Speed Cleaning Tips and Secrets

If you’ve read my articles you already know I am a big fan of vinegar.  Today we have a guest post from Erik Braunitzer of Elliman Realtors describing a few new innovative uses for it.  Enjoy!

If you’ve been spending too much money on household cleaners, look to the inexpensive kitchen aid of vinegar to help cut costs and cleaning time. Vinegar is a non-toxic agent that can be used throughout your home that is both friendly to the environment & your wallet. Whether you are a renter or homeowner, adopting a few new cleaning habits can help you protect your investment in your home and yourself.

Here are 7 different places throughout your home where a bottle of white distilled vinegar can have countless uses.

Cleaning Chores:  Use vinegar, diluted in water or on a damp sponge, to wipe down your countertops, bathroom surfaces, or any other bacteria prone area. Vinegar is highly acidic, making it a great tool to kill most mold and germs.

Laundry Lists: Boosting the color of your clothes by using vinegar is much more inexpensive than constantly replacing your threads. Adding ¼ cup vinegar to your rinse cycle will act as a static reducer, soap scum remover, and fabric softener. Despite its acidity, vinegar is not strong enough to harm your clothes.

Gardening:  Soak your gardening tools in undiluted vinegar to remove rust, wipe down patio furniture for a spring clean, and neutralize lime levels in your garden for better growth potential.

Cooking: Tenderize tough meat by adding a splash of vinegar to a marinade. Making a homemade salad dressing is a simple way to save a few bucks, simply mix 1 part vinegar with 4 parts oil. Make pasta less sticky by adding a small splash of vinegar to the water as it cooks.

Furry Friends: Protect the rest of your home from a pet who has been sprayed by a skunk by wiping down your pet with a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water. Rinse your pet with plain water after you’ve wiped them down with the vinegar solution and repeat if necessary. Cats hate the smell of vinegar, so if you’re trying to keep your feline friend from marking their territory around the house, simply spray or wipe the area with a vinegar and water solution.

Automobiles: Use a 50/50 vinegar and water solution to spot treat upholstery in your vehicle, polish chrome with a soft cloth dampened with vinegar, and add some extra shine to your next car wash by adding a few drops of vinegar to your soap bucket.

Health & Beauty: Stop insect bites and stings from itching by wiping them with a cotton ball saturated with vinegar. Use another cotton ball and vinegar to wipe down fingernails before painting them to help the polish last longer. Vinegar can also be used as an antiseptic to clean out cuts and scrapes.

Undoubtedly there are many more ways to use this simple cleaning agent. Have any other ways you’ve used vinegar to improve your home? Share them in the comment section below.

Courtesy of Elliman Realtors, New York Vacation Rentals.

Your Home Emergency Stain Removal Kit should contain:

A jug for pouring water onto the spot. Water is the closest thing we have to a universal solvent, and it can start dissolving and breaking down MOST stains immediately. Water also saturates the stained item so less of the stain is absorbed into the fabric; it floats away instead. Water should be the first way you treat a stain, but there are some exceptions to this rule as some fabrics will be damaged by water. Check your manufacturer’s label. If you have to clean a stain out of a carpet, don’t overdo the water, or you will start spreading the stain. Try to keep the stain contained.

Salt: If you spill something notorious for stains (red wine being the most common culprit) onto the carpet, the sofa, or the tablecloth, dumping a generous amount of salt onto the stain while it’s still wet prevents a lot of problems. Salt absorbs the moisture quicker than fabric does, so the wine will go into the salt rather than into your carpet. Vacuum or sweep up the salt once the moisture has evaporated.

Several towels: Before and after you apply water to a stain, you need to blot up as much liquid as you can, which will contain the stuff that stains.

Methylated spirits, isopropyl alcohol, vodka or some other strong spirit: Any one of these is great for removing grass stains, permanent marker and biro.

Sard Wonder Soap: If you can get hold of it (it’s made in Australia), this is great for general stain removal in the laundry. It even gets grass stains out of cricket whites.

A scrubbing brush: Often, a good hard scrub with soap (Wonder Soap or ordinary soap) is all you need to clean a stain out of a carpet. The dirt floats up in the foam and can be rinsed or blotted up. Be sure to read your manufacturer’s label. Some carpets can be damaged by scrubbing.

Make this kit at home and you will have a quick solution to any stain that may arrive!

Biodegradable cleaners are natural house cleaning products that are environment friendly or they are products that are manufactured in a completely environmentally friendly process. Biodegradable cleaners do not have any harmful effects like those of many other cleaners that include toxic chemicals and volatile compounds. They do not emit any sort of strong volatile fumes that may cause skin or respiratory problems.

Another big plus for biodegradable cleaners is that they do not leave behind any toxic residues or wastes.

Biodegradable cleaners form the main component of “green cleaning.” It is the latest trend and craze all over the world. Recent technological advancements have developed new biodegradable domestic cleaning products that don’t contain harsh chemicals and are as effective as traditional cleaning products.

