Keeping glass clean is important to the image of your home or office which is why window cleaning London services have become so popular. But what happens if the glass, on your windows or anywhere else in your home or office gets scratched? No amount of cleaning the glass will help. Glass is hard, but it does get scratched surprisingly easily. If the scratch is deep enough for your fingernail to be inserted into it, it usually means that nothing can be done about it. However, for scratches that are less deep, it may be possible to either remove or reduce them.
Removing scratches from glass requires the use of chemicals and motorized equipment, so please ensure you take all safety precautions.
You will need Jeweler’s Rouge (cerium oxide), an electric buffer with a polishing pad, household liquid ammonia, a spray bottle, rubber gloves, safety goggles, a dust mask and lint free paper towels or cloth.
* Apply a small amount of the Jeweler’s Rouge to the polishing pad- lamb’s wool pads are considered the best for this purpose.
* Put on your goggles and dust mask. Turn on the buffer and set it to not more than medium speed. Place the pad on the scratched area. While a small amount of pressure should be applied, be careful not to press too hard. The scratch may have weakened the glass and pressing too hard may cause it to crack. Hold the pad over the scratch for about a minute or so.
* If the scratch is in a spot where the buffer will not reach, you can rub the pad on the glass by hand, but be warned this is a slow and tiring process.
* Fill the spray bottle with ammonia and water in the ratio of 1 part of ammonia to 4 parts of water. Remember that even household ammonia can be dangerous and always wear gloves, goggles and the mask when working with it, even in a diluted state.
* Spray the ammonia and water solution on to the area that has been buffed and wipe it off with a lint free piece of cloth or a paper towel.
* If the scratch is still visible, repeat the process again.
* If after three attempts to remove the scratch it is still present, that means that it is too deep to remove and you should stop trying. Any further buffing of the area may weaken to glass to the point it may break later, on even a light touch.
Although removing of scratch is not part of standard window cleaning services, the agency you use should be able to tell you where you can get all the equipment you need, in case you donÕt have it.
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Once you have started using a deep freeze, you will not want to live without one. Having a deep freeze means that you will be able to store up edibles during times of plenty (whether this plenty means a bumper crop in the garden or some top-notch specials at the supermarket) for when times are tough. However, if you’ve got one, you have to treat it properly in order to get the best out of it.
First of all: some basic energy-saving tips. Don’t put hot food in the freezer, but allow it to cool down first so the freezing unit doesn’t have to work overtime to get things down to the right temperature. Also, a full freezer is more efficient – frozen meat and containers of soup don’t rush out the door when it opens, but air does. The new air will then have to be cooled.
You will also have to defrost the deep freeze regularly – about once a year is enough for most people with busy lives to lead. The main thing is to defrost the freezer before the ice builds up to a level that stops you shutting the door properly. A defrosting session as part of your domestic cleaning London is also a good chance to check through your frozen goods and make sure that nothing’s been sitting there too long.
How long is too long in the freezer? Leaving aside the palaeontologists who claim that mammoth meat frozen since the ice age is perfectly preserved and edible, if you don’t mind a little “freezer burn”, here are some rough guidelines:
Fruit and vegetables: 8 months (although they are still good after two years, from personal experience with a batch of frozen stewed plums). Freezing slows down enzyme reactions rather than stopping them, so blanching fruit and veg lightly or cooking them before they go into the freezer helps them stay good for longer. Berries are excellent to freeze and can be kept safely for up to a year.
Meat: up to 1 year, but less if the meat has been sliced or minced. For things you buy frozen (e.g. fish fingers), check the expiry date on the packet.
Eggs: Don’t freeze them at all – they can’t handle it.
Dairy products: up to 9 months, depending on what it is. If you have frozen a bottle of milk, wait until it thaws completely before drinking or using it, as the water part of it thaws out last.
Baked goods: three months for bread and the like, but biscuits can stay frozen for a year safely.
Some things don’t freeze well. Lettuces, bananas and all egg products shouldn’t be frozen, as they turn quite peculiar when they thaw out. It is also unwise to freeze stuffed poultry, as the stuffing can sometimes fail to freeze for some time and turn nasty in the process.
