What cleaning products do you use?
 

I am a neat freak and very much addicted to cleaning and keeping my house as spotless as possible. This is not always easy with a 20 month old and five cats but I try very hard.

Anyway I am very much becoming more and more conservative about what I use to clean. I have now switched to just plain vinegar to clean everything. It works so well and I don't have to worry about chemicals around my child or pets. I just can't believe in the past that I spent so much $$ on cleaning products whenever this very cheap and very effective alternative was right there all along.

Prior to that I was using "SimplyGreen" cleaner but I didn't like that it didn't have disinfecting qualities about it. I need something that is going to kill germs and bacteria as well as just clean.

I am very environmentally pro-active, so what I use inside my home is very important to me.

I use hydrogen peroxide to clean a lot of things (love the foaming action, especially in the bathroom) as I can't stand the smell of vinegar, baking soda, Murphy oil soap (we have lots of wood), and Sprayway window cleaner as it's ammonia-free. That's about it. My SO can't stand the heavy smells associated with most cleaners. The Murphy oil soap is the only one that really smells, but it's a natural citrusy smell that he doesn't mind. In the kitchen I just use dish soap (planet dish soap: Planet -- Ultra Dishwashing Liquid) and hot water, mostly because we have butcher block countertops. I use the planet soap because I'm allergic to just about any other kind of dish soap out there, and it's hypo-allergenic. My roommate gave me shit about trying to be green by buying it, but it's the only one that doesn't give me a rash.

Does this thread assume that only ladies use cleaning products (or like cleaning)?... not me! :)

Well, ktsp and I split all the chores down the middle, so we trade off on cleaning duties. Here in Iceland, we haven't been able to find any really good supplies, and there are no major brands (well, they're all Danish, basically--and I can't read Danish, so I often have to guess at what I'm buying). I miss good ol' Clorox, though I guess that's not very good for the environment?... but it does a damn good job.

The weird thing is, the one brand they have here that I do recognize, is from Ace Hardware. Go figure!!! It's pretty crappy, too...

Yes I guess there is a small assumption here that the ladies do the cleaning or at least the choosing of what cleaning supplies are used. I guess because in my house that is what happens because even if he does do it, most of the time it is not quiet how I would like it to be done, so I just end up doing it anyhow :)

In our household it's a team effort, both the acquiring of cleaning supplies and the actual cleaning. We try to aim for a pretty even split, though right now I'm in charge of doing laundry because I'm the one with time to do so.

You should let him know that. In time that could be one of those festering little annoyances that blows like a volcano.


Anyways....
There's very good natural citrus cleaners-I've found some at Walmart, but the name escapes me as I don't have any left. Love that citrus scent!

Good old-fashioned bleach is your best disinfectant; barring that, Clorox makes scented disinfectant wipes that work on everything except glass. And they really do get the ickies like marked up doors looking pretty good.

(And I HATE housework of any kind-anyone coming to my house has to be prepared for disarray, dust and less than stellar looking floors. Ironically (or maybe not), my kids were always healthier than those of my neat-freak friends.)

CLR bathroom cleaner for the glass shower door and the shower enclosure.
it is the ONLY thing i found that will cut through our hard water deposits and soap stuff.
and i'd tried everything. including bleach, peroxide, borax, straight CLR, limeaway... etc.
i absolutely hate it because it takes me an hour to get it mostly clean (the residue never somes completely off) and nothing tastes right for about two more hours.

on carpets i use peroxide.
counters i use disinfectant wipes. sorry, i don't do bacteria in the kitchen or bathrooms.
and i tried vinegar on our floors and ended up with a nasty, sticky, cloudy mess even though i used the concentration provided on the Pergo website. so i use a swiffer wet jet once a month.
i'm allergic to all of these, so i try to be conservative with the products, wiping up frequently and being careful to keep meats and such off the counters as much as possible.
my hands peel all of the time after i clean.
such is life.

ngdawg he is very aware of it :) No man can live with me and NOT be aware of my opinion or how I like things done. As strait forward as I am on here, I am also the same in person.

Same here...I love my Clorox and Lysol wipes and you can have them when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Otherwise, I use lots of Pine-Sol. I use it in the toilet, in the tub, for the floors...for pretty much everything except glass. I stick to Windex for that.

And yes...I know it has a fake pine scent but I like it anyway.

