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if you use organic or environmentally cleaning products...
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Anonymous
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which ones do you use and for what purposes? I know Meyers has an all purpose cleaner, but I dont think you can use that on hardwoods, can you? What about bathrooms? Counters? Anyone make their own solutions, and if so what are the recipes and how long do they smell (esp. vinegar based ones)?
I'm getting ready to fire my "green" cleaning company (they may be green but they leave a lot of dirt!) and just hire an individual, so I'll need to buy products myself. All recommendations and advice welcome. |
Anonymous
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We use mostly baking soda (for scrubbing) and vinegar/water solutions for wipe-cleaning, but I also really like the Method products - non-toxic and not tested on animals. They make a nice polish for wood furniture, a good toiletbowl scrub, and nice floor cleaner (one for for hardwood and a different one for tile surfaces).
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Anonymous
| I hate Meyers's products. I think they smell terrible. I use a lot of vinegar and water for cleaning and mopping (half and half in a bucket or spray bottle). I also have a steam mop so I just use water on the floor and sop it up with a towel afterward, which seems to work well. I also use Dr. Bonner's unscented soap but it leaves a residue so has to be rinsed off. |
Anonymous
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I also use vinegar and baking soda for 90% of my cleaning.
You can provide your cleaning person with spray bottles (Container Store has nice empty ones) with different concentrations of vinegar for different tasks, marked in permanent marker on the bottle. You can also provide him/her with a shaker bottle for baking soda (buy a cylindrical container with a tight-fitting lid, then poke some holes in the lid with an awl to make it a shaker). |
Anonymous
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My cleaners aren't "green" per se but they use vinegar solutions for almost all of the cleaning, including the floors (if your flours are finished hardwood, that's fine). They do a really good job. Clean Sweep Inc. If your cleaners aren't getting things clean I don't think it's the fault of the solutions they use necessarily--maybe they're just not good cleaners.
Otherwise, I also use the Trader Joe's all purpose and some of the Seventh Generation products when I clean myself. |
Anonymous
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We use specialized products for stainless steel, wood furniture, granite, and toilets. Usually method brand. We dust and mop with water, and use seventh generation's all purpose cleaner, or plain vinegar, on everything else.
We also use Bona on the hardwood floors, which might not be all that green but I like it. I'm also told that vinegar is good for hardwoods. |
Anonymous
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I use vinegar for toilets (straight) with baking soda sprinkled.
I use vinegar, water and either lemon juice or tree tea oil for bathrooms. About 2 cups vineger. A few drops of tree tea oil (or just "swig" of lemon juice) and fill the rest of the 32 ounce bottle with water. The problem with lemon juice is that it can spoil. But it cleans great. As far as the smell, the longest lasting is actually the tea tree oil. It is very strong. I find the vinegar to wear off quickly, or I just don't notice it now that the smell means "clean" to me. You can add some drops of other stuff to make it smell less like vinegar (I am blanking on what I want to say - essential oils maybe?) |
Anonymous
| I use Mrs. Meyers for every day cleaning and baking soda and vinegar for scrubbing things that need scrubbed. Also, I hate that I have to know this, but if your cat pees on your bedding (or other clothing or surfaces) you can wash it with some apple cider vinegar and the smell comes right out. |
Anonymous
| I think vinegar will take polyurethane (???) off of a wood floor. |
Anonymous
Haha, I feel your pain. We have a miscreant cat too. So - mind sharing details? Do you just put it in the washing machine with apple cider vinegar, or soak it in the vinegar, or what? I can't tell you how many things we've thrown out because the cat peed on them and we couldn't get it out. |
Anonymous
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We like:
-Seventh Generation toilet bowl cleaner - Method Le Scrub for bathtubs - Seventh Gen tub and tile for cleaning bathroom counters and sinks - Seventh Gen and Method's all-purpose/glass&surface cleaners for kitchen counters, glass tabletops, etc. - used to damp mop hardwoods with a vinegar & water solution until I got a steam mop, which I love - am trying to replace Comet with baking soda & water paste for cleaning oven, stovetop and kitchen sink, but it requires a LOT of rinsing or it leaves a white residue (maybe I am doing it wrong?) I am thinking of not buying all-purpose cleaner after I use up what I have and trying one of the many, many recipes online. The green products I do buy, I get from Amazon using their Subscribe & Save program so they are as inexpensive as possible. |
Anonymous
I found the info on this website and it totally works (and the guy who wrote it is pretty funny.) http://www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-cat-urine.htm For the laundry, I washed the duvet cover w/ bleach twice before I found this website, then I washed again and just poured some apple cider vinegar into the washing machine as it was filling up. I probably used ~1/3 cup or so. Worked really well IMO. |
Anonymous
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We use:
- 7th Generation toilet bowl, tub and tile, carpet/spot, and all-purpose glass cleaners - Mrs. Meyer all-purpose liquid and abrasive scrub I just vacuum and spot-clean my wood floors (we take our shoes off). I'm kind of scared of mopping, because I didn't grow up with wood floors. I really need to get over that, I know. |