[bklynhermit]

how hairy are you?

i mean more in the length and thickness of head hair sense.

once upon a time i had much longer hair than i do now, about midway down my back. about 6 months into having totally sweet long hair, my bath drain started getting slower. and slower. and slower. dra-no did nothing. the plunger did nothing. so i called my building's super to snake out the drain.

and he pulled out a meter long rope of my hair. all the hair i shed during showers and such got mixed in with sloughed skin, body oils, product build-up, soap, etc. and completely gunked up the pipes. the dra-no got rid of the dirt/skin/product gunk, but i mean when you have like a year's worth of 2-foot long strands of hair all compacted in there...

um, so i guess my answer is that if the chemicals don't work and you don't come by a plunger (or that doesn't work), you might have to get someone to snake out your pipes. if you rent and your apartment building has a maintenance person, super, or handy landlord, you should call that person. or if not, i guess you might have to pay a plumber...

[mornington]

thanks lot!

I haven't got a plunger (and tbh, I'm not about to rush out I buy one as I have nowhere to put it when I'm done) - I'll probably end up flinging mr muscle down it and hoping.

[lot49]

Hey mornington -- have you used a plunger? I'm sorry if that sounds obvious, but it never occurred to me to use anything but draino or some other liquid concoction for years. And they work better than any liquid (in my experience).

For the blu-tack -- maybe getting a new piece of blu-tack and rubbing it on the surface so that it adheres to the marks? Or can get a small piece of paint to touch up the marks?

eta: the blu-tack website recommends removing old blu-tack stains with a "citrus-based stain remover." I don't know if this is something you have to buy or if you could just use a lemon.

[mornington]

hey everyone... has anyone got any ideas for what's good for unblocking things? My shower has stopped draining properly - it takes forever to clear the water - and I've already had a poke around & cleaned up the plughole.

And getting blu-tack (white tack? sticky stuff you stick posters to the wall with) marks off the paint? I've just got the list of charges for "damages" done to my hall room, and I can't afford £60/wall to have them repainted.

[zora]

SOS Pads! I didn't even think of that! Duh, my dad uses them all the time to scrape rust off of shit. See, he has hard water and there's all kinds of minerals that come through, (he has a well and a water softner) so he has to scrub rust stains and rust off of all kinds of stuff. Thanks Doodle!

[doodlebug]

zora, when I was a kid, I got ahold of a bike that had been sitting out for a long time in the Vancouver rain, and was terribly rusty all over, chrome and all. My mom gave me a bunch of SOS pads to scrub it off, and it worked. I have no idea if this is bad for the chrome in the long term (I can't imagine that it would be, since you are just removing the rust), but it worked for me (albeit with a lot of elbow grease as well!). You could use ordinary steel wool if you can't deal with the soap that comes imbedded in the SOS pads.

I loves my SOS pads. I couldn't manage my home if there wasn't a big box of them always under the sink!

[raskel]

I use vinegar to clean everything too. I have asthma and the chemical cleaners nearly kill me. I also wash all of my laundry with vinegar because mold spores in my clothes used to trigger asthma attacks. (My room growing up was always in a basement, so things tended to be damp.)

To clean the bathtub/shower....dish soap and one of those plastic brillo pads. It takes all that soap scum right up with absolutely no effort at all and leaves it sparkling. Then you can just give it a quick wipe with the vinegar and it's nice and clean!

[treehugger]

Natural disinfectant/antiviral/antibacterial... grapefruit seed extract. Put a few drops in your cleaning solution.

[zora]

Any ideas on how to clean rust spots off of chrome? I have a bike that's been sitting out in the elements and it's all rust-spotted now. Is there a chemical for that kind of thing? I've really tried using baking soda, vinegar and other non-chemical cleaners and I can NOT make them work.

[bokovtoo]

awesome, thanks so much!

[bklynhermit]

more info about vinegar as a household cleanser:

http://tinyurl.com/ovh7r

[amywoman]

I like the LifeTree bathroom cleaner, which has lavender and tea tree oil in it. Kills germs, but isn't that easy to find. I think I found mine at Whole Foods but I can't remember for sure.

Vinegar also disinfects, as bklynhermit pointed out.

[bklynhermit]

a vinegar and water solution should do you just fine. as for 'antibacterial' and 'antiviral' i'm not entirely sure, but vinegar is a natural disinfectant and has been used as an all around cleanser for millenia. honey and basil are also both naturally antiseptic, however i'm not sure how they could be incorporated into household use.

unfortunately, most of the household cleansers that advertise as being total microbe killing machines are pretty chemical laden, as far as i can tell.

also, a paste of baking soda and water makes a good scouring solution. not entirely sure how antibacterial it is, but it sure does take the ring off my bathtub.

[bokovtoo]

Can anyone recommend a good natural bathroom cleaner? I'm pretty germ-phobic, so I definitely want something that will disinfect surfaces, but i want something that I don't worry about the cat walking on. (He's obsessed with water and likes to watch you shower, brush your teeth, wash your hands, etc.)

I tried Dr. Bronner's, Seventh Generation, etc., but none of them seem to specify that they're antibacterial and/or antiviral. Thanks!