Monday, February 20, 2006

Second of 3 part series

This is the second part to a three part article. Last issue I began an article suggesting tips on what to clean if you have 15 minutes on your hands and suggestions on how to get started in your own home. Please see my blog dated yesterday for the first part.

The second part continues with suggestions on what to clean with 30 minutes and an hour. Remember these are only suggestions. Adapt them to your schedule and your circumstance. I'm only giving you suggestions so when your busy schedule allows a few minutes you don't waste half that time deciding what to clean.

Thirty minutes:

1)      When was the last time you cleaned your refrigerator coils? That should be done twice a year to keep your motor running smoothly.
2)      Clean the inside windows in your kitchen and family or living room and sliding glass door if you have one. In other words remove those smudges. Then apply just a little bit of Advantage to keep the smudges at bay.
3)      Clean the drawers in your kitchen you most frequently use or the ones that tend to gather "stuff" like coupons and knickknacks.
4)      Pick up and put away clutter in two rooms – if you have more than 15 minutes of clutter to remove in any one room then this 30 minutes is a great time to get rid of the clutter in one room. Yes it is plenty of time – stay focused. That cup of coffee comes as a reward after the clutter is gone not before or during.
5)      Dust the mini blinds or window coverings in one sector of your home
6)      Clean your light fixtures and change light bulbs that are getting old using the energy saving bulbs.
7)      Change smoke detector batteries
8)      Change your furnace filter

One hour:

1)      Bathrooms – do all the bathrooms at one time to eliminate dragging out your tote tray two or three times. Mary Moppins Bi-O-Kleen will make short work of bathrooms. Read my article on bathroom cleaning for more tips to speed clean your bathrooms.

Don't forget to treat your shower walls and inside of the toilet with Advantage. It is my waterless car wash and protectant. The polymers in Advantage make surfaces slick. Water sheets down shower walls so they are faster to squeegee. I'll let your imagination go to work to tell you the advantage of slick toilet bowls (.  
2)      Dust one sector of your home like the bedroom sector or the living room, dining room and family room areas using our diluted Wood Care. .
3)      Clean out the refrigerator – it should take less than hour so use the remaining time to clean up under the hood of your stove or the surrounding cabinets. 
4)      Clean the ashes out of the fireplace or wood stove and clean the glass insert
5)      Condition your leather or vinyl furniture with our Leather Cleaner and Conditioner
6)      Winter is harsh on wood window sills. Prevent them from cracking with our Wood Care.
7)      Clean smudges on walls and light plates.
8)      Dust lamp shades. Use a clean paint brush with the bristles cut down one half inch for pleated shades and our dry sponge for flat ones.

Now you can see why I recommend making a list of everything in your home that needs to be cleaned. It's so much easier to refer to your list and check them off as you get them done.

This article may only be reprinted giving full credit to Mary Findley and her website at http://www.goclean.com. Copyright @2005 All rights reserved worldwide.
 

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Things to clean in 15 minutes.

If you don't have clutter under control these 15 minute exercises will take an hour or longer. Follow this one rule: Never leave a room empty handed – never. When you leave a room, look around for items that have not been used for three or four weeks. Either toss them, give them away, recycle or put them in their proper place.

Keep current magazines in a rack by the side of a chair. Do not keep an entire magazine for one or two articles. (there are exceptions) Purchase a two to three inch 3 ring binder and tabs. Remove any article you wish to keep punching holes in it with a three hole punch. Label a tab for the appropriate title adding the article. Not only does it get rid of the magazine but you can actually find the article when you need it.

Immediately refill your bottles when you finish cleaning. That way they are ready to tackle those unexpected spills. Keep everything stored in one place. Use a tote tray and not an apron for holding your cleaners and brushes. Aprons are a hazard waiting to happen let alone the weight hanging around your neck.

For the quick fifteen minute cleanups keep a spray bottle of our diluted Bi-O-Kleen or Ion-A-Clean, (the best stain remover I've ever used and the reason I carry it) in the kitchen along with a towel or two. For those of you with chemical allergies, Ion-A-Clean is a must. It contains no chemicals, surfactants or cleaning agents of any kind. It's so safe a fish will live in it yet it is a remarkable cleaner. You will love what it does and how easily it removes nearly all carpet stains including magic marker. Click on Ion-A-Kleen to read more.

The secret to speed cleaning no matter how much or how little time you have is to keep focused and work up a sweat. Put on some fast paced music and move quickly. Get your heartbeat raised and a sweat on your brow. Your body will love you and you will love the additional time you have.

Homework: Grab a clipboard and piece of paper. Walk through each room of your home as if for the first time. Using a critical eye, list everything that needs cleaning both quick and long job like pulling out cabinets and cleaning inside under and around them and the wall behind them. Include cleaning walls, windows to easier chores like dusting cobwebs or removing clutter or perhaps decorating changes you want to make. By each chore, mark how long you think it will take. ie: 15 minutes 30 minutes and hour half a day or maybe a whole day.

Here is a sample for what you want to achieve for a 15 minute cleaning job. You don't need this much detail but it gives you an idea of my concept behind "giving your product time to work." Soak one surface while you clean another. You use your time efficiently which is the essence of speed cleaning. Now apply this concept to everything you do.  

