cleaning sticky residue

chicagochic

anyone else have this problem?  I have never had it happen before, except for our current apartment. I went to dust, and clean my little used fancy dishes (which are sitting on a kitchen rack, we don't have a hutch of any kind to keep them enclosed), and they were covered with a sticky film - hard to get off nevertheless!  Anyone know how to clean this off?  I tried just washing and scrubbing hard, but that didn't work.  Anyone know what might be causing this?  It's not just in the kitchen, but in other rooms, too.

 Thanks!

AnnOminous

The grease from cooking can spread and permeate throughout the house.  Orange based cleaning products work really well for this, you might try rinsing goo gone in with your soap and try that.  You can also try just plain lemon, but the results might not be as good.  If you buy goo gone make sure to read the label, it will destroy fabric and anything plastic.

Bathlove

Above poster is right. Cooking can spread the grease. As for getting rid of the stickiness, do you remember in Chemistry that like dissolves like? This means you can use oil to get rid of the grease. I've done this before. Take a paper towel and put a good amount of vegetable oil on the paper towel (or whatever cheap oil you have around the house). Then, just wipe down all the dishes. Finally, wash the dishes. This should take care of the problem.

Fruitysher

Believe it or not, diet or coke zero got nearly frozen pancake syrup off the bottom of my fridge. Poured it on, let it sit for a few minutes, then wiped it off and wiped it clean with hot water after the residue was all gone. Because there's no sugar in diet coke, it doesn't perpetuate the sticky problem. I would imagine it could work for all sorts of things. Works on car battery acid too.

chicagochic

Thanks for the GREAT suggestions all!