North Phoenix Agent Blog

Courtesy of the Queen of Clean, Linda Cobb, here are some natural & effective ways to deal with Arizona’s persistent dust/dirt.

To clean today’s trendy dark dark wood furniture, use a damp cloth (use plain tap water and wring the cloth out until it’s just damp) to wash it. Then immediately buff the furniture dry with a lint-free cloth such as chamois or bar towels.

Don’t use retail furniture polish on your wood furniture - it usually contains silicone which is actually drying. Here in the deserty dry of metro Phoenix, our furniture suffers from dry air enough with us helping it along with silicone. Instead, use a mixture of:
**About 1 cup mineral oil
**About 2 teaspoons lemon extract
Mix these together and store in a well-labeled glass jar.

Used fabric softener sheets work exceptionally well for cleaning glass.

From Heloise.com:

Hang a plastic shoe organizer on the inside of your pantry door. You can store boxes of aluminum foil, plastic wrap, self-sealing plastic bags, plus larger containers of spices, powdered mixes, etc. This will free up some valuable space in the cabinets.

Did you know that microscopic levels of the teflon coating on your cooking pans can leach into your food at extremely high heat?  You won’t see it, but who wants to risk eating teflon? Who knows what they put in that stuff and it’s a sure bet that God didn’t design our guts for digesting Dupont chemicals.

The solution? Don’t use anything higher than Medium High heat when cooking with teflon coated pots and pans. If you must use High heat, use a non-coated pan and some good old fashioned oil or butter.

Did you know the following common foods are harmful for your pet?

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1.  Avocados
2. Chocolate
3. Coffee
4. Onions & onion powder
5. Garlic
6. Grapes (choking hazard)
7. Raisins
8. Macadamia nuts
9. Alocholic beverages of any kind
10. Salt
11. Fatty foods
12. Gum, candies, or other treats sweetened with xylitol
13. Tea leaves
14. Raw yeast dough (including store-bought raw pizza dough)

Got stinky sponges in the kitchen sink? Use a wooden clothespin to clip the sponge to a top dishwasher rack. Run ‘er through a cycle and extend the life of that sink sponge.

Plastic coating on the dishwasher racks going a little thin? Coat them with a light layer of silicone caulk to extend their life and avoid rusting through.

Garbage disposals get smelly from time to time. Whenever yours does, dump a tray of ice cubes and some chopped up lemon rinds down there. Turn on the water and run the disposal for a minute. The ice will help flush the smelly food bits down the drain, and the lemon rinds will deodorize the unit.

Best way to unclog a clogged showerhead is to soak it in vinegar. You can do this without removing the showerhead. Use a heavyduty gallon sized zip top bag. Heat enough vinegar to fill the bag, then tie it around the showerhead. Leave it there for 8 hours or overnight. Voila!

Taken from the Yankee Magazine’s book Make It Last.

Another quickie for household maintainers. Re-use your used dryer sheets to quickly mop up pet hair off hard floor surfaces. Works for hairy husbands who shed a lot too. ;-D

No, this is not what most of you think of when I say the word “quickie.” ;-)  This is a quick household tip, and I hope a recurring series of entries into the future.

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Did you ever notice that your hands smell for hours (or even days!) after chopping onions and garlic, or handling smelly foods like fish or kimchi? Here’s a household quickie that gets those odors off your fingers. To remove food odors from your hands after handling smelly foods like onions, garlic or fish, simply rub your hands around the stainless steel neck of your kitchen sink faucet. Voila! Odors gone. (I suppose this would work on the trendy new stainless steel appliances, too, but since I don’t have ‘em I don’t know.)

I don’t know why it works, but it does. Try it. Really. It’s one of those things I expect that Saint Peter will explain when I die and arrive at the Pearly Gates. I’m also expecting him to explain where I lost my skate key in 3rd grade, and where all my missing sunglasses went to. Actually, I expect old Peter will hand me a cardboard box full of the stuff I’ve lost here on Earth (including the mate to all those single socks that emerge from the clothes dryer), but that’s a whole other entry, now isn’t it?

Eat smelly foods!