Don’t freeze anything that was in bad condition before it went in – it will still be bad when it comes out and you will have wasted valuable freezer space.
Make sure that you thaw out items you want to use properly before you start cooking them, especially meat. The exceptions here are berries or cut up pieces of fruit to be used in muffins, as they keep their shape for longer if they go into the mixture frozen; meat to be put through a mincer, which should be partially thawed, as it grinds more efficiently when half frozen; and frozen vegetables to be boiled, steamed or cooked in the microwave. Never put something back in the freezer once it’s thawed out.
If a power cut happens, your freezer will be good for a few days before things start thawing. Keep the door closed to keep the chill in for as long as possible. After about four days, things will begin to thaw. If the power is still out and your freezer was full of meat, this is the moment to get out your barbecue or light a fire, and to call all your neighbours around for a king-sized feast. It will cheer you all up during a crisis (which is what must be going on if the power has been out this long) so it won’t be a total waste of money.
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Many people who are interested in living more naturally and sustainably – and those who want to save a penny or two where they can in the current economic climate – have heard about the new so-called eco-bulbs. These lightbulbs are supposed to be a “bright idea” that will reduce your energy bills and reduce your carbon footprint. Many environmental lobbyists have pushed for them to be made more widespread or even compulsory. (On the other side of the world in New Zealand, the government seriously discussed making these bulbs compulsory and outlawing your regular incandescent bulbs. The resulting debate was nearly as incandescent as the old type of bulb.)
But are these bulbs such good news? Are they really a simple answer to our energy problems? Or do these lights have a dark side?
First of all, let’s take a look at what these eco-bulbs are and why they are supposed to be such a great idea. Eco-bulbs are also known as CFLs or compact fluorescent bulbs. They look like a cross between a DNA double helix (in some designs) and a neon light stuck into a standard light fitting. They use less electricity than other bulbs, and they have a longer life. The reasoning is simple: if you use less electricity to get the same amount of light, you’ll save on power, so if your power comes from a carbon-emitting source such as a coal-fired power plant, using these bulbs will reduce your carbon footprint (and save you quite a few bob. These bulbs may be pricier than regular bulbs but they last longer, so cost you less in the long run). What’s more, because you’re not replacing bulbs every two or three months, you aren’t putting as much unrecyclable glass and metal – both of which are non-renewable resources – into the waste system.
So far, so good. On the surface of things, eco-bulbs have a lot going for them. OK, the light they put out is a colder tone, very much like those large fluorescent lights beloved of offices, shops and schools, but you can get used to this.
However, these CFL eco-bulbs have a couple of problems that make them not quite so good after all. The first problem is this: if you are really serious about saving energy and have been for quite a while, you have probably trained yourself to turn the lights out when you leave the room. This is a good habit, but it dramatically shortens the life of one of these CFLs – up to 85% shorter, according to some sources. This means that if you only have the light on for a short time (e.g. in the toilet), you may as well have an ordinary incandescent bulb: they’ll last the same amount of time, and the incandescent bulb costs less.
Another problem that some people have noticed with these CFLs in comparison to the ordinary incandescent bulb relates to the incandescent bulb’s so-called inefficiency. The proponents of CFLs state, completely accurately, that not all of the energy going into an incandescent bulb is turned into light; some of it goes into heat energy. CFLs put out much less heat. And this is the problem. That heat energy from the incandescent bulb wasn’t being wasted – it went to heat the room the light was in, and was sometimes all you needed to take the chilly edge off the air – or to quote the Goon Show’s Henry Crun “Come in, come in and warm yourself by this roaring candle.” With this heat source removed, people have to switch on heaters or raise the central heating a few degrees to compensate – so the CFLs aren’t really energy savers at all.
But the real problem with CFLs is in disposal. CFLs contain mercury, which is a very toxic heavy metal that is difficult to dispose of safely. These CFLs are very hard to dispose off and, unlike the old incandescent, you can’t just chuck them in the bin. You are supposed to carefully take them into your nearest waste disposal site and hand them over for an expert to dispose of properly. However, your local tip supervisor may not be such an expert – tales have been told of people carefully handing old CFLs over only to have the “expert” casually toss the bulb into the waste heap. Smash. Mercury everywhere where it can leach into the atmosphere and water.
