Cleaning Archives

Tag Archives | cleaning

Kärcher Window Vac – One Month On

By Mum's the Word on October 28, 2012 in Health, Money, Opinion, Review

Just for the record, the lovely Kärcher people haven’t asked me to do a follow-up to my original post, I’ve just found the device so useful that I wanted to show you how we’ve been using it over the last month.

1. Demisting the car

As much as I love our old car, it’s not all that efficient when it comes to demisting the windows on a cold day. In fact, if I put the blowers on too high and listen to the radio at the same time, it overloads the electrics and the immobiliser has a fit, making the car cut out completely, which is a bit scary when you’re on the brow of a hill on a busy road…but that’s another story! On these cold mornings, I’ve found the Window Vac absolutely invaluable when it comes to giving me visibility quickly. It’s saved me so much time as I don’t have to sit around waiting for the windows to clear before I go anywhere, I just vac all the windows inside and out and we’re ready to go. I can’t emphasise enough how much I love the Vac for this!

2. Sorting out our damp house

We live in a little bungalow which is damp at the best of times and even though we keep our bedroom cold, we still wake up with the windows running with condensation. I keep them open all day long but a quick going over with the vac first gets rid off the excess damp and gives us an overall healthier sleeping space.

3. Cleaning the bathroom

Let’s face it, cleaning the bathroom is a complete drag and although I keep the basin, bath and loo clean, I’m not so good at washing the walls down. However, today we stuck the shower on and built up a load of steam so that Sausage could get a bit of relief from her horrible cough and cold and after, the walls were absolutely soaked. I went over all of the tiles with the Window Vac and they came up a treat. An easy way to steam-clean the bathroom, and I love the fact that I haven’t had to use loads of caustic and expensive chemicals to give it a good clean.

4. Cleaning the patio set

Our patio set has a glass top to the table, which looks really nice but is an absolute pig to keep clean. There’s a rim around the edge which means no matter how much you wash and rinse, it’s impossible to wipe it properly. However, this time I washed the top with a soapy sponge, rinsed it with the hose and then gave it a good going over with the Window Vac and it came up a treat, streak free and completely clean.

I knew before we even got the Vac that I loved the idea of it, but as I said in my previous post, I had high-expectations for it to live up to and I can honestly say that it has more than surpassed them. The longer we have the Vac the more uses I find for it and considering they retail for less than £50 if you shop around, it’s worth every penny. If you’ve got one and know of any uses that I’ve missed, do let me know!

Comments { 2 }

Another Housework Post…

By Mum's the Word on October 19, 2012 in Personal, Rant, Sponsored Posts

Now that Sausage is at school, I have a lot more time on my hands. I have some work to do here and there, but largely I’m a free agent. You’d think this would be a good thing, but it’s not. Here’s why:

1. Instead of taking care of another person, I’m doing a lot of sitting on my bum and eating crisps. It’ not good for my sanity or my waistline.

2. Daytime TV is truly, truly rubbish, but I can feel myself getting sucked in. I got all antsy today because I didn’t get to watch Jeremy Kyle.

3. Before, when the house was a dump, I had an excuse. “I’ve been running around after a 4 year old!” I’d cry. Now, it’s just me, wallowing in my own filth, which is so not a good look.

There’s definitely an element of me being a lazy cow in there (obvs…) but I also blame my house. No, honestly, hear me out.

I have the smallest kitchen in the whole world. This means I have no space for a dishwasher, so dishes build up on the side and to compound this the ‘side’ is bloody tiny, so the kitchen looks condemnable after just one meal. I have a decent enough washing machine, but it’s LOUD and as our kitchen is basically just a sectioned off part of our living room, this is by no means convenient. Also, there’s no space for a dryer, so washing is an ordeal. I can only stick a load on when I can get it hung out, and living in England means that this is for about three and half weeks of the year. The rest of the time, it’s on clothes horses or sitting in piles which eventually smell like mould.

I’d absolutely adore one of these Bosch Washing Mashines from Appliances direct, which would be quieter, more efficient and look a damn-sight nicer too. I’d need an extension (or a new house…) before I got all of my other wishes, but this would be a start. ‘Cause let’s face it, there’s nothing worse that sitting down to watch Jeremy Kyle and not being able to hear it over the noisy washing machine!

A girl can dream, can’t she…?!

Comments { 0 }

Making Brush Time More Enjoyable

By Mum's the Word on September 27, 2012 in Family, Health, Sponsored Posts

Me and Mr. MTW are no strangers to dental issues, both of us having suffered with our wisdom teeth and him having a nightmare extraction very recently which left him with dry socket – super painful. We are both, however, hot on brushing as it’s one of the things we can do to really ensure that our teeth last as long as we need them to! Sausage fell over and bashed her front tooth when she was a tiny tot and has a slight imperfection there, which I’ve tried to brush away to no avail!

The lovely folk at Aquafresh have made this video to show you how to make brush time more enjoyable and how to ensure you’re getting it just right.

