# Cleaning With Ninn-Friday



## Ninn (Oct 28, 2006)

Ok, I'm trying to get back on track. It's Friday. Which means the weekend is coming. (oh no!) For my family, this usually means multiple showers each day, as they all have messy work to do, followed by dates, etc. Since we still have 2 kids in and out of the house, this means that the bathroom needs a second cleaning. Sooo, it's bathroom day today. The oven cleaner is already sprayed on the tub surround. The toilet is soaking, the floor is swept, the trash is out. The washer and dryer need to be washed down, the sink and tub scrubbed out, and the floor mopped. I just hung up clean curtains yesterday. After that, all I have left to do is wipe down the mirror.

I did find a great product to help keep the bathroom smelling nice. Mr. Clean also makes a great disinfecting wipe. Once a day, usually in the morning, after the men have been through, I wipe down the underside of the seat and the rim. No germs and no smell! I'm looking forward to trying the Lysol brand that are flushable. If they work well, I'll switch.

I love that I can just let the oven cleaner do the hard part of cleaning my shower. I only have to really scrub it out about once or twice a month on the surround. The rest of the time, I just squeegee the water off and it is all sparkly! (thank you, turtle wax!) The tub itself gets scrubbed about twice a week, as there are toddlers in the tub alot lately. 

What's your bathroom routine? Have you found something really great for cleaning the commode? How about for keeping the drains running well? (mine are really slow and drano didn't help one bit.)

Fess up, girls. What are you using to keep your bathroom super shiny?


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## cow whisperer (May 3, 2007)

I clean my sink & toilet (seat, rim, & outside) everyday, using those handy wipes.... They are great....

the inside of my toilet gets done twice a week.... and the tub gets cleaned once a week.... (we don't have a shower right now).... I use a scrub brush & AJAX or Bon Ami.... 

for the drains, I use baking soda & vinegar once every couple weeks.... Never had a problem....


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## Murron (Oct 17, 2007)

Although the bathroom here isn't super shiny, usually it gets a quick wipe down every morning. DH somehow manages to drink his coffee and shave at the same time. Interesting.  It only takes a few minutes to spray the potty, counters and empty the trash. Makes the weekly cleanup easier. 

I only use the _minimum_ as far as chemicals for cleaning. Seventh Generation all-purpose spray for the counters and tub surround, Bon Ami for the tub, and SG toilet bowl cleaner for the commode. That's it. We have no drain issues, but I'd go with Michelle's baking soda and vinegar if there were a problem. 

It seems like you are utilizing a lot of of chemicals, - Lysol flushables, turtle wax, drano, and oven cleaner for the tub...(???) .... For me, personally, I just cannot bring myself to let all of that wash down the drain into the earth. :shrug:


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## Ninn (Oct 28, 2006)

I'd love to find greener ways to keep the tub clean. However, most options just don't get the tub clean enough. I can't stand to see stuff on the sides of the tub. The car wax is a once-monthly buffing to keep soap scum and dirt off the sides of the surround and the tub. Nothing else seems to work. 

The drano isn't helping the drain at all. The previous tenants were all very long haired, so the tub and bathroom sink are semi-plugged. It takes nearly an hour for the water to drain after a bath. Showers are taken standing in 4 inches of water. Vinegar and baking soda was the first thing I tried, and it isn't helping.

I can stand clutter, to an extent, but I cannot stand a dirty bathroom. It has to be practically sterile for me to consider it clean. Especially since it shares space with the laundry room area. Lint, dirty laundry, etc. 

I'm not anal about much. I prefer greener options everywhere else in the house. But the bathroom is my achilles heel. The oven cleaner is the only thing that gets that million year old fiberglass tub surround clean and shiny. If I see hair on it, or soap scum, I get nauseated and have to clean again. The car wax keeps all that from sticking to the sides. Since I only have to scrub hard and reapply that once a month, it isn't that bad. No worse than cleaning my oven or waxing my car, really.

I'm open to better options if they will keep my bathroom germ free.


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## Murron (Oct 17, 2007)

Ninn ~ Perhaps this is a shot in the dark, but, do you think your landlord would consider having a plumber (or whomever) come in and snake the drains? I suppose you could pitch the "un-hygienic for the toddlers angle", if it might help. I too would be irked (and that's putting it mildly) if there were inches of water backing up while I showered! 

And you could always add, with a sly smile - "while you're at it, how 'bout replacing the tub and surround?" Bathfitter - type overlays are certainly less expensive than ripping everything out!  

Just a thought.