What’s more is that you can break CFLs before their life is over, depositing mercury into your carpet at ground level where small children can crawl and get into it – as if the glass wasn’t enough of a hazard if someone drops a lightbulb, clips one with a ladder while painting the ceiling or smashes one with a pillow during an over-enthusiastic pillow-fight. You can’t even vacuum the mercury up, even professional carpet cleaning London will not help, as it will turn to minute particles and be exhaled from the vacuum cleaner and still be around.
Call me cynical, but is it a coincidence that the Roman god Mercury – after whom this poison is named – was the god of merchants, trade and commerce?
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The majority of natural domestic cleaning London products and methods are very old-fashioned. Baking soda. Vinegar. Soap, water and elbow grease. Essential oils. These methods were temporarily pushed to one side from about the 1950s onwards as advertisers sold consumers the story that our homes should be 100% germ free and you needed Brand X to get everything gleaming and healthy, tackling the hidden dirt and germs… with ostracism and disease being the penalty for not using Brand X. Now, people who want to reduce environmental toxins and live more sustainably – or more frugally – are rediscovering the cleaning methods our grandmothers used and stayed perfectly healthy (or maybe our great-grandmothers – this writer’s grandmother was of the pre-Silent Spring generation when everyone chucked DDT around the place and put all sorts of vile chemicals into the garden).
But with the move towards toxin-free environmentally friendly ways to clean and care for our houses, researchers have been investigating new ways to keep clean and healthy without pouring chemicals around the place with glib abandon. Some of these more sustainable ways of cleaning and living naturally are things that our grandmothers never even dreamed of.
Here’s a selection of high-tech (or exotic) natural products:
* Disinfectant essential oils now go beyond good old lavender and thyme and other European herbs. Essential oils that also do a good job of killing germs and smelling great come from much further afield – tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil originate from Down Under, while Neem oil, which acts as an organic pest control, an antiseptic and even as a medicine.
* Microfibre cleaning cloths use (as the name suggests) tiny cloth fibres that get into microscopic cracks in all surfaces to scoop out all dirt and gunge, with only water as an additional product. Enjo is the best known manufacturer of these products, and they have a large range of cleaning tools, including dish brushes, mops, mitts and cloths.
* Stainless steel absorbs unpleasant odours (or somehow neutralises stinks). A stainless steel disk can be used in toilets, in shoes or in refrigerators (not the same disk, obviously – a separate one for each place) to deal with pongs.
* Laundry balls do the same job as soap – making water wetter by changing the molecular structure and thus reducing the surface tension – but use ions rather than chemicals. These also save water as well as reducing the amount of chemicals in your environment, as you don’t need to rinse clothes twice to make sure all the soap residue is out.
* Solar power is being improved continually and becoming more and more available. While these don’t reduce immediate toxins in the environment, they are certainly more sustainable ways of producing energy than others. Both solar panels for generating electricity and solar water heaters are becoming widely used, and designs are improving.
* Women can use reusable items for that time of the month. The Mooncup is one popular option that reduces the amount of bleached and scented this and that applied to sensitive tissues, and also reduces waste.
* Ionizers put out negative ions, which counteract the amount of positive ions put out by electronic and electrical equipment. Positive ions and EMFs can cause sleep disruption, headaches and grumpiness, and may also have an effect on the body’s cells, even to the point of triggering tumour development, although the jury’s still out on this one. Moving water also puts out negative ions, and miniature waterfalls to be used as desk ornaments are now available.
* Paints have come a long way from the lead-based ones of the past, with many lines of low-toxin eco-paints or even organic paints. Wallpaper has also improved vastly in modern times (by way of contrast, Napoleon’s chambers had arsenic-impregnated wallpaper – arsenic produced a very popular shade of green) and you can buy wallpaper that is free of solvents, chlorine bleach, fungicide and all the rest of the muck they put in standard wallpaper, even if they don’t use arsenic.
One thing to remember when shopping around for modern high-tech ways of living naturally or for sustainable solutions for our homes is to watch out for modern jargon used to describe old-fashioned products. A “solar-powered exterior clothes dehydrator” sounds high-tech but is just a fancy way of describing a washing line.
