Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cleaning and household

More Efficient Laundry System?

jacksides — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:08:54 -0800

How do you keep your laundry system running smoothly in a bi-level (or larger) house? I want to hear how others have set up hampers, etc or otherwise established a system to efficiently move clean and dirty clothes to and from the laundry room. Growing up, we had laundry chutes (one on each floor) that we used to send all of our dirty clothes down to the basement. It was a great system - clothes never piled up anywhere; it was so easy to just throw everything down (and the laundry fairy -- okay, my mom -- did laundry almost every day ... how she kept up with it, I'll never know...).

Now that we have a small family (1 year old + 3 year old + two parents) living in a bi-level townhouse, it seems like clothes pile up in corners constantly (especially upstairs). I've tried putting a hamper on the landing to create a centralized place for the dirty clothes upstairs, but that doesn't seem to be enough (plus, when we bring the full hamper down to the laundry room, it seems to sit down there for awhile ... which means clothes upstairs start piling up on the floor again ... aggggggggggh). When we do get the clothes clean, we tend to use the laundry room as our closets -- just grabbing what we need when we need it ... no one actually wants to put away an armful of hanging clothes or a whole laundry basket. Part of it is laziness, I'm sure, and part of it is that it just seems like I always have a baby on my hip, so having two free hands and a few minutes to go upstairs and put clothes back in my drawers is rare.

This seems simple enough, but I'm sure someone out there has a hack or two. I'd like to hear how other people have set up a productive laundry system -- from how/where you set up your dirty clothes repositories to how often you actually do your laundry. Are you on a schedule? Do you just do it when you run out of clothes? Do you return the clean clothes back upstairs immediately after washing them?

Suggest kitchen cleaning products

grouse — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:53:11 -0800

Please suggest products that I should and should not use to clean different parts of the kitchen, such as a laminate counter top, stainless steel sink, or metal stove top. I am particularly interested in products that won't generate fumes that will send me out of the kitchen. I usually use Clorox Clean-Up on the counter, but the bleach fumes are such that I can't really hang out in the kitchen afterwards. I'd really like something that I could use while I am watching something on the stove and have a couple of free minutes. I'm not opposed to using something fume-generating as well after I'm done cooking if it will do a better job.

I know not to mix ammonia and bleach.

I would also appreciate general kitchen cleaning tips.

dirty deeds done dirt cheap?

melissa may — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:18:04 -0800

Where can I find a Saeco Piccolo steam cleaner in the US? Apparently, when it comes to steam cleaners, only the Europeans know how to really scald a thing clean. Various consumer reviews claim that US brand equivalents (such as the SteamFast) don't permit enough steam pressure to build to easily clean tough surfaces. I would primarily use this cleaner for indoors (windows, floors, bathroom surfaces) but it would be nice to be able to use it for tougher jobs like cleaning a barbecue grill. Is this product available through any reputable US vendors? If not, do you have a high-pressure steam cleaner equivalent to recommend? Major points for any product under $100. Thanks!

Why does our kitchen sponge smell like mildew after less than a week?

ezrainch — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:10:38 -0800

Our kitchen sponge starts to smell like mildew after less than a week of normal use. We use a standard "scrubby" sponge that has an abrasive side and an absorbent sponge side. Has anybody else experienced this problem, and if so, what did you do about it, or do you have any general advice about keeping sponges from mildewing quickly? Both my wife and I make a point of always wringing the extra water out after each use, and store the sponge on the edge of our stainless steel sink. We never had this problem before we moved to our current home; sponges would generally take a month or more to get nasty in all our previous residences. We can't figure out what could be causing this premature bacteria growth! Our water (chlorinated municipal water supply!)? Mold spores floating through our house? (We do live in the Pacific Northwest, but keep our house well heated and don't otherwise have a mold problem.)

We've considered keeping the sponge in a dish of dilute bleach water between uses, but would prefer to not have a ubiquitous bleach presence in the kitchen. We've also tried several different brands of sponge, and only use the sponge for washing dishes and wiping the counters down.

How do I quickly clean broken eggs off of grass?

Jenna Roadman — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:26:03 -0800

What is the best method for cleaning broken eggs off of grass during an event? This must be done in a timely manner over a fairly large area, with the help of 4 people. I am planning an outdoor event with a potential of 100 broken eggs on the ground after an egg toss event. The area used is too large for a tarp, and I must get the glass clean soon after the event. I 'll encourage people to clean up after themselves, but who knows how far that will go.

Mold in Microwave

Anonymous — Wed, 02 May 2007 22:06:17 -0800

I just found some mold growing in the corner of my microwave. I'm not a very dirty person so I was quite surprised to see some dark-dark-grey mold growing inside my microwave after I heated up a snack. I'm a little grossed out by it, too, but I quickly cleaned it up as best I could.