Need for Biodegradable Cleaners: People all over the world have become extremely environmentally conscious and want to put in their every effort to protect and conserve nature. Biodegradable home cleaners run with this growing trend of environmental awareness. The EPA or the Environmental Protection Agency of the US has set standards to limit environmental and human exposure to harmful and toxic chemicals. This step has been taken in response to the rise of many diseases in human beings caused by chemical pollution, including skin allergies, breathing problems, immunity reduction and cancer etc.

Advantages of Biodegradable Cleaners: Biodegradable cleaners are safer to use, non-toxic and healthy alternatives to your regular domestic cleaning chemicals. They are safe for humans as well as the environment. The biodegradable cleaners reduce pollution which benefits our health. They are water soluble and easily biodegradable.

Types of Biodegradable Cleaners: Biodegradable cleaners can be classified by their composition, materials, manufacturing process, and purpose. The cleaning products that are made of natural substances can be called as natural cleaners. The various natural cleaning agents are lemon juice, borax, vinegar, salt, baking soda, washing soda, mineral oil, pine oil, vegetable based soaps, and plants with high levels of saponin.

Other biodegradable products include paper towels, bath tissues, hand soaps, door mats, microfiber cloths, and mops. You can buy paper towels and napkins that are manufactured from recycled paper. Try to find one whose process is devoid of chlorine and added inks, dyes, pigments or fragrances. You can purchase door mats for your home’s entrance that are made of natural materials and designed in such a manner that they keep the mud, dust and moisture out of the building. Microfiber material is advisable for cleaning cloths and mops as they use less of cleaning agents and it gives greater performance. If the manufacturing process is endorsed and follows the rules of an organization like Green Seal than you know you are making a god choice!

If you’ve got a bottle of vinegar in your kitchen cupboard, you can keep your car gleaming – without getting your hands all itchy and cracked from using ferocious chemicals.

Chrome responds very well to being cleaned with vinegar. Use full strength vinegar and apply it to chrome – inside and out – with a soft cloth.

Vinegar diluted to half strength is good for cleaning vinyl upholstery.

Leather upholstery can be cleaned by mixing equal proportions of vinegar and vegetable oil. Rub this mixture into the leather with one soft cloth, then buff with another. This can be used for cleaning leather of all sorts, including shoes, leather sofas and leather jackets.

If somebody has been carsick, vinegar can help to absorb the smell after the vomit is gone. This is not done by cleaning up the vomit residue with vinegar (although this will help to kill any germs). Instead, place a bowl of vinegar on the floor (keep it in the bowl) and close the doors and windows very tightly. The vinegar will absorb the smell and/or replace the smell of vomit with the cleaner smell of vinegar. Alternatively, you can absorb the smell by sprinkling the site with baking soda and then vacuuming up the powder later.

Mixing 3 parts of water to 1 part of vnegar and covering your car windows with this is supposed to stop your windows from frosting up overnight in the winter.

Straight vinegar is great for removing flyspots (and other bits of insect) on windscreens and windscreen wipers. Dilute the vinegar to about 50% with water and you can use it to clean windows and mirrors. Simply spray on the vinegar/water mix and buff the glass thoroughly with a soft cloth. This gets glass gleaming and doesn’t leave any streaky residue.

Any of these car cleaning methods can be enhanced by adding about 10 drops of essential oil to the vinegar and shaking well before use. This replaces many of the artificial car scents you can buy and is better for you to breath in too.

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Additionally, many of these tips for cleaning a car with vinegar can be applied to cleaning jobs around your home with the same materials.

When working with petroleum products or hazardous chemicals, a spill is one of the most dangerous things that can happen. Utmost care is taken in facilities where these fluids are handled but no matter how high the safety standards are, spills can and will happen at some point. For accidents involving aggressive substances, an emergency spill kit is your best hope to avert disaster.

The spillage of petroleum-based products in dry land is very serious. Even the smallest of sparks can combust the fuel, resulting in an explosion and/or a fire that will be very difficult to control. Chemical spills are just as big a threat as oil spills due to the fact that direct contact can prove lethal to humans. Even exposure to fumes can result in serious illnesses and even death.

An emergency spill kit is your first line of defense in case a spill happens. There are various types of spill kits designed to deal with different kinds of spills according to volume and chemical properties. For instance, oil spill kits have sorbents that repel water but attract petroleum, making them ideal even for oil spilled either in solid surfaces or bodies of water. Haz-Mat spill kits, on the other hand, are used to deal with unknown and hazardous chemicals such as mercury, acids and bases. These kits neutralize and contain spills so that damage to property can be contained and people will stay unharmed.

When classifying absorbent materials according to the volume of fluids that they can hold, there are usually three types available: pads, rolls and mats. Pads are small sheets (15” W X17” L) that were made for light spills. Rolls are carpet-sized absorbent materials (30” W X 150’ L) that are designed for large spills. Mats are somewhere in between pads and rolls (15” W X 150’ L) and they were made with medium-scale spills in mind. For facilities that have very specific needs, emergency spill kit providers such as DAWG cater to customers who want custom-sized absorbent material.

Emergency spill kits can make a difference in your facility’s accident response capabilities. Investing in these supplies and training personnel in how to use them safely and effectively are the keys to maintaining a worry-free work environment.