Sharing is Caring, Especially When It Comes to Cleaning

How to Keep Sand Out of Your House

Beach Sandals | Flat Rate Carpet BlogNothing is more refreshing than a weekend at the beach, but nothing is more annoying that having sand all over your home. Follow these few simple tricks and you won’t worry about bringing the beach home with you ever again.

Do your best to leave as much sand at the beach as possible. If you don’t bring it into the car, then it won’t make it back to your house. Make sure that you shake out all towels and beach clothing before heading home.

Invest in a small brush, like a paint brush, and brush off any beach toys before packing them away. Keep a dedicated bag for beach toys, and make sure you leave it in the garage or in an entryway closet.

Simply wiping sand off the body doesn’t work very well, especially on men. Instead use cornstarch or talcum powder. Rub the powder on your arms, legs, and um, other beachy areas, and watch how easily the sand slips right off.

Taking the extra time to clean up sand before you get into the home, will save you a summer of cleaning sand from every corner of the house.

How to Clean a Cutting Board

Keeping a clean cutting board is one of the most important steps to kitchen safety. Kitchen counters have a smooth surface that’s easy to clean, but cutting boards have lots of tiny places for germs to hide.

To keep a cutting board clean, you need to do more than just rinse it with a little bit of soap. Fortunately, white vinegar is a great disinfectant and is much safer than using chlorine bleach.

Just mix a little bit of white vinegar with water, and generously cover the cutting board in the mixture. Allow it to sit for about 10 minutes before rinsing the board and washing with soap and water.

Raw meat has lots of bacteria that can make your family sick, that’s why it’s a good idea to have a separate cutting board for meat. Unlike cutting boards that are only used for vegetables, meat cutting boards need to be sanitized after every use.

The same mixture of white vinegar and water will work to sanitize a meat cutting board, but make sure you also sanitize the counter area around where you’ve been cutting meat. Any invisible splatter could spread salmonella or e-coli.

A little extra effort to sanitize and clean your cutting boards will keep your family safe and your kitchen clean.

 

Summer Laundry Tips

Laundry | Flat Rate Carpet BlogSummer is a busy time of the year, and all that activity leaves your laundry pile loaded with strange new stains. Don’t spend your summer scrubbing grass stains, remove summer’s most annoying stains with these simple stain removers.

Grass and other plant stains respond well to pretreating. Use a special prewash spray, or just dab on some detergent and let it sit on the stain for a few minutes before washing. Treat any remaining stain with rubbing alcohol, and wash in the hottest water possible.

No barbecue would be complete without a large blob of ketchup or barbecue sauce landing on someone’s outfit. Scrap (not wipe!) off any remaining sauce before letting the item soak in cold water for about half an hour. Pretreat the stain, and then wash with warm water. For fabrics that are 100% cotton you can treat the area with undiluted white vinegar.

When melted ice cream lands in your lap, soak the fabric in cold water until the stain is gone. Wash the clothing in warm water, and if anything is left over use a stain stick to treat the area before washing again.

If you have a super messy family, make sure to always pack a stain stick in your bag. Pretreating a stain is the best way to keep it from sticking around. Don’t let a few stains ruin your summer fun!

How To Get Mildew Out of Clothes

Taking down that box of summer clothes that you’ve been dreaming about all winter can quickly turn to a nightmare if your clothing is covered in mildew. Mildew is a mold that tends to grow in dark places within the home, and smells terribly. Don’t toss out all your clothes just yet, with a few tricks it’s easy to get mildew out of clothes.

First, take the clothes outside and brush off any visible mildew. Doing this outside keeps the mildew from spreading in your home and the sunlight also helps kill mildew.

Bleach is the best way to get mildew out of clothes, but make sure you use the right kind of bleach. If possible, use chlorine bleach and wash with the hottest water possible. Oxygen bleach is safer for most fabrics, so if you can’t use chlorine bleach soak the clothing in oxygen bleach and super hot water for half an hour before washing.

Sun dried clothing is rough on the skin, but it’s worth leaving your clothes to dry in the sun after washing to kill any remaining mildew. When the clothes are almost dry, running them through the dryer for a few minutes will soften them.

Don’t let mildew ruin your summer wardrobe.

How to Disinfect Toys

Most websites will tell you to clean baby toys with a mixture of water and chlorine bleach. Personally, I don’t like the idea of my child putting anything covered in bleach in it’s mouth, but how else can a toy be disinfected and still safe?

There are a few easy ways to clean and disinfect toys, without using harsh chemicals.

Distilled white vinegar is the organic cleaners best friend. Not only is white vinegar a great disinfectant, but it also removes odors and stains. Mix a solution of equal parts white vinegar and water, and viola!

Place the mix in a spray bottle and use it to wipe down your child’s toys.

And don’t worry about the vinegar smell, that will go away quickly, much faster than the smell of bleach!

For any type of toy that doesn’t contain wood or batteries, simply tossing them into the dishwasher will work perfectly.

Teething rings and plastic toys can also be washed with the dishes, in hot, soapy water. Remember not to soak wooden toys as they will grow mold.

Most stuffed animals can go through the washing machine on a gentle cycle, and dried on low. If the toy is already well worn, place it inside a pillow case before putting it through the machine.

With a few simple tricks, it’s easy to clean your child’s toys without using harsh chemicals.