I am hereby declaring this next week to be cleaning week. The micro organisms in my house are getting ready to take over. I know this because Patches has a fever, Gleek has “bad coughs,” and Kiki has a raging head cold. All of that and the mildewy patches in my bathroom are getting ready for an assault on the bedroom. This week I’ll be breaking out the chemical weapons. My house will be smelling like a swimming pool from all the bleach. Or at least that’s the plan so long as I don’t get sick, or kids don’t take up all my time, or I don’t get lazy.
Why do I get motivated to clean at 10 pm instead of 10 am? I just know all this zeal will be gone by tomorrow morning. sigh.
Oh, that happens to me too…the worst is when I get the cleaning bug at midnight and see the mess flashing when I close my eyes. The worst was when I cleaned frantically for four hours…yes…until 4 am until I had to go to bed to get up at six. I don’t have kids…can you tell? 😛
Yep.
We clean like crazy (like for a b-day party) and then I get tired/sick and then I get really sick… and then the whole house goes to pot.
Wishful thinking makes us think that if we just can clean it really good once it just might stay that way for a while. Then we are busy and ignore it for a week until the piles rear their ugly heads and strike again!
Good luck on cleaning week. That sounds like a good idea. : )
If I might make a sugestion
I use a cleaner of mildew of teatree oil I mix about a 1/4 teaspoon with 1/2 a teaspoon of soap and warm water in a spray bottle
I find this kills mold and mildew really well and it dosent harm things like bleach dose.
give it a try its not really cheap you can get the oil at a healthfood store for about $7-9 a bottle, but this will make about 10-15 batchs of cleaner.
Ash
I’m having kid-sicks too… Emily had a sore throat and a fever last night… we’ll see if it’s still there this morning. I think it may be just that time of year.
Allergies
If the kids have allergies, the dust and mildew could be getting to them, rather than them having a cold (though you’d know that best). But then again, doing the cleaning then stirs up the dust and puts cleaning chemicals in the air to also sneeze at… It’s a lose-lose situation! When I clean I’ve been wearing a dust mask lately, and that helps.
I do the same thing! It drives my mate insane that I always want to get busy around the house just when he wants to go to bed. If only I could channel that motivation earlier in the day..
I can’t use bleach. It gives me a monstrous headache which lasts for days; having the munchkin left me with a lingering sensitivity to chemical smells for some reason (I never noticed it til I was pregnant with him, so he gets the credit. ha!). Anyway.. there are many homeopathic approaches to killing mildew; I have one that uses vinegar and works beautifully.
Happy cleaning! It’s a pain in the patooty, but having a sparkling house is so refreshing once in a while.
Oooh! I like vinegar, it’s cheap and effective for lots of things. Care to share the mildew killer recipe?
I would swear that the recipe that I had (and can’t find.. grrrrrr moving) used a combination of white vinegar and something else, but maybe I hallucinated. Seems that straight vinegar does the trick.
This site gave several ideas for mildew-killing, including Tea Tree and grapefruit extract
* Vinegar Spray
Straight vinegar reportedly kills 82 percent of mold. Pour some white distilled vinegar straight into a spray bottle, spray on the moldy area, and let set without rinsing if you can put up with the smell. It will dissipate in a few hours.
This site also has a very nice page about killing mildew, and keeping it from coming back: Mrs. Clean
Hope it helps!