topic Re: Helpful Household Hints in Home

Helpful Household Hints

BunSnoop — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 20:43:06 GMT

Please share your favorite household hints:

One I heard of today that works great is:

How to Make Your Shower Curtain Rings Slide Easier Over the Rod...............wipe a fabric softner sheet or wax paper to the rod and the curtain rings will slide more smoothly. I tried it today and it works great - what a difference - it slides smoothy and quietly.

What hints would you like to share?

Re: Helpful Household Hints

vegan4ever — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 21:26:37 GMT

Platex kitchen gloves are the perfect way to open jars learned this many years ago from hints of ? Can't recall her name. The hint works every time.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

Snowpuppy — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 21:31:23 GMT

How to put Merry Maids on Speed Dial.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

KBEANS — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 21:39:47 GMT

@vegan4ever Heloise! We were talking about her today at work. 😂

Back in the day, I read that you could polish wood furniture with Avon's Skin So Soft. I did it, but the scent lingered a bit too much for me.

It was a thing...100 uses for Skin So Soft or something like that.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

jlkz — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 22:04:55 GMT

Use white vinegar in your laundry instead of fabric softener...no clogging parts, no perfumey scent....no scent at all, just softness for a few pennies.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

LizzieInSRQ — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 22:15:25 GMT

To get rid of garlic or onion smells on your hands, "wash"them with water while you rub them on your stainless steel kitchen faucet, sink or bowls. It really does work.( there is also a stainless steel item shaped like a soap bar that I own that i use).

Re: Helpful Household Hints

LizzieInSRQ — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 10:09:11 GMT

@jlkz wrote:
Use white vinegar in your laundry instead of fabric softener...no clogging parts, no perfumey scent....no scent at all, just softness for a few pennies.

This 100 %.

I also keep vinegar mixed with water in a spray bottle and clean my kitchen and bathroom with it.

I use vinegar and water for cleaning my Pergo floors ( it doesn't attract dirt like floor cleaners can) No rinsing.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

on the bay — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 23:41:23 GMT

I use vinegar for everything too-cleaning and also a mouthrinse is great too!

To get rid of unmentionables, is what we call them, or deter them from coming (and I'm not talking about the cute mice), but the ones we wonder why God why?!

In addition to the black roach traps, for non toxic things use oregano, bay leaves, cloves. There are other herbs too but I've found especially the oregano really works. I use that outside on the deck and haven't seen one for many months! Cloves smell really nice and so do bay leaves inside.

Great thread @BunSnoop!

Re: Helpful Household Hints

pdlinda — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:10:02 GMT

@jlkz How much white vinegar? I never heard of that before but I use white vinegar in a lot of other ways!

Re: Helpful Household Hints

pdlinda — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:10:52 GMT

@LizzieInSRQ I do the same! I love white vinegar!

Re: Helpful Household Hints

Desertdi — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 05:00:16 GMT

The water where I live is so "hard" that it actually looks gray. I use a cup of AMMONIA as a final rinse (water softener-fabric softener) in the laundry.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

jlkz — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 11:20:07 GMT

@pdlinda

1/2 cup to one cup depending on size of load. Adjust to your liking.

Gremlins at work today....changing my font. Yep, it,s also a full moon ,

Re: Helpful Household Hints

TeezNu — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 14:28:04 GMT

I use a broom to scrub my tub and shower.
No need for bending, getting down on knees, etc.

I got the cheapest broom I could find - a few dollars at WalMart (a few years ago), and only use it for this task, never to sweep the floor.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

lynnie61 — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 22:02:15 GMT

I now use Dawn Powerwash as my laundry treatment for stains.

I use bio cleaner (from the Q) on my stainless steel sink, that looks so clean. You can't imagine the sponge turning gray. I scrub my sink daily, and use this twice a week. Always looks much brighter.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

coffee drinker — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 00:01:17 GMT

Cleaning the shower --

50% vinegar, 50%blue Dawn. Mix in spray bottle and use to clean shower walls. Mine are fiberglass and it does a wonderful job. I usually spray it on after the shower since the walls are wet. Leave it on a couple of hours or even overnight and then rinse off. Fortunately, I have one of those shower heads with a sprayer that makes the job of rinsing so easy. I don't clean the shower any other way.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

Sakuya — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 12:00:29 GMT

@jlkz @pdlinda - I also use white vinegar in my laundry instead of using fabric softener but only do a pour. I buy it in the biggest jug I can find and turn it to pour. As soon as it starts to come out I stop pouring. So I don't know how much it is, but it isn't a lot and my clothes are soft. I use wool balls instead of dryer sheets. These two things have saved a lot of chemicals from getting in my laundry and a lot of dollars from escaping my wallet.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

Sakuya — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 12:30:55 GMT

If there are ants in your kitchen, put pure (not imitation) peppermint oil on a cotton ball and wipe it around where you see ants coming in. They don't like peppermint so will stay away.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

wagirl — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 13:27:06 GMT

Actually, was watching the latest TSV from L-n-L last Sunday maybe--think it was the rectangle set--- and the vendor mentioned how better the shape of them is for storage in the refer---light bulb🔅 moment for me---I have such a small refer and most of my storage is round !! So much wasted space--so that will be my project--find and use the square/rectangle pieces instead of rounds. I have a huge container in storage, filled with more L-n-L.

Re: Helpful Household Hints

goldensrbest — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 15:54:41 GMT

Good old baking soda,to clean your sink,also when de scaling your coffee machine,poor baking soda down you drains ,add the hot vinegar from descaling your machine.