Undercover Mother

Tip: Vinegar as carpet stain remover.

It seems like vinegar is the cure for anything. I am actually surprised that when I take my kids to the doctor for strep throat I don’t walk away with a prescription for 10ml vinegar twice a day. Seems like it would work, but then I guess the doctors wouldn’t get to enjoy any kickbacks from pharmaceutical reps and use my co-pays to finance their home in the Hamptons.

There are a lot of perks to working from home; one of those perks is NOT noticing every spot and stain your carpet has to offer. This morning I ventured into the basement to see what the kids and their friends left for me from the previous night, and as I was doing my surveillance I found several new spots that look suspiciously like the juice and chocolate that I know was consumed the day before.

I have one stain in particular that I have been working on unsuccessfully with store-bought cleaner; this stain is SunnyD drink that someone not only let drip from a sippy cup, but covered with multiple pieces of paper so I might not notice the spot. I don’t know how long it remained there like that, but I have tried multiple cleaning products and the stain has not budged! I decided that I would try a tip using vinegar and salt on the stain.

Tip specifics

Rub light carpet stains with a mixture of 2 tablespoons salt dissolved in 1/2 cup white vinegar. Let the solution dry, then vacuum.

True or bull?

Bull, at least for the SunnyD stain. It is lighter for sure, but the stain is still visible and the carpet has a crunchy feel where the solution dried.

Undercover Mother’s revelations

I did try this tip afterward on a couple of small stains, and it seemed to work. The carpet, however, is now crunchy like it was on the SunnyD area and needs to be shampooed in all the areas I tried. I would try this tip in the future on other stains when the usual carpet stain removers are not effective, even if it does require a bit of carpet shampoo afterward. I may even skip the shampoo and tell my neighbors that it is a new expensive Berber carpet that also exfoliates the bottom of your feet and see how many of them run out to try to buy the same thing.

Tip: Use vinegar to rid your sink fixtures of hard water spots.

I am in the process of writing a book that I plan on calling: “How the #%@& did the toothpaste get there?” I am sure it will be a best seller, like all true crime thrillers. Today, when I was working on my weekly bathroom cleaning, I noticed that underneath 3 layers of glittery pink toothpaste, I had some pretty nasty hard water stains on the sink faucet.

Quite frankly, water stains are the least of my worries. But today for some reason, they got to me. I know having shiny faucets won’t last more than one visit to the bathroom from my kids, but I can feel good for at least a few moments. I actually have a house rule that forces my kids to eat their meals outside for one day after I clean the kitchen floor. I would like to do the same thing with the bathroom, but I would most likely be arrested or at the very least reported to Child Protective Services and looked down upon by my neighbors.

But back to my water-stained faucets, as I know you are on the edge of your seat wondering what I was going to do. I found a tip using, what else? Vinegar!

Tip specifics

Soak a rag in white vinegar, lay the rag over your hard water stains, and let it sit for a few minutes. The hard water spots will scrub right off.

True or bull?

True. The vinegar-soaked rag worked on removing the water stains from the faucets.

Undercover Mother’s revelations

It’s a quick fix if your issue of the day is water spots on your hardware. I felt good about myself for making something look pretty, but my kids complained about the smell of the vinegar making the bathroom smell disgusting. Apparently they are immune to what it smelled like beforehand, as vinegar is a tremendous improvement to my nose.

Tip: Whiten grout using a toothbrush dipped in undiluted vinegar.

The person that originally selected the colors for the house we bought 3 years ago has an obsession with white. I would call their taste “Casual Caucasian.” We have white carpet, white countertops, white walls and moldings, white appliances and white ceramic tile in all the bathrooms.

Now, I have nothing against the color white; I would even incorporate it, moderately so, into my designing. What bothers me about so much white is that there is so much more opportunity for dirt to show. My bathroom floors have 4-inch white tiles, and I assume at one time the grout was also white. Now it is much more of a gray and, in some places, yellow color. When I let my mind roam freely, I really start to wonder about what must go on in a kid’s bathroom that could have caused the yellowing of that grout.