15 minute cleaning suggestions:

Kitchen: Begin filling the sink with hot sudsy water. Place a coffee cup half filled with water in the microwave - if it's dirty - and turn it on high for 3 minutes. Remove the drip pans from the stove putting them in the sink to soak. Spray the stove top with the Bi-O-Kleen or Ion-A-Clean. Time: 3 minutes.

Grab an SOS pad and scrub the drip pans then the grates. Wipe down the microwave with a towel then clean the front of the stove, spray the hood and under the hood and clean them. Then wipe the stove top. Time: 7 minutes.

Remove the bins from the refrigerator and spritz down the bottom of the refrigerator. Dump the contents of the bins on the counter and toss old fruits and veggies. Run hot sudsy water in the bins. Then wipe down the bottom of the refrigerator, clean and dry the bins and return the fruits and veggies. Spray down the top and exterior of the refrigerator and wipe it clean. Time: 5 minutes.

Here are a few other ideas for 15 minute cleaning jobs:
1)Dust cobwebs
2)Declutter one room
3)Clean lampshades or ceiling fans
4)Clean sliding glass doors (apply just a bit of our Advantage Waterless Wash and Protectant to your sliding glass doors and fingerprints will have a difficult time sticking if they stick at all.
5)Dust miniblinds
6) Wipe down the fronts of kitchen cabinets or the bathroom cabinets – our diluted Wood Care is excellent for this
7)Dust baseboards in one section of your home
8)Clean the inside of a cabinet and toss anything that is over a year old
8)enjoy a cup of tea!

This article may only be reprinted giving full credit to Mary Findley and her website at http://www.goclean.com. Copyright @2005 All rights reserved worldwide.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Club Soda

Club Soda
The flip side

     Several popular cleaning websites promote the use of club soda for removing various stains from carpeting, which it does a wonderful job – if – the bottle is fresh. Club soda is a carbonated beverage and like any soda, looses its "fizz" within a short period of time. Once club soda has flattened you must open a fresh bottle for it to be effective either for removing stains or for drinks.

     Club soda is not an inexpensive item. Since it does quickly loose its effectiveness this means keeping several bottles of it in your pantry at all times. Just what you don't need – more product to consume an already overloaded pantry.

     Try our Ion-A-Clean instead. Ion-A-Clean is water that has been ionized. Under most conditions water only holds ionization for only 24 hours.  Ion-A-Clean has been patented to have a three year shelf life. Now you have one bottle in your pantry rather than half a dozen and it has cost you far less as well. Spray Ion-A-Clean on the stain and leave it alone for 30 minutes – do mark the area of the stain because most dissolve into the carpet. It encapsulates both the fibers of the carpet and the dirt. Both surfaces are now negatively charged acting like two negatively charged magnets. The stain "peels" away from the carpet fibers since they no longer have a death grip on the dirt.  

     Club soda must be rinsed or the ants will be beating a path to the spot. With Ion-A-Clean blot and that's it. It needs no rinsing. Ion-A-clean even removes magic marker from carpet and fabric furniture and won't leave a residue or stain behind like other products that claim to remove marker.

     Ion-A-Clean is so safe a fish can live in it as long as you feed it (. It is a wonderful cleaner for anyone with chemical sensitivities, asthma, heart problems or where breathing fumes of any kind should be avoided. It is safe to use around children and pets can lick the floor without the worry of ingesting a cleaner. Drop a nail into a glass of Ion-A-clean. It will not rust even after a year. And it is the only product safe for cleaning granite and marble counters and showers. It will not damage those surfaces.


Cleaning Tips for Fe

February Tips
   Spring is quickly on the way so now is the best time to attend to those cleaning chores we tend to ignore but need attention to prevent major problems down the road.
    Cleaning and conditioning wood cabinets and furniture. Wood furniture and cabinets dry and crack if ignored. Feel your bathroom cabinets. After several years of suffering through daily steam baths they crack and turn grey. Treat them at least once a year with our Wood Care to prevent this. Our Wood Care can be diluted eight parts water to one part Wood Care for a wonderful weekly furniture cleaner.
    Deep treat leather and vinyl furniture to prevent sun damage if they are near a window and drying and cracking. Our Leather/Vinyl Cleaner and Conditioner deep cleans and conditions. It can be diluted the same as the Wood Care for regular cleanings.
  1. Clean the inside of kitchen cabinets. Grab two plastic clothes baskets. Use one basket to toss anything you haven't eaten including old spices, medicines etc. that are past expiration date. The second will hold any item you haven't used for the past 3 to 4 years. Either have a garage sale, take them to Good Will or sell it on EBay. Then wipe down the shelves and walls of the cabinets.

  2. If storage is a problem in your kitchen, places like Bed Bath and Beyond, department stores and hardware stores have great storage ideas. Just let your creative side take over when you go looking.

  3. Resolve once a month to thoroughly clean one to two rooms of your home. Designate a day then keep the appointment with yourself. Pull the furniture away from walls. Clean the walls and baseboards then vacuum thoroughly. Use our Dry Sponge to clean dog hair and surface dirt off fabric furniture. Our Ion-A-Clean will remove most stains on the furniture even magic marker.
Pull everything out of the closet repeating the idea with the baskets as above. Getting rid of things you haven't used for years, there are exceptions of course, simplifies your life, makes cleaning much easier and finding things too!