Cleaning common messes doesn’t have to be complicated, and there may even be some ways to accomplish it that you’ve never heard of before.
After awhile, those coffee mugs begin to get harder and harder to clean as the coffee stains begin to stick around, but here’s a out-of-the-box way to say goodbye to those stains. Just take a fresh lemon and cut it in half. Squeeze one half into a mug and then add some salt. Scrub the salt around with the squeezed lemon half. How does it work? The acid in the lemon juice lifts coffee stains out and the salt absorbs them.
Rusty metal pots can be frustrating to clean, but here’s another method you may not have tried: cola! Simply submerge rusty pots and tools in cola for a few hours. The phosphoric and carbonic acids in the cola eat away the rust.
Baked on grime inside the oven is a real tough-to-clean problem, but an even tougher product can do the work for you. Just bring out the ammonia. Place 1/2 cup of ammonia on your oven’s top rack, and place one cup water on the bottom rack. Be sure to close the oven immediately and run the vent if any odor escapes. Leave the ammonia and water in the oven overnight, then remove and use a rubber spatula to scrape out the yuck. The ammonia’s fumes will have softened that tough grime, and the water helps soften it. Note: be sure to pour the used ammonia down the drain while the water is running.
To clean hard water out of your dishwasher, place a cup of white vinegar on the top rack and secure it. Then run the otherwise empty dishwasher as you normally would. The vinegar eats away hard water and will leave your dishwasher looking much cleaner!
Carpet stains can be so frustrating! Here are some out-of-the-box ways to clean the most common frustrations:
- For pet stains, pour club soda on the stained area and blot dry with a towel. Once the area is dry, sprinkle with baking soda to absorb odor. Once the baking soda dries, vacuum it up.
- For gum that is stuck on the carpet, rub it with an analgesic muscle rub like Ben-Gay. Heat the gum with your hair dryer running on low. Once it is warm, press a plastic sandwich bag onto the gum and pull it up off the carpet.
- For a coffee stain, beat an egg yolk (no white) and apply it to the stain with a cloth. Let it sit for 5 minutes, then rinse clean.
To clean wax off a tablecloth, use a dull knife to scrape away as much of the wax as you can. Lay a brown paper lunch sack over the stain and press it with a warm iron to heat the wax. The wax will soften and be absorbed by the paper sack.
Speaking of wax, what do you do when your toddler uses crayon on the wood table? Instead of making a sandwich, put your mayo on the crayon stains and let it sit for 10 minutes to soften, then wipe it up. For crayon on the walls, use a non-gel toothpaste and a damp, soft cloth to clean the works of art off the walls. It won’t hurt the paint.
You can remove stains from microfiber furniture with a little shaving cream (not shave gel). Just dab the cream on the stain, let it work for 10 minutes, and then blot it up with a clean, dry cloth. Repeat if necessary. Once or twice will usually do the trick.
Stains on leather are no match for Artist’s Gum, a great stain eraser you will find at art supply stores.
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