Household tips and tricks! - Are you having trouble getting the wine stains out of your carpet? Do you clean your cookware with something extraordinary? Come share!

[Shidoen]

Go any auto parts store and buy purple power for all those metal and hardtop surfaces.

 

[General Disarray]

This kind of thing? There are a ton of hair catchers with this toroid design. Main drawback is that if you have a houseguest, you have to brief them on the hot water controls and tell them that that isn't a rogue cock ring in the shower.

View attachment 3311716
I had a pop-up drain for my bathtub a while ago and I ended up getting disgusted and just taking the drain closer part out. I forgot how but it wasn't difficult; it might have just unscrewed.

Oh thanks so much! I wasn't sure what the "technical" terminology was for that type of drain lol. Adding to cart now

eta:

Also, use metal baskets in your freezer- sure, everything in freezer bags fits in the freezer when it's not frozen yet but try putting them all back in without baskets once
they're frozen.

I second this! We got a couple metal shower caddies to hang over our respective shower heads, and the way the metal baskets for soap and shampoo were attached inconveniently, but not permanently. Dug them out of the pantry and retconned the baskets to hold irregular bags of frozen thighs and legs that like to slide and fall out on me when the unit's getting full.

 

[one_time_user]

put these in your fridge, rarely do people have exclusively tall items filling up the top shelf https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EYH5K0

Also, use metal baskets in your freezer- sure, everything in freezer bags fits in the freezer when it's not frozen yet but try putting them all back in without baskets once
they're frozen.

 

[Aunt Carol]

put these in your fridge, rarely do people have exclusively tall items filling up the top shelf https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EYH5K0

Also, use metal baskets in your freezer- sure, everything in freezer bags fits in the freezer when it's not frozen yet but try putting them all back in without baskets once
they're frozen.

Along those lines, I like the stackable fridge organizers. They differ mostly from those drawers in how easy they are to take out of the fridge entirely, to clean or poke around in.

"Use fridge organizers in the fridge" isn't much of a LIFEHACK, but it's so much easier than snaking your arm to the back of a shelf. It lets you fit more stuff in without worrying about how you're going to pull something out of the back.


They're especially nice for keeping track of FIFO. It's so much easier to pull out the whole organizer and put the new yogurt cups in the back, instead of awkward yogurt juggling on the horizontal plane. Same thing with bags of sliced cheese or vials of insulin.

 

[Sperghetti]

https://www.amazon.com/OXO-Grips-Furlifter-Remover-Clothing/dp/B01DF316EC/

Remove animal hair with this and a lint roller

I just wanted to thank you for recommending this… Mine just arrived in the mail and I am amazed. That’ll save me a lot of lint roller sheets.

 

[Yeeted Teet]

I'm moving soon so I'm doing a lot of cleaning that I've neglected over the last few years. I've found that buying a shop vac is well worth the money for cleaning carpets and making them good as new. Plus with all that extra suction power I can use it for other things too.


Any idea how to fix this?

Scrub it with cheap table salt and a damp cloth, it’s abrasive enough to lift grime but not enough to scratch surfaces. Follow that up with whatever cleaner you prefer to deal with the bacteria.

 

[astr0h]

I just wanted to thank you for recommending this… Mine just arrived in the mail and I am amazed. That’ll save me a lot of lint roller sheets.

Saving Linter Rollers = Beating Climate Change!

 

[Aunt Carol]

I just wanted to thank you for recommending this… Mine just arrived in the mail and I am amazed. That’ll save me a lot of lint roller sheets.

Not as fancy, but I like those cheap lint remover mittens:

Same fabric, just covering the whole hand; good for getting an entire chair.

I like to err on the side of owning too many lint removers, because they're cheap and they tend to get picked up, used, and set somewhere weird. I have one on a hook by the door, in the laundry room, and in my bedroom, and that's just the ones whose locations I'm sure of.

Similarly: rubber broom is great for getting cat fur off of low-pile rugs. My cat likes to greet me by flopping over on the rug, quacking and rolling around. My side of the interaction is to squat down and wrassle him, which involves rubbing his tummy and spinning him like a DJ while saying "oh no did you fall over." Anyway, there's cat hair everywhere in my life. Before I vacuum, I go over the rug once with the rubber broom, which results in a giant wad of fur and hair. It's kind of fun, like carding wool.

I am aware that there are supercharged pet vacuums you can get, but by this point of my life I am skeptical of vacuums vs. hair claims, and am tired of trying to remove dusty hair from the beater bar.

 

[Free the Pedos]

I've been interested in oxygen bleach for a while (seen a lot of US people extolling its uses, and I have a lot of greying towels) but it's been hard to source in Europe. Not any more, apparently, Amazon has loads! A kilo bag is pretty cheap. Is there an ideal dilution ratio for a whitening soak? I don't want to accidentally make napalm or something.

Most sources recommend 1-3 TBSP per load.

Anyone know how to get rid of sweat stains and odours on clothes, particularly white shirts and t-shirts? I tried a few removers but they either did fuck all or ruined the fabric.

I use Oxiclean Max Force spray cleaner on really stubborn stains. I soak sweat stained clothes and whites in hot water and oxygen bleach overnight. It's especially good for anything organic, like blood, sweat, etc.