I like the smell of a lightly bleached kitchen or bathroom. Other than that, I have recently started buying cleaners that smell like lavender. Target has a brand ("Method") that has dish soap, all-purpose spray, soap, wipes, etc in that scent. Not a vanilla or sweet lavender, but a strong "earthy" type.

To really get an asphalt tile, linoleum, or hardwood floor (in good condition) clean, you need dishwasher detergent. I'm serious!

I use dishwasher detergent for a lot of things myself. I am also a big vinegar user, we have fairly hard water where I live and the softener isn't working currently. I have not found a thing that works as efficiently as vinegar for hard water. The smell is not the best, but it isn't the worst thing in the world either. I also like the rain-clean scented pine-sol(I cannot stand the scent of the original product), while I don't use pine-sol often it works wonderfully on automotive grease, I will even use it in the laundry if I happen to get some on my clothing.

my favorite cleaners are actually a gift from my boss..its called METHOD. i love the cucumber scent, and its really good too. i only use it for special occassions, its very pricey to waste! :thumbsup:

Amen for the dishwashing detergent.

I also go through SOS pads like candy. They work on EVERYTHING I swear.

I follow the KISS method frequently. Too many products for too many different purposes when often most seem to be a matter of varying the scent or color of the same basic ingredients.

I do have one strange trick that I use when shampooing the carpeting though. I use a mixture of the carpet cleaning detergent(don't recall the brand) and Oxy clean. Rather than putting the detergent mixture into the carpet cleaner I use a weed sprayer, something like this:

http://www.housenumbers.ca/WeedSprayer.jpg

I spray the carpeting down and then go over it with plain hot water in my carpet cleaner. This enables you to wash the carpets without leaving all of the residue behind. In my experience the residues serve only to attract more dirt in the future. I got the idea after having a professional come in through my insurance company after I had had water damage in my home.

My SO's mother does the same thing on her linoleum, sprays it down and then goes over it with the Floormate.

I use Fabulouso on almost all hard surfaces in my apartment. It is purple and has a rainbow on the label that makes me smile while I clean. Most everything else is cleaned with hot soapy water for day to day stuff.

I love Method for the packaging. The dish soap container squirts out the bottom and it is so cool.

100% agree with you ladies. Why spend a small fortune on ten different cleaning agents that are mostly the same junk. Dishsoap and a few choice tricks is all most people need anyway.

As for bleach, I don't really use it in my home. Most people have a good enough immune system to deal with everyday boring bacteria, which can be washed off with regular soap anyway. Though on nasty black tile gunge... different story altogether!

Hydrogen peroxide is awesome on mildew. I had an awful mildew problem at my last place, and tried using Lysol with Bleach Mildew Remover, but it was so horribly caustic it made my lungs hurt, and my SO couldn't stand it. So I bought a spray bottle and poured some hydrogen peroxide in it and tried that instead. Worked like a charm, plus it doesn't have that awful smell.

No kidding... wow, I have to try that.

I have found a combination of powder laundry detergent and baking soda work the best. Half a scoop of laundry detergent and a teaspoon of baking soda to a gallon of water, and you have yourself a crazy powerful tool. Wonderful for cleaning greasy fingerprints on walls, moldy corners of old refrigerators, mold-infested bathroom ceilings, hopelessly filthy floors, dirt-stained surfaces, stained concrete, and even your everyday stuff like mopping floors and cleaning bathtubs. If you're working with white surfaces, add a teaspoon of bleach and you have yourself a shiney home.

The best degreaser that I have come across is Zep's Big Orange industrial degreaser. Works great watered down for nearly every household use. I rarely use it full-strength. It works wonders on years-old grease buildup behind the stove from a previous tenant's deep frying habits, barbecue grills, and even bike chains (follow up with white lightning self-cleaning lube for a smooth ride).

I propose this thread gets moved to Tilted Life...come on girls, we're not the only ones cleaning!

---

I don't have US products so mine may be useless to you...also I'm not big on cleaning, at all. When I do, I use something called Sonasol Verde (a kind of bleach product) for most jobs and then also Jif for some things that need a little grit and elbow grease. Also have Cillit Bang for hard stains and vinegar when necessary. I don't really worry about strong smells...I figure the stronger the smell, the more it kills bacteria effectively, heh.