(When we were renting, thankfully our landlord was great. The bathroom floor had been replaced, but everything else was original. We updated the vanity, mirror, and cabinet with permission, and split the cost with her. )


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## RedTartan (May 2, 2006)

Well, there's germ-free and then there's clean-looking. When you were cleaning your tub with baking soda and vinegar, it was germ-free. You just didn't like the way it looked. My tub looks acceptable, but it probably wouldn't measure up to your standards. I've learned to live with my old, rough tub because I'd rather have that than put my children in a tub that is coated with chemical residues. You put hot water on a tub with oven-cleaner and turtle wax creating a chemical soup and then you put living children in that water? Forget about the environment for a minute. All that garbage is soaking right into their skin. A white, shiny tub isn't worth my children getting cancer.

I don't mean to sound harsh. I just think all of these harsh cleaners have been sold to us and we don't really need them. They're bad for us and the environment. 

Here's how I clean my bathroom. I dump a couple of cups of vinegar into the toilet and let that soak while I clean the rest of the bathroom. Vinegar kills germs with the same efficiency of bleach. Look it up, it's true. I use a spray bottle filled with water, vinegar, and a few drops of tea tree oil (natural disinfectant and anti-fungal) to wash down the walls, mirrors, cabinets, and surround. When I need to scrub something I use baking soda. The floors I do with murphy's oil soap which is environmentally safe and works great. After I'm done with all that I go back to the toilet and hand scrub it. That's right because nothing gets under the rim as well as curved fingers. Hands wash and the vinegar has had the required 10 minutes to disinfect it by then. My bathroom is clean and it's safe for my family to use it.

 RedTartan


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## Murron (Oct 17, 2007)

RedTartan - Very well said. Thank you.


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## Ninn (Oct 28, 2006)

OK, I'll try the baking soda thing on the tub again. However, if it still looks filthy, I just cannot stand in it. 

As for my kitchen and bathroom floors, they are also white. And brand new, so I cannot ask the landlord to replace them. I'm not able to scrub on my hands and knees every day. It's filthy looking by the end of each day, and I just can't handle it looking dirty. Even if I know I've washed it. 

I know it sounds crazy. I just can't stand to have something white looking gray and dirty. Since my kitchen and bathroom are the first places anyone sees in my new apartment, I really need it clean. 

What else can I try on the floor that is safer than this sponge and will work as well? It's got to look clean as well as be clean.


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## RedTartan (May 2, 2006)

I have a mudroom that has the same problem. By the end of the day there is dried mud around the door. My solution has been to keep a spray bottle filled with a solution of murphy's oil soap and water. I fill the bottle with a half inch of murphy's and the rest is water. Then at the end of the day I heavily spray the area with the solution and use my mop to clean it up. It's like the Swiffer method, but not as chemically or expensive. I use a cotton string mop by the way. I'm not sure how it would work with a sponge mop since they're hard until they're wet. 

If you have a sponge mop that must be submerged to work, you could just run a small mop bucket of water after dinner and hit the bad spots. This should take less than 5 minutes, seriously. If you feel the need to keep them cleaner than that, you may need some therapy 

Also, consider asking your friends and family to remove their shoes if the floor bothers you so. Do you use area rugs? You should have a coarse rug immediately outside the door and an absorbent rug inside the door. "They" estimate that using rugs eliminates about 75% of tracked in dirt.

About the bathtub: You can virtually eliminate soap scum by switching to liquid body washes. Soap scum is re-solidified bath soap. Liquid body washes don't solidify. See if you can take the stopper out of the tub drain to clean it. I did that and my slow drain went like lightening afterward. If you do these two things, your bathtub will stay much cleaner, much longer.

 RedTartan


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## Ninn (Oct 28, 2006)

Red~

I did ask hubby to get door mats, as the kitchen is where everyone comes in and the tiles are white. ( I don't know WHAT my landlord was thinking.......lol) I also asked the landlord to come look at the drains. He'll be here today and I am having him take that silly drain plug out for me. It's one of those push and turn thingys and it won't come out for cleaning. I have a regular rubber stopper to replace it with, at least until we move out someday. 

We're already using body washes, but tub still looks nasty from stuff back flowing into it. Another thing he is looking at. If he can get it fixed today, and I get it good and cleaned out, so that it's clean, I can switch to a different cleaning method to maintain it. 

I can't quite give up my Mr. Clean magic mop, though. My floors have never been cleaner! However, I am going to put down a layer of Future, so that I don't have to use it as often. That way, I can damp mop with the other mop each night and not have to use the chemical mop so much. (I mop right before I go to bed, so the floor is clean the next day.)

And yes, I do need therapy. Although you cannot tell by the way my kitchen looks today, my son is a germophobe. He is terrified of anything that might make him sick. (he's been sick a LOT in his life due to asthma and heart problems) So, everything in the kitchen and bath pretty much has to be hospital sterile for him. After a while, it became a habit and to see a tub with a hair on the wall or a dirty washcloth in it totally freaks me out now! Tub rings? Fogettaboutit. Completely make me ill. I'll wash the toilet by hand in order to be sure the durn thing is clean and germ free. Thankfully, the vinegar in there yesterday did a great job, so I can eliminate some chemicals from the bathroom! YAY!!


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