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We all hoard junk. I have had a poke through my cupboards and have come up with some items that I just can’t bear to throw out and probably ought to. But why was I holding onto them in the first place? What was I thinking?
I’m probably not alone in this hoarding habit. We all do it – it’s human nature, especially if you’re thrifty or have experienced poverty – or even if you don’t like the throwaway disposable culture that has led to so much pollution. See how many of the items below ring a bell with you.
1. An old, frayed alpaca wool jersey that’s full of unrepairable holes. I keep meaning to unravel it and roll the wool into balls for re-use. After all, it’s lovely soft grey alpaca wool and it would cost a packet to buy it at the shop… The jersey has now been sitting up there for two years. Verdict: either get on with it and unravel the jersey, or else bite the bullet and take it down to the local rag trader/charity so they can recycle it how they see fit (some charities and volunteer organisations do unravel old jerseys and knit blankets for foreign aid organisations).
2. A pair of blue curtains with pink and white flowers that don’t fit any of the windows in my house and I don’t particularly like the look of. These were given to me and it seems a real waste to just throw them away. Besides, my mother was on the lookout for second-hand curtains for the house my parents have just built and I’m keeping them for her. Verdict: give them away or give them to your mother this weekend.
3. Some articles and magazines aimed at the parents of babies – and the younger of my children is now eight years old. They seemed really helpful at the time, but I haven’t looked at them for ages and can hardly remember what’s in them. Verdict: scan over them to see if I can reuse the material for another article Anyclean can use, then chuck the articles and the magazines in the recycling bin.
4. A fountain pen with no ink cartridges left. Cartridges are expensive if all you want is plain black or blue, and I always seem to get ink all over my fingers when I use the pen. However, the pen’s a very good one and looks stylish. Verdict: look out for some fancy ink cartridges or ink (you can refill a fountain pen cartridge with bottled ink by using a syringe, if you have one handy) and learn to write more neatly. Then use the pen with the fancy ink for signing cheques like a high-flying corporate.
5. A cornflower blue sweatshirt that is too small for my husband and that I used to wear but now have rejected as being unflattering. It does cover a lot up when doing dirty jobs like domestic cleaning London or painting the house – and I’ve got the paint on it to prove it. Keep it for this purpose, but don’t keep any other old clothes with the same excuse. One cover-up’s enough.
6. Empty yoghurt pottles, the one-litre variety, with lids. They’re very handy for freezing things and storing leftovers. I got into the habit of keeping them when a friend of mine with five children was hospitalised with cancer and all of us were rallying around the family with meals. The pottles could fit food in easily, I could freeze things in them without any trouble, and because they were “free gifts with the purchase of a litre of yoghurt”, I didn’t have to worry about getting them back from my friend later, like I would with a “good” dish. However, my friend’s now out of hospital and has even got a good crop of hair back, but I’m still saving large yoghurt pottles, which are starting to pile up. Verdict: keep some for freezing things, but get rid of the rest – preferably by sending them to the plastic recycling depot or by giving them to a charity (women’s refuge? food bank?) with something in them.
7. Ziplock bags from the bulk-bin department at my local supermarket. They’re great for packed lunches. Sandwiches can be made up in bulk and frozen ready to go, along with a muffin – they thaw out without any bother, unless they contain lettuce or something else that will go soggy. If you’re not fussy, this won’t matter. The crumbs can be shaken out and the bag can be washed and re-used. Vegetables and fruits can also be block frozen for later use (e.g. peas, beans, stir-fry mixes, berryfruit and chopped up rhubarb).
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“Snow has closed the X Highway,” droned the radio announcer. “Several drivers have been trapped. The road may not be able to be cleared for another hour.”
Have you ever wondered how you’d be able to cope if you had to wait in your car for any length of time waiting for the mechanics, the cops or the civil defence crew to turn up? What items should you carry in your car to cope with emergencies big and small? And those little emergencies include very little things indeed.