Now, bleach is my best friend. I love the smell of those chemicals that tell me that it has just 1 job and that is to disinfect the heck out of anything that gets in its way. I like to clean with bleach whenever possible, but there are times when it is just not possible. This week I thought I would attempt to work on the grout and see if I could restore it to a fresher, brighter white. My friends at Real Simple suggested using vinegar.

Fact or bull?

Bull. I scrubbed right after applying the vinegar and saw no results, I then let it sit on there for 15 minutes and scrubbed again. Results are still the same; the grout did not look any whiter to me.

Undercover Mother’s revelations

I have to be honest, I buy that paste—like Soft Scrub cleaning product—squirt it into my grout and then go at it with a scrub brush. And I find that the results are pretty good. I don’t think white grout ever can go back to being truly white, which gives manufacturers and contractors the option to replace it for you at a substantial cost to you.

Next time I select a floor, I am choosing gray or colored grout, do you think there is a color called dingy? On another note, my bathroom now smells like a salad, which makes me want to go eat a brownie.

Tip: Use Dawn & vinegar to remove soap scum.

When I was laid off from working full-time, I also laid off my cleaning lady. This was an extremely painful process for me, similar to cutting off a much-used body part. There is nothing like coming home to a sparkling clean house: the vacuumed floors, the smell of cleaning products still in the air, and the sparkling bathrooms. 

I can handle running a vacuum and I am not above spraying cleaning supplies right before someone comes over so I can at least say, “Oh, I forgot you were stopping by. I was just cleaning my house.” Getting my bathrooms to sparkle is something I have never been able to master, especially the glass shower doors. In my new role as Undercover Mother I went in search for a useful tip, and I came up with an organic cleaning solution using Dawn dish soap and vinegar.

Tip specifics

Heat 1/2 cup of white vinegar, pour into a spray bottle, add 1/2 cup blue Dawn and shake gently. Spray on soap scum stain. Let set for a few hours. Wipe clean with a sponge and warm water.

Preparation

Before you start, please don’t make the same mistake I do, and get your supplies ready.  Nothing takes the wind out of my sails (or the gump out of my gumption) like realizing partway into a project that I am missing something and I need to go to the store.

Be sure you have:

• White vinegar
• Dawn dish soap
• Spray bottle
• Funnel
• Sponge or rag

Since you need to heat the vinegar, you really want the funnel, so when you dump the warmed vinegar into the spray bottle you don’t burn your hand or miss the dime-sized hole and spill it all over the counter.

Here we go

The initial tip I received said to spray it on and leave it on for hours. For some people this is fine, but I want to know how long it should really be left on for 2 reasons: To ensure I am not going to damage the glass by leaving it on too long, and because I would like to time my hard labor with my husband walking in the door and seeing me work on this tedious chore. I don’t expect flowers , but I would like a positive check on the list he runs in his head to help balance the times he walks through the door just as I have sat down for the first time all day. Upon further Googling, I discovered 2 hours is the appropriate time for the task at hand (which is just perfect because I can finish folding that load of laundry that has tumbled in the dryer 9 times to keep it from wrinkling AND go catch up on an episode of Mad Men).

True or bull?

True. After 2 hours of waiting and then scrubbing it off, I would say the soap scum is about 90% gone, but not completely. A bit disappointing given the time I invested, but it still looks 90% better than it did before, so let’s focus on the glass being half (or 90%) full, and I am going to claim success! I would recommend mixing this each time you are going to use it, as the heated vinegar seems to be key. 

Undercover Mother’s revelations

This tip is great for when you are doing serious cleaning and have an extra 2 hours to burn while the mixture has time to work. For those of us “normal” moms that have a hundred things to do in any given day and have not quite mastered time travel, a quick fix would suit us best. Some of us are more bothered by soap scum than others, so my advice is, if it bothers you a lot, plan your other chores around this every other week and then bask in the glow of your shiny glass doors.  For the rest of you, just keep doing what you are doing and don’t let anyone use that bathroom!