You know how after a week on a juice fast you really feel like eating a thick, juicy steak but when you do cut a piece, put it in your mouth, chew and swallow it, all your senses and organs sound the alarm in your body and reject it with all their might because it just doesn’t feel right anymore. No? You’d just keep on eating and eating the steak and never look back?
Ok, how about this? You’re at 12,000 feet. You jump out of an aircraft with your parachute gear. You free fall at about 115mph for a minute. You pull your chute. You look down. The view looks gorgeous from up there. You gently glide with the wind. You take a deep breath. Fresh air. Cool air. Clean air. Minutes later, you land yourself smack in the middle of a skunk party. With your chute and goggles on, it’s a no brainer they feel the need to defend themselves. They spray. You’re doomed.
Yup, that’s pretty close to what I feel like now if I come across any commercial cleaning products with all that funky chemically laden smell. Look, I’m not trying to be a wise guy gal and if you’re still using those products and loving them, I’m not judging you. We all do what we like and what I like is for my nose to be able to breathe easy and my mind at ease. However, maybe you need a change, or perhaps you’d like to try something different. Options are useful when this happens. So treat this as an option expansion.
Moving in a new home is already a migraine causing activity. I’d like to reduce mine so I keep my cleaning products simple yet natural and effective. I call them my moving in natural cleaners.
Vinegar
Baking Soda
Multipurpose cleaner
Of course you’d need cleaning tools and a spouse to do all the work, but that’s beside the point.
So, how do I use the them?
1. Vinegar, diluted distilled white vinegar
Half cup vinegar + 1 gallon H2O solution. Wet a rag with solution or put solution in a spray bottle.
a. Floors (sealed hardwood, laminated, vinyl, tile… as long as it’s not porous like marble or stone)
b. Windows
c. Cabinets
d. Walls
e. Lights and ceiling fans
f. Stove and Oven
g. Mirrors
h. For everything basically, except any porous surfaces
It’s cheap, simple to use, natural and it cleans and disinfects. Oh, add a few drops of liquid soap if you like things sudsy. Vinegar smell will be more prominent when cleaning but gone once it evaporates. On a side note: If you’re not like me moving in from a different country and you happen to have an enzyme cleaner, then by all means use that instead of the vinegar.
2. Baking soda for scrub-able surfaces
Sprinkle baking soda, spray it with water to dampen it a little and scrub away with a sponge or brush.
a. Tubs
b. Tiles
c. Sinks
d. Toilet bowls.
Baking soda is cheap and safe and it does the work for you since it’s mildly abrasive. It also deodorizes and remove bad odor. On top of this, you can also use the vinegar solution above to add to the cleaning power as well as to disinfect.
3. Multipurpose Cleaner
A couple squirts of cleaner + 1 gallon H2O
a. Porous counter tops like granite or marble.
This is slightly pricey depending but they last a freakishly long time since they’re super concentrated.
Brands are such as:
Dr Bronner’s Liquid Castile Soap
Biokleen All Purpose Cleaner Super Concentrated
Ecos Parsley Plus All Surface Cleaner
What are your ‘moving in to new home’ cleaners?