Let’s start with the basics. We’ll assume you carry your cellphone everywhere and that it is charged up – you don’t keep this in the glovebox or boot. Things can go wrong with your car, with punctures being the most common. You should always make sure that your car has a jack and a spare tyre – don’t buy a car without one, and make sure you know how to use it. If you’ve had to change a tyre thanks to a puncture, make sure that you get the old one repaired and pumped up again so you don’t have the nightmare situation of confidently taking a flat tyre off only to find that the spare is also flat. Other items for getting your car going again, if it breaks down or similar, are a towing rope and jumper leads. These tuck down nicely into any car, even a tiny little city runabout.
What about for you? A first aid kit is high on the list of must-haves inside your car. This isn’t just in case you crash – other things can happen, such as bee-stings, paper cuts and grazes, so it’s good to have the means to deal with this on hand. A blanket is another handy thing to carry. This can be used to keep an accident victim warm in case of shock. You may think it won’t happen to you because you’re a careful driver, but you never know when you’re going to come across some elderly person around town who has collapsed and you’re the first (or only) person on the scene.
Now come the creature comforts for not-so-big emergencies:
Sunglasses: Glare makes driving uncomfortable, so keep a spare pair in your glovebox in case you leave your favourites behind and get caught out.
Eatables: You may have to wait in the car for a while or be diabetic. Chocolate doesn’t keep all that well in the glovebox – it can melt, but peppermints, nuts and raisins, or crackers all make good, storable nibbles. Chewing gum is another handy way of keeping relaxed while driving on long journeys. Drinks are a bit trickier. While keeping hydrated on water is a good idea on a long drive, it’s not a good idea to store water long-term in a car, as it can get a bit unsafe. Take a fresh bottle of water with you when you go – it can come in handy for topping up radiators as well as yourself.
Serviettes, tissues or paper napkins: Paper napkins can be used for first aid, cleaning sunglasses, window cleaning, wiping windscreens, checking the oil, wiping fingers and scribbling notes. They can also be used as a substitute for loo paper if you find a public loo that’s out of paper.
Maps: Have two, a local street map and a nationwide map.
Pens and pencils: You never know when you may have to jot down phone number, licence plates or the name of a great shop you’ve just spotted.
Reading material: If you’re stuck for ages waiting for the breakdown crew or whoever, this prevents boredom. If you are likely to have children in the car, provide for them as well.
Music: Another must for long car journeys and for filling in dull waits.
Warm and/or waterproof clothing: If the weather turns appalling or you have to wait with your engine (and heater) off in cold weather, you will appreciate having a warm pullover on hand. And if you have to change a tyre in pouring rain, a raincoat is a lifesaver.
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If you ask people to give a list of ten fruits, there’s a very high chance that they’ll list bananas – if you ask for a list in alphabetical order, bananas nearly always are used for B (rather than blueberries, breadfruit or blackberries). Most of us love the smell of bananas – some list the scent of banana as a favourite smell – and they’ve been the subject of numerous slapstick jokes involving the slipperiness of the peels.
Bananas are the fruit from trees of the Musa genus, with several species being used for food. “Cavendish” is the variety used most widely used as a dessert or sweet banana, with its Latin name being Musa acuminate.
Bananas are a rich source of complex carbohydrates –they have triple the amount of complex carbs compared to most (if not all) other fruits. This is why they make a great snack and a good supply of long-lasting energy.
A banana provides enough energy for the average person to walk two kilometres.
Bananas are usually picked green and the ripening process is hurried up by washing ethylene gas over them. The flavour is improved, however, if the bananas are “ungassed” and allowed to ripen by themselves. However, the ethylene gas is not harmful – apples give off this gas naturally. For this reason, if you want bananas to last longer without over-ripening, don’t store them with apples. You can buy special fruit bowls that have a special hook for bananas above the main part of the bowl so they don’t spoil quickly. Conversely, if you have bought bananas a little green and want to hurry them along a bit, pop them in an airtight container with some apples and let the natural ethylene from the apples ripen them.
Bananas are rich in vitamins and minerals. Unlike many other fruits, they contain all six major vitamin groups, being particularly rich in vitamin B6 (one banana can provide roughly one third of an adult’s recommended daily intake). They are also a rich source of potassium, which is essential for healthy muscle tissue.
Bananas contain serotonin, which promotes sleep and is also a natural anti-depressant.
