Spring-cleaning facts — true or false
SURPRISES: Molly Maid experts test seven remedies, including lemon stain removal, walnut wood repairs
We’ve all heard our share of quick tips and surefire ways to clean and deodorize our homes and remove stubborn stains and furniture scratches. But do they really work? Here, Molly Maid cleaning experts put seven popular cleaning myths to the test to distinguish fact from fiction.
Tip No. 1: Lemons can clean away hard-water stains.
True: A truly green alternative, lemons are a great way to safely remove water stains from glass and chrome in the kitchen and bathroom. Their acidity breaks down stains, while also releasing a fresh clean scent. Simply rub a lemon on the stain and then rinse.
Tip No. 2: Citrus peels safely deodorize the garbage disposal.
False: Citrus peels might temporarily eliminate nasty scents from the garbage disposal. But if they aren’t ground up completely, they will 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 into the disposal instead.
Tip No. 3: 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 from some surfaces.
Tip No. 4: If it smells good, it’s clean.
False: We often associate freshness and cleanliness with 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. The best way to know a surface is clean is to do the touch test. If it feels clean and looks clean ...
Tip No. 5: Window squeegees remove pet fur from furniture.
True: Even with a vacuum, hair from pets can be hard to remove once it has become embedded in the furniture and carpet fibres. But the rubber blade on a simple window squeegee effectively rakes up pet hair. Once most has been removed, a vacuum should finish the job.
Tip No. 6: 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. A quick polish and the scratch should be gone.
Tip No. 7: All-purpose cloths are just as good for cleaning as microfibre 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, in this case, many microfibres.