My questions:

1. I cleaned it out with 409 because I wasn't sure if bleach was safe for a microwave's interior. Now that I think about it, I wonder if using any chemical inside a microwave is a bad idea. I re-wiped everything with a water-soaked towel, but should I be worrying about fumes or residue that I missed? I'm leaving the door open for now but I don't know how long I really need to do that. I usually just wipe my microwave down with a damp towel...when I clean it, that is. It's obviously been a while since I last cleaned it, and I'm a little embarassed that I only NOW just noticed the mold. :(

2. The mold looked like it had been there for a while (ugh), but I've been microwaving food quite often and eating it and I seem to be fine. So far. But I'm curious now...how hazardous is it to microwave food in an oven that has mold in it? Does microwaving the mold make it grow an extra eye or otherwise mutate into something dangerous? Could the spores have flown around and settled on my food while it cooked? (Or could the microwaves have actually killed the mold? I don't really know much about mold's resilience...)

3. I still see some dark stuff in the crevice where two of the microwave's walls meet. I don't think I'll be able to clean it out. If there is still a trace of mold left in there, and if my concerns in question 2 are legit, do I need to worry about this small bit re-growing? I will replace the microwave in a heartbeat if this mold situation poses a threat to my health, but money is tight right now and if I can safely continue to use this microwave, I will.

CoffeeFilter: How to clean water chamber of Krups Dual Drip Machine?

IndigoSkye — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:50:26 -0800

Folger loving Father spilled coffee grounds into main water chamber of Krups Dual Drip Machine (867), then proceeded to brew coffee anyway. The result was to bake all those coffee grounds onto the sides of the water chamber. How can I safely clean the water chamber? I've tried to use a pipe cleaner to scrub the sides, but the grounds are pretty well baked on. I've tried running a vinegar mixture through it, but that didn't do the trick. Anyone have any better ideas?

Vinegar - tasty condiment or household disinfectant?

catfood — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:34:55 -0800

Is vinegar really effective as a household cleaner? A number of people have suggested to me to use vinegar instead of bleach in my household cleaning, stating that it's just as effective as killing germs & bacteria and leaving things nice and clean, without being as toxic as bleach.

I do use vinegar to de-stink things (the dishwasher, coffeepot, etc), but I'm not sold on the fact that it's a disinfectant. Maybe my Google-Fu is off, but I can't find any information about it except from "Frugal Living" sites, and their primary goal seems to be more to save a buck than to clean your raw-chicken-slimed kitchen counters or toilet bowls.

Anyone have any evidence? Or suggestions for other less-toxic household cleaners?

How can I get my roommates to clean up after themselves?

k8t — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 08:28:17 -0800

How can I get my roommates to clean up after themselves? I am living in a new house situation with people in the 20s, all graduate students, all female -- 2 of us have lived on our own for many years, 2 are right out of undergrad. The 2 out of undergrad are the subject of this post. We have a shared kitchen. We aren't sharing food - using the sticker method instead. We have plenty of plates and flatware but lack in pots and pans. We generally don't cook together. Two of the 4 roommates NEVER clean their dishes or pots. They also tend to leave stuff around the living room area for days on end. I wouldn't care, except when I want to cook, I have to deal with washing out pots myself and cleaning off the counters for there to be space to prepare. And occasionally if I left the plates/flatware stack up, there aren't any of those either. I've been VERY direct (while being polite at the beginning) about asking them to please wash their dishes and cookware after they are done eating. I've done this on a number of occasions. I've also tried being indirect and sending e-mails. I've said it to them to their faces, while friends are over, etc. I also called a house meeting and addressed this (there is one other roommate who is also annoyed but is being passive-aggressive about it.) They only response is that they feel that putting dishes in the dishwasher is ENERGY WASTING. (and this was their one complaint about myself and the other roommate - that we tend to use the dishwasher and the dryer more than they do.) My next idea is to tell them to suck it up and put the dishes in the washer or ELSE. But what can my else be? Thanks! PS, I'm only living here (and in this country) until June, so I don't want to have to buy more pots and pans.

Getting stains out of a white formica kitchen counter

CunningLinguist — Thu, 12 May 2005 05:30:51 -0800

Have I hopelessly stained my white formica kitchen counter? After some recent debauchery, there were some stains on my counter the morning after. Not sure what: could be red wine, could be coffee, could be raspberry juice. I wasn't worried in the least because a little Soft Scrub with bleach always took care of such problems instantly in the past. But not this time. When it didn't, I thought, "hmm, well, maybe more bleach" so I poured a flood of straight bleach on the stains, covered them with a damp paper towel and went away. When I got back, to my horror, the stains have now become much more prominent and have turned a hideous, bright Halloween-y orange. No amount of scrubbing even begins to minimize them. What the hell did I do? And is there any way to fix this?

Drain Flies, ew!

lilboo — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:29:06 -0800

OK, I have Drain Flies. Dirty, disgusting, ewww, gross!!!! How can I get rid of them quickly without poisoning myself in the process? I hate flies more than spiders, snakes, mice, more than anything; so THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!!!