone" if the gluey slipper is a permanent problem! $5, lasts forever, takes all sticky stuff off almost anything.

o man i can see the little space between my oven and the wall. Worse than Hitler!

"luckily" I have an electric stove so if I want to I can move it a bit to clean. This may never happen.

I might get some goo gone, since I also managed to get a big smear of glue on the floor next to the oven and it's not only gross but I'm afraid the cat will get stuck in it.

we have a 5-inch gap between our stove and the counter and uuugggh it gets so grody, I don't even wanna know what the underneath/behind the stove is like

*shudder*

^^^ this is why I had to shell out for that sick 6- burner stove :( I love the stove tho) We have 36" of space between cabinets. With a 30" stove, A gap that large would have had nests of dog hair full of food tidbits for enterprising rodents in days. DNW!

Congrats on yr new stove!!

yeah I have to spray windex and then wrap dishtowels or papertowels around the end of a broom handle to clean in there

so stupid

i want to kick the lady who owned our house before us, god she was a grade-a MORAN

I have been making my bed every weekend for 3 weeks in a row now
I feel very grown up

oh AND my house is generally tidy!

I've even started folding the laundry as Mr Veg dries it, instead of pretending it's not there for a week until the pile is up to my knees

sorry to brag but really you guys this is most irregular for me, but also becoming kind of awesome to witness