Epiphany! Or, "How I Learned to Clean my House"

I have had a revelation this weekend that I must post about! For those of you who know me, I am a bit of a greenie-yuppie geek and I am afraid I am about to fully confirm my greenie-yuppieness.

A co-worker friend loaned me this book, Better Basics for the Home by Annie Berthold-Bond, after I expressed interest in cleaning with white distilled vinegar. I have been reading about the virtues of cleaning with this product for a while now and after a several of my standard commercial cleaning supplies ran out I decided it was time to give vinegar a whirl.

This book is really neat! The “recipes” she provides use basic cleaning products that you can find in just about any grocery store. The book is broken into sections so it is easy to refer to just the area you want. For example: housekeeping, skin care, whole body care, garden/pets/pest control. Under housekeeping (the chapter I was enthralled with) she covers everything: bathroom, dusting, carpet cleaning, floors, kitchen, drains, disinfectants, laundry, mold and mildew, all purpose cleaners, to name just a few.

I thought this was going to be complicated, that I would need a lot of additional “stuff”, but the author keeps it pretty basic. I focused on those recipes that used either on its own or in combination with: vinegar, baking soda, water, liquid detergent and/or essential oil of lavender or tea tree. The essential oils are generally optional, but I know I can find them down at my local co-op and they bring an added level of natural detoxifying, plus I know they smell nice.

I don’t have the essential oils yet – my plan is to swing by the co-op on my way home from work – but I had everything else, even a couple of empty or mostly empty spray bottles.

My first concoction to try was the Acid Cleaner. It sounds horrible, but this recipe is good for homes with hard water, pets and sick people. I have two of the three and we are entering cold and flu season!

¼ cup white distilled vinegar
¼ tsp liquid detergent (laundry detergent)
¾ cup water.
Combine in a spray bottle and go clean!

It smells a bit of vinegar, but it’s not bad at all and quickly fades, especially when compared to the fumes I get when using soft scrub or Clorox scrub.

In the tub and sink I just sprinkled some baking soda and took my sponge and scrub brush to it. After rinsing, I followed with the vinegar spray and wiped everything down. Shiny!

Now I especially like things that react, so I just had to try out this toilet bowl cleaner (I can’t believe I’m talking about cleaning my porcelain throne…) ¼ cup baking soda, ¼ cup vinegar. Dump in the toilet; let fizz (yes! It fizzes like Alka Seltzer!), scrub and flush. That was cool.

Okay, now we had to try the drain cleaner combo: 1 cup baking soda, 3 cups boiling water. Dump baking soda down drain. Pour on boiling water. Watch it fizzle and pop and sizzle. Follow with 1 cup vinegar for additional cleaning (and fizzling and popping and sizzling.) I used this on my bathtub drain as it clogs up pretty easily.

And there was a suggestion for adding ¼ cup vinegar to your laundry during the rinse cycle. So I did. I just put it in the 'liquid fabric softener' slot. I know it’s supposed to help keep blue jeans blue, prevent lint from sticking to everything, and help rinse out the soap. Since I have hard water, it can only help.

I am still short a couple-three spray bottles for everything that I want to mix together and have on hand. I do want to have a cleansing spray of either lavender or tea tree for between the big cleanings or right after a big cleaning. And it’s a bit awkward lugging around a gallon of vinegar between the three floors.

So, that was part of my most excellent adventure this weekend. I highly recommend Berthold-Bond’s book.