Bananas can be frozen. The skin will turn black, but the flesh will be fine. A delicious (and reasonably healthy) snack for children and adults involved skewering bananas (halved or whole) and dipping them in melted chocolate before freezing.
Because of their high vitamin, carbohydrate and mineral content, mashed bananas are excellent “first foods” for infants just starting on solids. They’re easy to digest, too. Only very few people are allergic to bananas so it is usually a safe food to give babies.
Banana stains are difficult to remove – unlike other fruit spills and splashes, they don’t just wash off in the regular wash. Suggestions to remove banana stains from clothing include dabbing it with tea tree oil before washing, rubbing it with a natural domestic cleaner London like lemon juice (which is a mild bleach) or rubbing with a mixture of glycerine and water. Washing with a biological washing powder in warm water can work. With white clothing and an old stain (baby clothes spring to mind), chlorine bleach can be used.
Banana peels can be used as an emergency shoe polish as it contains a natural lubricant – yes, the same lubricant that makes the banana peels so slippery. Banana peels are also supposed to be good for buffing leather upholstery and even for cleaning silverware. Do a patch test on an inconspicuous spot first.
Banana peels are also rich in nutrients. Roses, in particular, like banana peels, so instead of throwing out your banana peels into the rubbish, tuck the peels around the roots of your rose bushes. At the very least, compost those banana peels – they’re so full of goodies for your garden it’s a shame to waste them on a landfill.
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I must say at the outset that I don’t mean to imply by the title that my mother taught me nothing at all about washing hands or that hygiene was a low priority when I was growing up. Quite the contrary. I grew up hearing “wash your hands before you sit up to the table” as much as you did.
However, while I distinctly remember being told to wash my hands and being taught how to clean the sink out after I’d finished washing my hands after playing in mud so I didn’t leave muddy smears all over the soap and the sink (“Always leave it better than you found it,” was a favourite dictum of my mother’s), I have no memory of being taught how to wash my hands properly.
So how do you wash your hands properly? Handwashing is the oldest and by far the best method of preventing the spread of disease, and it is also the easiest way to limit the spread of harmful viruses and bacteria – much easier than wearing facemasks or spraying disinfectant around everything you might come in contact with, and much easier than trying to open public toilet doors with your elbow.
Let’s start with when you wash your hands. Most of us know that we ought to wash our hands after going to the lavatory or before we eat. However, you should also wash your hands after coughing or sneezing, after handling animals, after handling raw meat, chicken or fish, before cooking or handling food, before AND after changing a baby’s nappies, and before AND after caring for a sick person. And, obviously, if you get anything revolting on your hands that you wouldn’t want to put in your mouth, you should wash it off.
Now for how to wash your hands properly. A frightening amount of people consider their hands to be washed if they vaguely wipe a thumb over the soap then stick their fingers under running water for half a second before rubbing like billy-oh on a towel. This will remove a bit of dirt, but won’t reach the full potential for removing germs.
Yes, you should use soap. You don’t have to use special anti-bacterial soap to wash your hands properly and hygienically. Ordinary soap – bar or liquid – will do. But for the soap to work properly, it needs to lather. Wet your hands first, preferably with warm water, to get a good lather going.
Once you have rubbed your hands together to get plenty of lather, keep on rubbing. Rub your palms together first, and then move onto the backs. The more you move and scrub your hands together, the better, the more effectively you will remove dirt, bacteria and other nasties. This step of rubbing with lather should take about 20 seconds. How do you know you’ve spent long enough? You can count it out, but for little children, it may be easier to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” as an indication of the time. Or you could take a tip from the medieval monks and wash your hands for one Paternoster – the amount of time that it takes to pray the Lord’s Prayer.
If you have been doing a dirty job like domestic cleaning London, garden cleaning or changing the oil in your car, you may need to use a scrubbing brush as well. This is a must for dirt stuck under the nails. However, you can prevent dirt getting under your nails when you’re gardening by ramming your nails into a bar of soap before you start. This will wedge soap under your fingernails, which will block the dirt from getting in and also washes out easily. Soap with ground pumice or sand in it also helps scrub out deep dirt after a really grimy job.
