Unfuck Your Habitat

utterlyfubar:

I’m normally a hard chemicals go-to-girl.  Is it stained?  Bleach it if you can.  Mold?  Bleach.  Mildew?  Bleach.

Yeah, probably not the best idea.  I blame growing up in small-town Illinois, where our water was the hardest I’ve ever seen anywhere.  I used to have to scrub the kitchen sinks (porcelain, ofc) with Zud every week and by the next time I got to doing it, they were orange again.  Nothing BUT hard chemicals was going to work in that house.

So just now.  I started unfucking my kitchen because my laundry plans got a little borked (i.e., the clothes I hung up last night aren’t dry yet — however, it’s nice and sunny out there, so *fingers crossed* they shouldn’t take too long).  Put the silverware and cups in some soapy water to soak (do you have a specific order in which you wash dishes?  I do) and started wiping down the counters.  Now, the counter near the kettle tends to get stained quite often.  Between B - who I swear, makes even more of a mess than the kids do - making his coffee, and the kids making their tea (they are incapable of making a cup of tea without drowning that counter in it)… yeah.  Coffee+tea=big brown stain.

I’d bought myself some distilled malt vinegar (closest thing I’m going to get to what we call white vinegar) and baking soda yesterday.  So I took a paper towel, soaked it in said vinegar, and let it sit on the stain while I cleaned out the microwave.  Then I sprinkled some baking soda and used said paper towel to scrub at said stain.  

LOOK!

All that spilled coffee and tea, right there on the paper towel to prove to me that it works!

And the counter now?

No big brown spot!  Woo!  *happy dance*