A few Sundays back, the newspaper seemed to spill an overwhelming number of cleaning-product coupons onto my living-room floor.
"It's like They know," my husband said. "They're on to you."
"They" are the companies selling household liquids and powders for a little spring cleaning. And the secret my husband thought they'd discovered? I had decided to purge my pine-fresh scents and 99.9 percent germ killers in favor of a few products our "great-grandparents used," as advised by green-parenting maverick MaGreen.
Here's a little secret the cleaning companies don't want to promote on daytime TV: This older, less-expensive version of cleaning often works better. Things like Swiffer mops don't make the job easier. They make it more irritating, because they don't work well and you spend a fortune to do a half-ass job on the kitchen floor.
So I decided to load up on the basics. Vinegar. Baking soda. Washing soda. Borax, which apparently cleans everything. Two bars of laundry soap.
It's one of those green choices that will actually save my one-income family some money -- unlike paying $374 to join a local CSA, a move suggested by several Gristmill readers.
That CSA bill comes out to only $14 a week, a very reasonable amount for organic vegetables, but is a huge chunk for us to pay in one lump sum. We were only able to do it thanks to a well-timed IRS refund check.
The cleaning products, on the other hand, totaled $12.40 and will last for months.
Parents have become so complacent about using paper towels and disinfectant -- they never notice that a hand-knit dishrag and soap actually works better. A quarter cup of vinegar in the rinse cycle takes out all the scratchiness of line-dried towels and doesn't smell. My friend sent a link to a recipe for homemade laundry detergent, which costs about $2 per batch, or less than 6 cents a load. It works great. And when you have kids, you have a lot of laundry.
Worries that greening my house meant it wouldn't be as clean were unfounded. In the end, I think it might be cleaner, although I haven't yet tackled huge jobs like shampooing the carpet or cleaning the oven, so I welcome thoughts on that.
Now, on to spring cleaning. A mom's life is so glamorous.
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mtsnature Posted 9:53 am
26 Apr 2007
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Sam Wells Posted 10:21 am
26 Apr 2007
Onward through the fog
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SnoDragon Posted 10:37 am
26 Apr 2007
As a college student with no time to spare but a penchant for clean, I prize convenience, so sometimes Method's biodegradable products are what I choose, but I'm also poor. For a whole day of cleaning, nothing beats mixing up your own cleansers. It's cheap, too.
Vinegar can make colors bleed, though, so be careful about it in the wash.
I'm off to check out that cool laundry degergent link!
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caniscandida Posted 8:52 pm
26 Apr 2007
Obviously, girls, you need always to keep on the table the suggestion that you soon may take on a lover, or have already; and the information is beyond what he can research: the most poignant dartlet.
In our house, we use Swiffers fairly regulary (my husband being allergic to just about the entire Kingdom Flora), but only for very specialized dusting projects, just a couple of pieces of decorated furniture, actually, never on floors.
On Parents: Right, wrap them up in big bundles, and throw them out to sea. (Oh, sure, with their favorite music playing: Molly Picon, Barbra Streisand, Renee Fleming, whoever.) Just make sure you have the inheritance agreements clear.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Dawn Pillsbury Posted 2:24 am
27 Apr 2007
One warning: none of the green toilet bowl cleaners work. That's one of our few chemical indulgances these days.
Also, vinegar doesn't work as well on glass as we'd like.
We've given up on Simple Green after learning about the tenacity of its surfactants (from the helpful lady at the Sonoma County EcoDesk). We clean the kitchen surfaces with Begley's Best, which is working very well for us. Worth its price, even.
The Seventh Gen dishwashing powder is the best of many we've tried. And Eco laundry soap for our front-loading washer.
For most dirt, I prefer the universal solvent and rags.
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Christine Gardner Posted 4:08 am
27 Apr 2007
"Vinegar works great in the oven too. All you do is put about an inch of vinegar in a tin or other metal baking dish and put it in the oven overnight. It loosens up any spills and stuck on stuff and you can then use the vinegar in water to wipe out the oven. A trick my grandma taught me."
Oh white vinegar, is there anything you can't do?
Although I too noticed a lot of streaking on windows and mirrors, last night I tried my grandma's old trick of using newspaper for the final wipe down. Worked great!
Oh grandmas, was there anything you didn't know?
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SMLowry Posted 6:57 am
27 Apr 2007
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wisemorgan Posted 4:08 pm
28 Apr 2007
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. - Abraham Lincoln
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JMG Posted 5:43 pm
28 Apr 2007
Pour a big slug into the bowl after you finish using the facilities for the night. Let sit overnight. Use the brush on the inside of the bowl first thing in the morning and then flush after you've added your own uric acid chaser. If you've got something that survives that, you need a new toilet and can use that as your cue to go buy one of the superduper two-flush level models.
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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Roz Cummins Posted 1:02 pm
29 Apr 2007
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MCSer98 Posted 3:57 am
30 Apr 2007
I mix baking soda and vinegar, making a paste, to clean my oven. I spread the paste on the oven, heat it to 200 degrees, let it cool, then wipe clean. It does take some effort to get all the baking soda out.
MCSer98
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ckim Posted 4:41 am
30 Apr 2007
I hired the Dynamic Workers Cleaning Co-op (based in Los Angeles), that specializes in green cleaning. I have asthma and I'm really sensitive to most cleaning products.
It was amazing to see this one tiny lady make my house pretty darn clean with just a big bottle of vinegar and a big package of baking soda. All of the other supplies I had provided (just in case) like scrubbing bubbles and 409 spray were cast aside. She even removed stains and marks that I have been trying to get rid of forever!
I am pretty impressed! In the past, I'd used baking soda and vinegar for scrubbing sinks and tubs. Now I realize you can basically clean anything in your house this way.
A note of caution about cleaning your oven with baking powder:
When the man from the gas company came out to turn on the gas at the house I'm moving in to--he told me to be careful using anything powdery when cleaning the stove. It can clog the little holes where the gas connects to the pilot light and also in the burner. He had to service my stove because many of the holes (which are tiny) were clogged with powder.
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meander Posted 4:26 pm
30 Jun 2007
I have been using that homemade laundry detergent for a few months with great success. I calculate a cost per batch of $2.33, for a cost per load of between 10 and 20 cents (depending on how many scoops you use). But there was an initial investment of about $12 because I couldn't find buy Borax or laundry soap by the cup (they come in 3 pound boxes).
---
meander, a.k.a., Mental Masala at Ethicurean
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