Rinse off the soapy lather thoroughly. If water is short, you can do the scrubbing step with the tap turned off, or else in a basin of water. But the rinsing should be done under fresh running water, hot or cold. Make sure all the soap is off.
Lastly, you should dry your hands thoroughly. Paper towels are the most hygienic, but they are wasteful and expensive for everyday home use. Just remember to change your hand towels frequently – they shouldn’t be damp or discoloured. Changing them daily is ideal, but in the real world, twice a week is more realistic. Or have a series of little hand towels that you can use once and wash after using.
The alcohol-based hand sanitizers do a good job of killing the germs on your hands if you are out and about and can’t wash your hands properly. But they won’t actually remove grime off your hands, and using them too often can be tough on your skin, especially if you have sensitive skin. In this writer’s opinion, they’re good for if you find that the public loo you’ve just had to use is out of soap (it happens only too frequently) or if you decide on the spur of the moment to have a picnic but don’t have anywhere to wash your hands. Like space-saver tyres, they’re for emergencies, not as an everyday option.
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The standard first reaction from most people when confronted with a sink full of dirty grey water that just won’t go down the plughole is either to (a) phone the plumber or (b) run down to the nearest hardware store for a bottle of Drano™ or some other ferocious chemical to tip down the hole and obliterate the gunk doing the blocking. However, neither of these methods is really necessary for the majority of blockages, and it is quite possible to get things going again without reaching for the chemicals.
Drano™ and the like are strong chemicals that dissolve the substances (usually organic substances) that are causing the blockage. However, the Drano™ will keep working and dissolving organic substances after the water is gurgling freely down the sink. Just stop and think for a moment what this is likely to do to the aquatic ecosystem. Yes, your drain commercial cleaning chemical of choice is probably biodegradable (these days, anyway) and will break down and be less noxious after a while, but it won’t do this straight away and it will have some effect. These fierce chemicals should definitely not be used if you have a septic tank system – they will kill the anaerobic bacteria that break down the waste solids.
The most common cause of blockages down sinks is a gunky mixture of soap scum and hair, often caused by people washing their hair in the sink or wet shaving. While letting beards, armpit hair and leg hair grow wild and leaving it unwashed is probably going a bit too far in the quest for an unblocked sink, it is possible to minimize the amount of hair that goes down. Most plugs have a trap at the top of them to prevent large objects going down and a good amount of hair gets stuck here, especially long hair. Clean hair off the trap regularly. Sometimes, if the water is a little sluggish to go out, pulling out any hairs from the trap can work wonders. The hairs will come up covered with thick black or grey goo that smells vile – chuck this down the lavatory or in the compost heap (toilets have wider pipes for obvious reasons and can handle this sort of muck). Waxing and dry shaving with electric shavers can also minimize the amount of hair going down, but this is a matter of personal preference.
The other common cause of blocked drains is the stupid habit of tipping hot fat in its liquid state down the kitchen sink. A plumber of this writer’s acquaintance says that this is the most frequent reason he is called out to a job. Don’t do it. Instead, give that liquid fat to the dog, pour it into the compost heap, use it to make a bird feeder or save it for making soap (the soap produced won’t be perfect, but it will be good enough soap).
OK, that’s how to prevent a sink getting blocked, or at least reduce the likelihood of it getting blocked. But what if you’re sitting there with a sullen grey puddle that won’t go down?
First of all, try the force of air pressure. For this, use a plunger or plumber’s mate – one of those sticks with a big rubber cup on the end. A big one works better than the small ones – the idea of these things is to force air up and down the pipe, which will dislodge and/or break up the blockage, so the more air pushed, the better. Place the cup over the plug hole and get pumping up and down. You will hear a swirling, swooshing gurgling sound, and (all going well) the drain will be clear.
Still no luck? Now its time to try chemical action, but you can use natural products for this. Boiling water will melt fat so it can get down, so this can be your first line of defence if you suspect that fat is blocking the drains. But better still is the baking soda and hot vinegar method. First of all, pour about a cup full of baking soda down the plughole. Make sure it all goes down – use a bit of boiling water to help it on its way. Follow this with a cup of vinegar, preferably heated or even boiling, as heat speeds the reaction between the acid and the base. The resulting reaction will force the blockage apart, and the acid in the vinegar will also have some effect on the alkaline soap. Wait a few minutes and repeat.
