How the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Saved a Bathroom

One of my friends has been in a little bit of a funk lately.  He was laid off from his job six months ago and hasn’t been able to find full time work.  He has been pretty depressed lately so I have been spending some extra time with him trying to cheer him up.  The first thing I noticed when I when to his house was that he had stopped cleaning.  His house was a disaster zone.  There were pizza boxes and fast food bags everywhere.  He hadn’t taken out the trash or done the dishes.  After an hour of cleaning the kitchen and living room I had to use the restroom.  That’s when I had the big shocker.  The bathroom was disgusting.  I don’t if know if I could really explain in words how bad it was.


Your Bathroom Can Make You Sick

The first thing I asked my friend is how he had been feeling.  He said he had been fighting a cold for around a month.  He said he would start to feel better but would always start to get sick again.  He was surprised when I told him that it was likely that his nasty bathroom was making him sick.  I showed him all the mold and mildew and explained how those can weaken his respiratory system, allowing other viruses and bacteria infect his body.  So I convinced him that we need to deep clean his bathroom to help keep him healthy.

After looking around the house it was looking pretty bleak as to being able to clean the bathroom with my normal arsenal of homemade cleaners, so we started to tackle the task with the tools available.  We had a bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles Foaming cleaner so I turned on the bathroom fan and sprayed the entire shower down and left the area until the fumes cleared.  After an hour I went back to rinse the shower but there was still a thick layer of soap scum and hard water deposits.  This was going to be a challenge.  A quick perusal of the cleaning bucket brought me to one of my favorite cleaning tools, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  The magic eraser is great at many tough cleaning jobs, but it does require a large amount of physical work.  A good hour of rubbing and scrubbing later the shower was as clean as the day it was installed.  Exhausted, I left feeling good about a job well done.

Two weeks later my friend let me know that he was feeling better, so much better that he got off the couch and got a new job.  When we go through these tough times we all just need a kick in the butt to keep on going.  If you are having a tough time or know someone who is, give them some help.  We all need to work together to get out this funk.

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Cleaning the Window of a Wood Fireplace or Stove

I finally got around to having our first fire of the winter. The first thing I do each year is clean all of the ashes out the fire place and make sure the chimney, flue and fire place are all in good working order. I always do this before the first fire, and this year has been fairly hectic so it has taken longer than usual. The thing I noticed this year was that the fire place doors were filthy. The last fire we had last year must have been pretty smoky because the glass doors were almost opaque. In my thirst for cleaning knowledge I tried three different cleaning methods to find out which one worked the best. Here are my results:

• Dryer Sheet - I had this listed in my notebook as working on glass candle jars. I have a really nice glass oil lamp I have used this on before with success, so I tried it on the fireplace doors. Needless to say, the grime was too tough for the dryer sheet and it just ripped apart.



• My Homemade Brick Fireplace Cleaner - This worked pretty well but, the way the doors fold it was pretty hard to get a brush into the tight areas. It also made a pretty big mess because the doors are vertical the water just runs down them onto the hearth.



• The Magic Eraser - This was the best of the three. It got into the hard to reach places and didn't take too much physical effort.

The Magic Eraser won this challenge. Luckily I have started to find these fairly cheaply. The dollar store had a package of two with half sponge half Magic Eraser for $1 and Target had a package of 4 all Erasers for $2. If you haven't tried the Magic Eraser, pick one up at the store. They really are magic.