Tuesday Tip

Tackle the Toughest Household Messes

Get tips and tricks for removing the worst cleaning worries

 from Woman's Day; June 2009

Dirt may be public enemy number one, but it isn’t the only culprit behind messes that keep coming back: grease on the stovetop, scum on the shower walls, stains and spills on counters. Don’t declare defeat just yet. Our fast tips will help you fight back against your worst cleaning foes—no elbow grease required.

Pet Hair Everywhere

You love your dogs and cats. Their fur all over the place? Not so much. Try these ideas for getting clingy pet hair off furniture and floors.
1. Start at the source. Stroke your pet with a rubber glove designed to remove loose hair, like the Groomax Soft Grip Rubber Grooming Glove ($7.49; PetSmart.com). Your dog or cat will love it because it feels like you’re petting him. Just make sure to do it in the yard or garage so the fur won’t fly back onto your furniture.
To de-fur Fido twice as fast, buy two gloves or brushes. “Do the dog’s back with one hand, the stomach with the other, then come down two legs at the same time,” says Mary Findley, coauthor of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Cleaning. “If you do that every two or three days, it will reduce your pet hair problem by 90%.”
2. Sponge away hair. To get pet fur off couches, carpet and clothes, use a dry sponge like Pet Select Magic Pet Hair Remover Sponge ($5.97; Walmart.com). One stroke across the surface collects not only fur but dander too. When you’re done, don’t rinse out the sponge in the sink. Instead, rub it with a piece of light-grit sandpaper outdoors. The fur will come right off.

Kitchen Grease and Gunk

Cook at home and your kitchen takes a beating, from spaghetti sauce splatters on the stovetop to baked-on bits in your favorite pan. Before you resort to takeout, try these ideas to make your kitchen gleam again.
1. Spray and wash. To make washing a sinkful of greasy dishes a snap, fill a 24-ounce spray bottle half full of water and add 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar and a couple of drops of your favorite dish soap. After you scrape off the dishes, simply spritz them with the solution and let sit for a minute. By the time you’re ready to wash, the grease and food bits will have dissolved. Bonus: You can preclean dishes without leaving the faucet on, which helps the environment—and your pocketbook.
2. Soak up grease. Shake baking soda on greasy stovetop spills. It will absorb the grease so you can easily wipe it away.
3. Clean off cabinets. Slide a round wooden toothpick along the edge of the trim or molding. Spray some white vinegar on a soft cotton cloth and wipe the cabinet front. Then dry with a clean soft cotton cloth.
4. Simmer down. It’s not just grease that makes a mess of your kitchen cabinets. It’s the wet steam that rises from your cooking. “The steam settles onto the dust and dirt and makes it sticky,” says Findley. To protect your cabinets, keep lids on pots and pans when possible and run the exhaust fan.
5. Brew a fresher pot. Fill your stained coffeepot with water, toss in an Alka-Seltzer tablet, let it fizz for five minutes, then rinse it out. “My pot had burnt coffee etched in the bottom for a year,” says Christine McDannell, president of Cleanology, a San Diego cleaning company. “I did this and it looked brand-new.”

Soap Scum

The sticky, gritty film on your tub and shower is beyond tenacious, but our quick and easy remedies don’t require tons of scrubbing.
1. Fix it with vinegar. To remove soap scum and water spots, use a clean cloth to wipe room-temperature white vinegar onto your shower walls. The acid in the vinegar will help dissolve the alkali quickly.
2. Swap your soap. The animal fat in some soap makes it cling not only to your shower walls but to your drains, too. To prevent both scum buildup and clogs, switch to a vegetable-based or castile soap. Even swapping your bar soap for a liquid body wash can make a big difference, says Alison Palmer, owner of Custom Maid, a residential cleaning service in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Spills and Stains

No matter how careful you are, spills happen. And they often leave a mark. Here’s how to stay stain-free:
1. Quick-clean stains. Anything from curry to Kool-Aid can discolor laminate and solid-surface counters or tabletops. For food stains, try a solution of OxiClean and water. Just let the solution sit for a minute, then wipe clean with a sponge.
2. Spiff up surfaces. If your counters are old or worn, they’re more likely to absorb coloring from food. Apply a spray-on polish like Countertop Magic ($5.06; Lowes.com) to make laminate and solid-surface counters look new—and resist stains.
3. Spill-proof your fridge. Line your refrigerator shelves with aluminum foil, so that when the ketchup bottle tips, you can just toss the foil instead of scrubbing down your whole fridge.

Crevice Crumbs and Cobwebs

Cobwebs in the corners make your home look like a haunted house—and crumbs and gunk stuck in hard-to-reach places are just as chilling. These quick tricks will change spooky to sparkling.
1. Stick it to webs. Use a lint roller to grab cobwebs from corners and pick up dust along baseboards, says Julie Edelman, author of The Ultimate Accidental Housewife: Your Guide to a Clean-Enough House.
2. Give crumbs the brush-off. Sweep away the tiny, pest-attracting crumbs that are trapped on the sides of your stove or behind the breadbox with a long-handled pastry brush. If you can’t reach them, try pinching a microfiber cloth between a pair of tongs and swabbing the crumby spot a few times from afar.

Stinky Smells

A whiff of foul aromas makes home not-so-sweet. A few inexpensive tricks will help eliminate common household odors.
1. Repurpose the paper. “Newspaper is a great odor absorber,” says Edelman. “Put a few sheets in the bottom of the garbage can. You can even ball them up and tuck them inside stinky shoes—they’ll absorb odors and moisture.”
2. Create Mount Sink Helen To clean a smelly garbage disposal, pour in 1/2cup baking soda and 1/2 cup white vinegar. After it’s done fizzing, pour a teapot of boiling water down the drain. The concoction will clear out clogs, too.