Cleaning & Organizing
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
What types of things do you clean with bleach?
I hardly use bleach for some reason (I guess I'm probably afraid it'll change the color or otherwise ruin something and stay away from it) but used it today to clean my white tile floors. It got them so much cleaner than I've ever seen. Duh, I know.
What things in your house do you use bleach for?
Re: What types of things do you clean with bleach?
I wash white towels with 1/4 c of bleach occasionally. Maybe once every 6 weeks or so? That's pretty much it.
I would be afraid to use it on floors...because I would be afraid I could never rinse it well enough. I would envision the floor getting wet and somehow the "bleach" solution I used on the floor getting tracked to other areas of the house, onto furniture etc
40/112
Nothing at all. I see no need for such harsh chemicals in the home. Everything is clean in my house, and all we use is hot water, soap, white vinegar and method cleaning products.
My dad uses bleach to wash his butcher shop's laundry (white aprons and white towels). The bleach does one heck of a number to the towels... and not in a good way. I've never seen towels get holes in them so quickly. But it's a commercial butcher shop, so he has to deal.
http://pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi#general
Our sheets and comforter. I love the smell of freshly bleached sheets. So clean!
Oh, I also bleach our cleaning rags.
*dishwasher
I do keep a bottle, but only for running my un-paper towels through the wash. I've read conflicting things about vinegar's disinfecting properties, and while I'm not a germophobe generally, I do like to bleach those towels because i use them so much and they are in direct contact with my food. I use vinegar for all my other cleaning.
Back when I had a fabric shower curtain liner, bleach was the only thing that would get rid of the occasional mold (I tried everything else under the sun, including the sun, because I didn't want to use bleach). But I have glass shower walls now, so no more need.
Be careful about using bleach on tile often. It will eventually make the grout disentigrate, at least that's what happened to my mom's counters. Oxiclean might be a little more gentle and get you the same results?
Once every few months I do use it with his cloth diapers.
Once or twice a year I'll take a bleach pen and run it along the grout in the bathroom. If I need to strip my diapers I'll throw a capful in the wash.
That's about it. None of us are immunocompromised so I don't see disinfecting with bleach necessary. Vinegar works just fine without the chemicals.
{
{ For Adam | For Adria }
I rarely use it. Once a monthish I dump some in the toilets and scrub. It makes them really clean and fresh.
One a yearish, I'll take some to the floors just to get them super shiny, but I rarely do that.
I keep the bottle hidden and rarely take it out. I feel like I wreck everything I touch with it.
I used to dump some in the whites but it wrecked my clothes so fast, so I switched to OxiClean 2xs liquid...it works better anyways but is expensive.
I don't use bleach at all because I always end up spilling / splashing it and ruining everything around me. I do have DH pour a little in our white kitchen sinks once a month or so. It's the only thing we've found to get stains out.
I'm a vinegar girl myself.
I am ever afraid of using bleach in the wash, so I never have used it there. We don't have many white clothes or anything like that anyway.
Most often I use it for my kitchen sink. I hate it when my sink looks gross or dirty and I'm a little paranoid about germs in there (especially after dumping something like raw chicken water down the drain). Also on my counters if I know I got any sort of raw meat or juice on there.
Otherwise, if a cat or a dog makes a mess on the floor, I'll use it there too.
For everything else, I use regular household cleaners like 409 or something like that.
This and the response about the harsh chemicals.
I make my own Chlorox anywhere spray by mixing 2 TBS of bleach into a spray bottle with water. I use this to wipe down coutertops, sinks, fridges, baby toys, etc. It lasts a long time and it's not like I'm using a lot of it anyway, but it does the job.