Everything you need to know about Ammonia -- but wouldn't bother to ask.

Ammonia, ammonia... I live and breath ammonia!! When it comes to cleaning supplies, ammonia is the living end. It cleans everything. It cleans floors, it cleans windows, it cleans paint, it cleans plastic (it isn't supposed to clean granite, but, shhh, sometimes it does) When it comes to cleaning supplies, ammonia very nearly does it all. It cuts grease, grime, hairspray, stuck on food, floor wax. It serves as an excellent pre-treater in heavy traffic areas prior to carpet cleaning. Ammonia is the house cleaning workhorse.

HOWEVER -- the key to working safely with ammonia depends entirely on it being adequately diluted. Chemists know that ammonia is a gas and in usable household form it has been suspended in water... blah, blah, blah, on and on, whatever. All we want to know, no offense to the chemists intended, is how to make ammonia work as a quick, easy and cheap cleaner.

I buy regular household ammonia -- not Professional Janitorial Strength, which will strip the veins off the inside of your eyelids.  This little two quart bottle is about $2 and compares itself to Parsons (which is wonderful stuff). My preference is lemon scented... not that it really smells much like lemons... In a 25 oz. spray bottle pour between 5 to 10 oz. of ammonia. Fill the bottle with water.

There, for about .35c, you have a perfect blend of ammonia in a perfect vessel to flit about the house cleaning way up high and way down low.  Grubby finger prints on the fridge, God knows what on the counter, paw prints on the floor, that icky place between the window and the screen... windows, switch plates... it's all ammonia all the time.

If you are wondering how I go about cleaning floors with this stuff, you might not like what I have to say -- I clean floors on all fours. I know, everybody uses one of those cute little mops... if your cute mop allows you to fill the water reservoir then you can fill it with ammonia and water. What I do is sweep the floor of excess dust and debris. With a roll of paper towels in one hand and a spray bottle of ammonia in the other, I get down on all fours, spray the dirty floor, wipe it up with paper towels. (We'll have a whole paper towels vs terry cloth rags discussion another time.) I don't know what other floor cleaners cost, I do know that with an ammonia water spray and a length of paper towels I can clean a floor for under $1 and leave no residue behind.

As an aside, when I attack a kitchen or bath I clear away all the clutter, then I can spray away from left to right, top to bottom all the way around the room.

Mirrors: The key to a sparkling mirror is in the dry, not the wet. Dampness left on a mirror will result in    water spots. Wipe mirrors and glass dry for the cleanest possible clean.

Grimy surfaces: Let the product do it's job. Allow the ammonia and water solution to sit on a heavily soiled surface for several minutes before wiping it up. This can be tough on vertical surfaces but spray and spray again.

Water spots in a shower: This is not a job for ammonia -- next product discussion will be on Limeaway/ CLR (Calcium-Lime_Rust). Ammonia can clean quite a lot -- but it can't do everything.

Meanwhile De-clutter, Dust, Shine and Done!

If you have any specific cleaning questions please leave them in the comments and I will answer them here.  

Why Bother!?! Or How Not to be Featured on an Episode of HOARDERS.

We clean and we clean -- 6 months later we have to do it all over again!! Why bother... um, I can think of at least one good reason... 

It could be finding this fella (what's worse, finding a dead roach in the cereal box or encountering a live one?) You might find a trail of ants traipsing through your pantry. Your child runs off to school wearing mismatched socks -- belonging to her dad. Or you would  invite a couple of friends over for drinks sometime -- if only there  clean glasses in the house.  


So there we are -- aren't our very lives worth living clean? Living in a clean house means moving seamlessly and successfully through our day, able to enjoy our lives, our family, our friends and not being tripped up by ugly dirty surprises. 


The first step to a clean house is to clear the clutter. Get a box, get a bag, get a timer. (Set the timer for half an hour -- we are not making a career of this de-cluttering thing.) The box is for donate, the bag is for trash. Start in the left corner of your busiest room. If it's a closet open the door and start there, if it's a bookcase, desk or dresser, start with every shelf or drawer. Look at each object and decide right now -- Keep, Pitch, Donate, Move. "Keep" items stay right where you found them, "Pitch" items go in the bag (and stay there), "Donate" items go in the box, and "Move" items get piled in the middle of the floor. 


When the timer goes off stop. With the "Move" pile remaining in the center of the room you are not likely to leave it there. Sort the "Move" pile into sub-piles : bathroom, garage, playroom -- where ever these things need go, take them there. 


De-Cluttering Day One DONE. Now this room is ready to be cleaned. Wipe, polish, vacuum. Ahhh.   

The Cleaning Lady WHAT?

Yes, yes - I really really am a Cleaning Lady (known upon occasion to talk dirty). Since I can't be everywhere, to clean everything, in this blog what I want to talk about is dirt -- and how to help you get rid of it.

Much as I can't explain it, I truly like what I do. Maybe it's my lack of attention span, flitting from thing to thing to thing in a single day -- maybe I just like to make things shiny. What I suspect is that cleaning is in my blood, it's in my genes. My mother was German -- the sort known to scrub sidewalks. I've been folding towels since I was three -- I know my way around Jubilee Appliance Wax and I have never met a stain against which I wouldn't wage war. 

Some people hate to clean -- flat out don't, won't, can't do it. (I don't get it -- I am grateful for them, but I don't get it.) Our home is where we spring from every day, where we retreat to every night, it is our one safe haven in all the world. If no where else, we should want our own home to be at least nominally clean.

Some people simply don't know how -- they don't know where to begin or which products to use. Don't let's even begin a discussion on whether this is right-brained or left-brained thinking. We'll simply conclude that if this is you, you've come to the right place -- I can walk you through an easy, concise clean.

The loveliest aspect of what I do is that several times a week I am a sort of paid member of the family (often the most helpful member.) My families love me -- what's not to love -- I come in, clean up their messes, don't give them too much lip about it and promise to come back to do it again. And I love my families -- they are funny and interesting. They are an endless source of cleaning challenges. (How do you get purple paint out of tan carpet? -- first you send the five-year-old who put it there off to boarding school.) I get invited to parties, am counted upon to pet sit, begged to solve the age old "what's that stain?" question... all of which, and more, I love quite a lot.

This blogging aspect is new in that instead of actually surveying the damage, laying out a strategy and rolling up my sleeves to set it right again, I will be walking you through it. My plan here is to share what I know about cleaning, organizing and how to get through the day and the week as cleanly, as efficiently, as successfully as possible. (Here's a tip -- we don't clean for Clean's Sake -- we clean so that when we need our stuff -- clothes, dishes, beds -- they will be intact and ready to use. We clean so that when there are better things to do -- and there always are -- we are ready to enjoy ourselves, our family and friends, our lives. That's why we clean!)

So, I hope you'll come visit from time to time. I hope you'll find this blog helpful. I hope you'll use the "comments" section to ask questions and to share cleaning tips you've found helpful to you.