by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: March 23, 2010   Last Updated: May 28, 2012

Believe it or not, to fully clean a house there are about only five or six, maybe seven, ingredients that are absolutely necessary. Yes, that’s right. White vinegar, borax, baking soda, cornstarch, lemon juice, mineral oil, and salt. These organic cleaning products will not only render the cleaned house more healthy, and allergen free, but will save a lot of money.

Of course, the house will not have that artificial smell that is so often a stand-in for cleanliness, but lurking behind those aromatic odors from commercial cleaners, toxic chemicals and carcinogens may be lurking, ready to pounce. And even here, there are organic substitutes, what is more refreshing than a simmering pot of citrus peels on the back burner of a kitchen stove, or an open screened window. And smelling just as sweet, a stove that has been previously cleaned with baking soda and hot water. The oven with a few spills could have been cleaned with mixture of soda and salt that was left to soak on the baked in spills for about thirty minutes and then wiped away with a damp cloth.

Baking soda as a cleaner is a well known cleaning aid for about every soiled area in a house. Mixed with vinegar it is even better and is recommended for use as a laundry aid, a drain cleaner, a wooden and linoleum cleaner, a general cleaning aid and much more. It is hard to understand why this acid neutralizer isn’t more used for cleaning. As an organic cleaning product, vinegar heads the list, possibly ahead of baking soda. It has an added effect, that of being an effective anesthetic against germs. Its use is legendary for washing down walls during times of plague and influenza.

In fact, until the industrial revolution and entrepreneurship among scientists and chemist that turned out a variety of anesthetics and microbe killers, vinegar was the old standby. And yet, the industrial scientists and chemists responsible for putting together the commercial cleaners, used principles learned from acidic vinegars and the base properties of soda.

Borax is also a gentler product for carpet cleaning, pest control and other odor removal. For carpet cleaning, sprinkle a little on the carpet, even alternate with corn starch and leave on the area for about thirty minutes and vacuum up. For pest control, sprinkle a little borax around openings where pipes and other places where roaches and other pests enter. Then seal off these under the sink areas openings with sealing tape.

Cornstarch is less known as cleaner but

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>