Going green, saving food scraps
DEAR HELOISE ❯❯
With the area I live in going green, we must keep our kitchen food scraps separated. To avoid the container of food scraps from being soiled, I get three sheets of my newspaper, fold it to make a bag and staple the ends. You could also put a paper plate at the bottom of the container if your scraps are damp. This saves me from buying brown paper bags, which go rather quickly. I usually make a stack of 12 at a time.
I look forward to reading your hints every day in the Whittier Daily News. — D.C.
DEAR HELOISE ❯❯ I am 75 years old and find that fumbling with prescription containers gets to be a pain. Some have a tough foil on the top with tiny tabs to remove it. I used to remove the foil and then have to dump out several pills, or reach in and try to fish out one pill. But my patience is short these days. Now I get a pointed pair of scissors and poke a hole in the foil just a little bigger than the pill. I turn the bottle and shake out one at a time.
— Mike Bertell, Lancaster
DEAR HELOISE ❯❯ Another simple hint for removing eye makeup is to use a little baby oil on a cotton ball or makeup pad and just wipe it off! — V.J., in Lafayette, Louisiana
DEAR HELOISE ❯❯ I'm sad for the pool owners who filled in their pool to protect the safety of their negligent neighbors' children and head off the possibility of a lawsuit.
Although I am neither an attorney, nor a Florida resident, I believe a privacy fence enclosing the property with locked points of access is usually seen as a reasonable means of securing a pool or any other property. Perhaps, the cavalier parents ought to be reported to the authorities for their failure to properly supervise their children.
— Sue R., San Antonio
DEAR READERS ❯❯ If a window pane or window gets cracked, tackle this task carefully. To prevent cutting yourself, crisscross both sides of the broken pane or window with many strips of masking tape. Then gently tap out the glass with a hammer. The tape should contain most of the glass.
DEAR HELOISE ❯❯ If you're traveling someplace where you'll be staying overnight in a hotel, you can help prevent slipping in the shower by purchasing a roll of skid-free, rubberized shelf liner and laying a sizable section down in the shower. Afterward, you can dry it off with towels and pack it back in your suitcase. It can also work well as a cushion when wrapped around something like a camera or anything breakable. It's lightweight, too.
— S.M., in Indiana
DEAR HELOISE ❯❯ I've had a problem in one room with winged ants dead on the carpet for 25 years. I tried a trap to no avail. Then I called a company, and a customer service representative gave me the solution. I sprinkled table-ground black pepper around the baseboard. On the second day, I vacuumed, and there were no more ants!
— D.B., in Ohio
Write to Heloise at P.O. Box 795001, San Antonio, TX 78279-5000; Fax 210-HELOISE; or email Heloise@Heloise.com.