What I've been up to...

I like things to be clean, not just a little clean but disinfected clean. I am not afraid to use bleach, 409, or Lysol. I think Lysol disinfectant wipes (or whatever brand you decide to use) are among the greatest inventions of the 20^th century. With the that being said I disagree with the cleaning practices of many New Yorkers. So as I previously mentioned New Yorkers have a thing for all things environmentally friendly- which is great… to a point.. we have now reached the point where the environmentally friendly stuff has just gone too far. I mentioned “green” toilet paper before- made out of 100% recycled paper- but I have found something even more ridiculous.  As I mentioned before we have a shower in our living/bedroom. It’s… great, but besides being pretty much the most convenient thing ever there is a slight ventilation problem- what does this mean? It means that the shower never gets quite dry, add to it the humid climate and well it is the perfect place for mildew to thrive. Since I am a bit of clean freak and this mildew was a bit of problem, let’s just say I spent a few days thinking about how I was going to “conquer” it- yes I did use the word conquer. So after about a week of thinking about how exactly I was going to conquer the black stuff growing in the shower grout I had a revelation- well maybe a realization is a better word-scrubbing, but not just scrubbing with 409- scrubbing with heavy duty cleaner infused with the strongest cleaning product known to man… bleach. I have some experience with grout and bleach (I didn’t clean with straight bleach, and to be honest there probably wasn’t that much in the generic cleaner I bought) when I lived at king henry we had white tile in the shower and white grout- this was an awful idea for a single student apartment but anyway, the cleaning checks were brutal and someone suggested we used just a little target brand all purpose cleaner with bleach- bleach was not on the approved list of cleaners but we didn’t want to have a recheck so we used it- the tile looked pristine. I thought the same principle might apply here where we have grey blue tile with white grout. When I first looked in the shower I was scared- the mildew looked pretty much in control of the situation, but being the control freak that I am I decided I could handle it and win… well me and my trusty harsh cleanser- turns out I was right.  The shower isn’t perfect- don’t worry I will get it spotless before the end of the summer (I think I need to get a toothbrush to clean the hard to reach places). What does this have to do with “green” products? Well as I was cleaning out the shower I found this bottle of “plant enzyme cleaner” I wasn’t sure what it was so I read the bottle, it turns out this is a bottle of… something that kills everything the mildew eats so it cant grow… turns out the bottle, lied the mildew was thriving in that shower. Moral of the story- Clorox works, cleaning products that claim to be environmentally friendly (at least the one in  our shower) lied… spend $2.50 instead of $12.50 and you will a nice clean and sanitary shower.