As I have written in my article, the term mildew is actually plant mold, but popular usage of the term now refers to mold growing in moisture-prone areas of the home like bathrooms and basements. In my place, it was the bathroom. The mildew was present in the shower the day we bought the house, but other projects always seemed more dire. As I tried to get clean in the mornings, I would always wonder how I was going to clean the mildew. One such morning, the rubber lining around my shower fell onto my shoulders like a dead boa constrictor. That was my Pearl Harbor; war was finally declared. I turned to the tried and true staples in my green cleaning arsenal, and now I wonder why I just didn’t clean the mildew sooner. Well, it has excited my gag reflex for the last time. Read my latest article on how to clean mildew without resorting to products containing depleted uranium, as well as how to prevent mildew and deal with other mildew-related issues.
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Last week I unearthed my wife’s Nintendo from a neglected pile of boxes untouched since we moved. I hooked it up only to be confronted with a blinking screen or garbled graphics. Since they haven’t seen any action in years, I decided it was time to clean our collection of NES games. Being a gamer of many years, handling the game cartridges invoked a deep sense of nostalgia. Back in the days of the cartridge consoles, you didn’t need to worry about disc scratches, what position the system is in, or any of the major malfunctions the modern toys are prone to. The process of cleaning a game cartridge is simple and the same whether you’re cleaning a game for the NES, the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, Game Boy…etc. Read my article on how to clean a game and relive those priceless gaming experiences. Let your Sega take you back to the days before prepubescent boys screamed racist and otherwise profoundly stupid things over the Internet.
Mold and I have a history. When I was in third grade, I developed acute allergies to mold and dust. I would wake up with splotchy red eyes, and a nasal cavity brimming with gelatinous ooze. I looked like an extra in a low-budget horror film. Neither my parents nor I really learned how to clean up the mold problem; rather, we focused on how to deal with my allergic reactions. Years of allergy treatments later, I’ve purchased my own home, and because it is ancient and I live in lake country, I have finally been forced to learn how to clean mold. I found mold in the walls, in the bathroom, and in the basement of my new home - and it was all very painful. But through my pain there is much to be learned - for example, what chemicals are practical, safe, and environmentally sound for a mold cleanup job. You’ll learn what items can be cleaned and which ones must be disposed of. There is also a good deal about mold prevention in the article, so if you suspect your house is being digested by a slime, or your nose won’t stop blathering on about the wall’s fancy new fur coat, you owe it to both of them to give my new article on how to clean mold a read.
Cleaning windows isn’t a fun job; in fact, I really loath doing it and usually wait longer than the recommended six months between washings. When faced with the task, I try to give myself a mental boost by comparing it to extremely unsavory occupations. “Better to clean windows than wrangle sperm from a turkey,” I’ll say as I collect my gear. When I’m finished, I always marvel at the improved atmosphere, and wonder what took me so long. I’m lazy…that is the answer, but I’ve found that other people avoid cleaning windows for other reasons. One often-heard complaint is the sheer number of options out there; with aisles of cleaning solutions and a plethora of cleaning tools, people forget that they ever knew how to clean windows at all. In my latest article, I re-simplify this formerly simple task, outlining both how to make a green yet effective cleaning solution from household ingredients, as well as what tools are essential for the job.
This is our first post on the How to Clean Things Blog, and I’ll take this time to tell you a little bit about How to Clean Things and this blog.
How to Clean Things started as a spin-off of How to Get Rid of Things. When we first started it, we were putting up articles almost every other day for a couple of weeks. Things were working out great, but something was missing, something you might see in a few of the earlier articles: environmentally friendly cleaning practices. So we decided, hey, this is the 21st century, right? If female astronauts can drive from Texas to Florida without having to stop for a potty break, then we should be able to clean something without damaging the environment, right? Yes.
So, How to Clean Things was born anew. We did some redesigning, a little cleanup, and added an ethical responsibility to help protect our fragile ecology while teaching people how to effectively clean just about anything. As you can see from the eight existent articles, we’re still working on the “anything” part.
Speaking of existence: this blog exists to keep you informed about recent article changes and resources that we have found helpful in our quest to clean things in an ecologically sound manner.
