Spring Cleaning True or False

Myth: Lemons can clean away hard water stains.

TRUE
A truly green alternative, lemons are great for safely removing water stains from glass and metal in the kitchen and bathroom. Their acidity breaks down the stain while also releasing a fresh scent. Simply rub a lemon on the stain and then rinse. They're great for removing general grunge from around faucets as well.

Myth: Citrus peels safely deodorize the garbage disposal.

FALSE
Citrus peels effectively eliminate nasty scents from the garbage disposal, however, if they aren’t ground up     completely, they eventually contribute to the bad smells wafting from your sink. Citrus peels can clog your drain and corrode the metal in your disposal. It’s safer to pour a few teaspoons of white vinegar down your disposal     instead.

Myth: Bleach is the ultimate cleaner.

FALSE
Bleach doesn’t clean so much as it disinfects. Bleach does a great job of killing bacteria. It also removes tough stains, but bleach doesn't really clean dirt and residue from surfaces. To do that you need to scrub and rinse the surface with a cleaning product. For many household cleaning jobs, bleach just isn't the right choice. It has heavy fumes that can make you sick, as well as damage some surfaces and remove colour. It's also important to remember that mixing bleach with other cleaners can even have toxic results.

Myth: If it smells good it's clean.

FALSE
We often associate freshness and cleanliness with fruity or soapy fragrant scents, but sometimes the fragrance may just be covering up the actual problem. It’s been proven that scented and unscented versions of the same product clean equally well, so why do we assume a surface is clean because it smells good? The sweet smell of pine or lavender comes from the chemicals or natural oils in the product you’re using; not the cleanliness of the surface. The best way to know a surface is clean is to do the touch test. If it feels clean and looks clean, chances are you have sufficiently removed dirt and grime from the surface.

Myth: A window squeegee removes pet fur from furniture?

TRUE
It's true. A window squeegee does a great job at removing pet fur from furniture. Pet hair from dogs and cats can become embedded in your furniture and hard to remove even by vacuuming. To remove pet hair from furniture, attach an old mop handle to a window squeegee, and use the rubber blade to rake up the pet hair.Once most of the pet hair has been removed, vacuum the carpet thoroughly to get the rest.

Myth: All-purpose cloths are just as good for cleaning as micro-fibre cloths.

FALSE
An ordinary cleaning cloth has fibres made of cotton or a synthetic material such as nylon. The fibres in these fabrics are quite large, but a microfibre cloth has far more fibres and they're much smaller. If "many hands make light work", so do many fingers - or many microfibres. Microfibres are able to attach themselves to even the smallest, most microscopic dirt particles - ones that ordinary cloth fibres simply brush past. If forces were visible, you'd be able to see that there are adhesive forces (the forces of attraction) between microfibres and dirt.

Myth: Walnuts can remove scratches on wooden furniture.

TRUE
For natural furniture scratch repair, just take the meat of a walnut (not the hard shell), and rub it gently on the     scratch in the wood using a circular and up-and-down motion. The walnut will release an oily substance which should also be rubbed into the scratch. It is these natural oils that help repair the wood. A quick polish and the     scratch should be gone.