 

[Skitarii]

If your country sells copper paperclips, stock up, cause you never know whem you'll need a reduction agent for rust removal

 

[NoReturn]

May be only tangentially related, but any good home remedies for soothing a chapped nose after a cold or allergies hit? Or how to prevent or minimise it when the nose drip attacks?

Is there a home remedies or wives tales thread?

There is not, but we could start one. I was trying to draft an OP but all I've got off the top of my head is "Garlic kills everything".

Any idea how to fix this?

Foaming bathroom spray, like I recommended earlier in the thread.
Just because it says "bathroom" doesn't mean it needs to stay there.

 

[PandaChai]

I cannot recommend highly enough Peg Bracken's "I Hate to Housekeep"...

Again, not highly enough!
It is noticeably outdated in areas, not many ladies are even wearing nylons these days, let alone freezing them in ice-cube trays to make them last longer for instance
It's actually available on the Internet Archive too, which is nice.

edit: Made a thread for it

There is not, but we could start one. I was trying to draft an OP but all I've got off the top of my head is "Garlic kills everything".

 

[glass_houses]

Not as fancy, but I like those cheap lint remover mittens:
View attachment 3323087
Same fabric, just covering the whole hand; good for getting an entire chair.

I like to err on the side of owning too many lint removers, because they're cheap and they tend to get picked up, used, and set somewhere weird. I have one on a hook by the door, in the laundry room, and in my bedroom, and that's just the ones whose locations I'm sure of.

Similarly: rubber broom is great for getting cat fur off of low-pile rugs. My cat likes to greet me by flopping over on the rug, quacking and rolling around. My side of the interaction is to squat down and wrassle him, which involves rubbing his tummy and spinning him like a DJ while saying "oh no did you fall over." Anyway, there's cat hair everywhere in my life. Before I vacuum, I go over the rug once with the rubber broom, which results in a giant wad of fur and hair. It's kind of fun, like carding wool.
View attachment 3323113
I am aware that there are supercharged pet vacuums you can get, but by this point of my life I am skeptical of vacuums vs. hair claims, and am tired of trying to remove dusty hair from the beater bar.

Oh, yeah, these things are great! When I had ridiculously long hair I wore down I used to use it to sweep the carpet before I vacuumed, otherwise my vacuum cleaner would choke fatally on hair. Rubber brooms are excellent for hair.

 

[𝕺𝖑' 𝕯𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖞 𝕱𝖆𝖙𝖘𝖔]

Clean your washing machine once a month. Put on some rubber gloves, dip a paper towel or rag in bleach and wipe around the inside of the rubber seal to get any gunk out, then fill the detergent drawer with bleach and run it on the hottest setting possible (or self/tub clean if it has the option)

Lots of washing machines, not just dryers, also have a filter to catch excess lint, dirt, etc so look up the model for instructions on how to remove and clean it out.

It takes 5 minutes of effort and will make your laundry much fresher.

And always leave the door open if it's not being used so that it can air out.

 

[TrainWreckSpotter]

There is not, but we could start one. I was trying to draft an OP but all I've got off the top of my head is "Garlic kills everything".


Foaming bathroom spray, like I recommended earlier in the thread.
Just because it says "bathroom" doesn't mean it needs to stay there.

I find that marketing goes a long way toward making things appear to be single use/specialized. For example, Compound W and Dr. Scholl's corn removal liquid are interchangeable. Yet Compound W costs a lot more.

OxyClean makes a whole bunch of different "specialized" products. But just buying a big box of the original stuff suits everything I use it for.

 

[one_time_user]

If you make something really cheesy like soup, sauce, mac and cheese etc, don't wash in hot water. wash in cold first to get the cheese off easily. If you wash in hot you get... melty cheese that you are just smearing around.

 

[Din Djarin]

Any tips for bugs? We have a person come and spray every few months, but with the warmer weather some spiders get in the basement (where my room is) and I know they're good and they're just house spiders, but I don't want them in my bed or something.

(Sorry for the PL please forgive)

 

[NoReturn]

Any tips for bugs? We have a person come and spray every few months, but with the warmer weather some spiders get in the basement (where my room is) and I know they're good and they're just house spiders, but I don't want them in my bed or something.

(Sorry for the PL please forgive)

Spiders don't like peppermint, or catnip, apparently, if my garden is any indicator.

 

[Din Djarin]

Spiders don't like peppermint, or catnip, apparently, if my garden is any indicator.

Good to know, thank you! Now that I think about it, I may have heard about the peppermint before.

 

[Aunt Carol]

Good to know, thank you! Now that I think about it, I may have heard about the peppermint before.

Peppermint oil worked to keep spiders out of a newspaper delivery box.

I like spiders but not if I can see them from my bed, with my glasses off. Spiders in a different room, or small spiders, fine. Just don't want to think about spiders while I'm going to sleep.

For individual bug removal, I recommend the Critter Catcher. It looks silly, but it's deceptively well-designed:

There are two thicknesses of whiskers in that head, enough to hold an insect in. Releasing the trigger makes them close up again, and the insect inside thinks "hey, I'm hidden at least in this weird forest" and chills out. Then you walk outside, open the whiskers and shake the bug out.

It stores easily wherever you have your fly swatter now, and it saves looking for a glass and a piece of paper every time. I bought one at first because a kid in my life was having a hard time with spiders, but after using it, I got one for myself as an adult who doesn't particularly mind bugs.