The video comes on the back of research that Aquafresh conducted of 1,500 mums of children aged 2-12 that reveals that more than one million under-fives in the UK have at least two fillings, as mums struggle to get kids to brush their teeth. For more information, or to sign up to The Club for fun tips on how to get kids brushing or for a free sample of Aquafresh Fresh & Minty, please visit http://www.aquafreshclub.co.uk

Comments { 0 }

Kärcher Window Vac – Review and Giveaway

By Mum's the Word on September 25, 2012 in Competitions, Giveaway, Review

NOW CLOSED

Sometimes I get sent products to review that I’m genuinely excited about trying out and the Kärcher Window Vac is one of them. If you’ve not seen the adverts ~~you’re not watching telly right~~, the vac is basically like the squeegee thing that you see a professional window cleaner using, except it actually sucks the water up as the blade moves over the glass.

Continue Reading →

Comments { 163 }

Work Smart, Not Hard – Mum’s the Word Cleaning Tips.

By Mum's the Word on April 2, 2012 in How To, Life

As I’ve mentioned about a billion times before, I’m not a fan of housework. I’m not ashamed to say that if I were rich, I’d probably pay someone to do it. It’s a thankless task that is never done. As soon as you think the place is spotless, someone wears something, eats something or pees somewhere and you have to start all over again.

Just recently, I’ve discovered a few little things that have helped to make the cleaning process a little easier, which is something we could all do with. We all know about white vinegar, lemon juice and newspaper being a great help, but the ones I use may not be so well-known. So here are a few things that could make your daily chores a bit less of a, well, chore!

1. WD40

WD40 is one of those things that most people have in the garage or shed but never think to use for cleaning. In fact, WD40 is AMAZING a getting rid of grease. Just recently, I cleaned our cooker hood using WD40 and a soft cloth and not only did it cut through the cooked-on grease with seriously minimal effort, the cooker hood came up to a beautiful shine too. In the grand scheme of things, WD40 doesn’t even smell too bad either and I can’t convey just how easy this made the whole job.

If you go to the WD40 site, there’s actually 2000+ uses for it and Husband informs me that it’s also amazing at getting waxed crayon off of painted walls!

2. Fabric Softener

This is an odd one, but I’m not a massive fan of polish or aerosols in general. I find it smells pretty rough and as is the modern way, I don’t really have a lot of true wooden furniture, mostly Ikea-tastic units that don’t actually like polish very much. I don’t know where I read this one, but instead of polish I use a tiny bit of fabric softener on a cloth instead. It smells nicer and helps you to pick up dust and remove drinks rings far better than a dry cloth. I wouldn’t recommend this if you have antiques or wooden units as it’ll dry out the wood, but for anything laminate, this is perfect.

3. Bicarbonate of Soda

This is a pretty well-known one, I think, but it’s pretty old-fashioned too so I’m not sure if it’s as well-known to my generation. We keep bicarb in the house constantly as it is so useful for so many things. We’ve used it on a saucer in the fridge to wick away any unpleasant smells, diluted in boiling water to brighten stained mugs, made into a paste and used with a toothbrush to clean tiles and the bit round the base of the taps that goes scummy. We even used it to get the smell of sick out of our memory foam mattress after Sausage did an EPIC chunder one night and no amount of cleaning product would get rid of the odour.

4. Chamois Leather

If you have a dog which is a short-haired breed, especially at this time of year, you’ll notice that those spiky little hairs are BLOODY EVERYWHERE. You can’t brush them like you can with a longer haired breed, but rubbing their coat with a slightly damp chamois leather a couple of times a week helps to get rid of all of the loose hairs and will make their coat come up a treat. Plus, if your dog is anything like our big baby, they’ll just love the fuss! (It has to be a proper chamois though, not an artificial one)

So there you go, four little tips which may make your day a bit cheaper and easier. If you have any of these little gems, let me know!

Comments { 2 }

Turns Out, It’s Pathological…

By Mum's the Word on February 27, 2012 in Humour, Personal

I’m having a weird experience.

This weekend, I’ve worked my arse off and got every room in the house clean and tidy. We’ve had a massive sort out and got rid of all of the clothes and shoes that we don’t want anymore, sorted out Sausage’s burgeoning mound of toys, sorted out Husbands office which was in danger of attracting hobos with the amount of cardboard boxes that were piled up in there. Hell, Husband even cleaned the oven! What I’m saying is, that as I sit here there’s one final load of washing going round in the machine and then THAT’S IT. There’s no more housework to do today.

And do you know what? I don’t like it.

I’m ever so good at ignoring housework, like “Oh, yeah, I know there’s mould on the bathroom tiles, but I just need to watch this episode of Desperate Housewives…” but now there’s nothing to do and I can just legitimately sit and watch TV or read my Kindle, I feel like I can’t concentrate. Like, it’s not worth doing if I’m not using it as an avoidance of something.

So, you see, I think I have some sort of mental illness. Any ideas what it might be? All I know is, I’m scouting the house for chores, and on account of the fact that this is me we’re talking about, I know there’s definitely something amiss!