If you still don’t have any luck, you may need to physically remove the blockage. This is a nasty job and you can only do it if you can see the S-bend (or U-bend) in the pipe – try the cupboard under the sink or basin. Remove anything in this cupboard and put a bucket underneath where the pipe comes down from the top. Now unscrew the bottom of the U-bend – you may need some help from a pipe wrench. Then unscrew the top and stand clear as the water from above comes splashing into the bucket. Tip any excess water from the bend into the bucket as well. Now comes the really nasty bit: you will have to poke around and find what’s blocking the pipe. If some idiot has poked cotton buds down the sink (it happens!) or if there’s a very thick plug of fat/hair/soap/gunge, you will have to remove this. Wear rubber gloves. When you’re done, screw the pipe back on nice and securely, and go and throw the bucket of dirty water onto some unobtrusive place in the garden.
And don’t ever tip fat down the sink again.
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American child psychologist James Dobson once described a typical scenario that many parents have encountered: you come into the bedroom and find a lipstick-covered toddler smelling of Chanel No. 5 smiling beatifically at you surrounded by a chaos of smeared foundation, mascara, talcum powder and moisturizer all over the place. What he didn’t describe was what to do next, especially when it comes to cleaning up the mess.
Cleaning up the meddling little monkey is the easy bit. Cream cleanser will get the lipstick off him/her, even if the child in question didn’t slather on moisturizer first. Deep reds or long-lasting lipsticks may leave a slight stain, but this will wear away in a day or so.
Worst things first for the clean-up job. In many ways, it may be better to leave cleaning up the child until last. This is especially true if nail polish has been involved in the chaos. Deal with this one first, especially if it’s on the carpet.
According to one household expert, you should use a metal comb (the sort used for dealing with headlice), tissues cotton wool and acetone (nail polish remover). Wrap the tissue around the comb so that the teeth poke through it. Use the comb to lift the pile of the carpet up slightly – slide it right into the carpet so it forms a barrier between the top of the carpet and the bottom. The tissue will soak up any excess. Then dab on a little acetone – not too much, as it can melt plastic and plastic derivatives in artificial fibres – and use the cotton wool to blot, rub and wipe the nail polish off. Don’t try do the whole stain at once; work through it bit by bit, moving the comb along as you go and changing the tissue when it gets wet. This method is also supposed to work with superglue.
If the nail polish is on cotton cloth, the job is much easier. Simply dab it in acetone. Artificial fibres are more difficult, as acetone will melt plastic-based substances. This is a job for a professional, so take whatever-it-is down to the dry-cleaning agency. However, if the nail polish hasn’t quite set, you can remove the excess by scraping as much as you can off, but make sure that what you use to scrape it off can stand a little nail polish on it, as the polish will now stick to it.
To remove lipstick from carpet, dab on a little dry-cleaning fluid with cotton wool. This will fade the intensity of the colour a bit. Then shake bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) over the stain. Then all you do is vacuum.
For foundation or other liquids containing oil on carpet, first tackle the oils by scrubbing it with a toothbrush using a mixture of cold water and dish detergent. Blot dry. If the stain still remains, use a proprietary carpet cleaning solution. If the stain still lingers, get the carpet out into bright sunshine if you can, as the UV light will fade the stain. If you can’t get the carpet outside into the light, then apply a little lemon juice to the stain as a bleach, or hire a UV light and focus it on the stain for a few hours.
Methylated spirits will remove most makeup off things like sheets or clothing. Dab a moderate amount (enough to soak through the cloth) onto the stain, then leave it to soak before washing in the machine. It’s best to use a cold water wash in case the hot water sets any stains.
Talcum powder goes everywhere, but it easy to clean up. Just dust it up with a duster as you would for any other type of dust, or else vacuum. Scented talcum powder in the vacuum cleaner will mean that the vacuum cleaner will give off that scent until you change the bag or empty the container – a nice bonus.
Better still, avoid the problems and keep your cosmetics out of child-reach. Or shut the bedroom door when you’re not there!
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