Avoiding toxic products is better for your health and your wallet. Cleaning and home maintenance products often contain skin irritants, volatile organic compounds and other toxins that can damage lungs and eyes, and perfumes that can trigger allergies. Children are the most vulnerable, but even pets can be at risk.
A few basic nontoxic ingredients and time-tested hand-tools are often all you need for cleaning, home repairs and improvements. This spring, via Facebook and Twitter, residents from around the region contributed their own ideas for a hazardless home.
Join the conversation
Green cleaners
Metro GreenScene asked: "What’s your solution to bathroom drain slime?"
Heidi writes, "Baking soda and vinegar once a week."
Ruth recommends "a little plastic strip sold in plumbing departments called the zip strip – about 20 inches long and 1/2 inch wide with barbs on the side. Cheap and works like a charm. Bacterial drain cleaner will eat what the strip doesn’t pull out. Once a month is usually plenty often for that."
Amy noted, "Don’t let the hair run down the sink! It’s not that hard to capture and discard. Plus regular cleaning a la Heidi’s method."
Another bathroom cleaning dilemma: soap scum on shower walls and doors.
Jodi says, via Facebook "Easy. Vinegar." (Truly the wonder cleaner.)
Metro asked how Facebook friends use sodium carbonate, aka washing soda. It’s a great grease cutter, and, as Amy noted, it "works magic on stainless steel sinks."
Repairs, remodeling and maintenance
Since 1992, thousands of Oregonians have used MetroPaint – paint made from recycled paint. Metro GreenScene asked, "What have you painted with Metro Paint?"
Barbara wrote, "Painted the whole basement in the calming white. Really cost effective! Then I repainted the porch in the forest green color. It’s withstood two winters so far, in good shape."
Lynn wrote in to cheer "I use Metro paints! Great coverage, great prices!!"
It’s the time of year for sugar ant invasions.
Julie recommends, via Twitter, to feed them a last supper of peanut butter and borax. Brian says, "Just keep crumbs off the countertop."
Moss on the roof is part of the charm of the Pacific Northwest. Chemicals to remove it are not. A wet sweep with a broom is effective.
Amy posted: "Another mistake people make is power washing roofs, which often forces moisture into the sheathing and causes mold in the attic. I’m an indoor environmental consultant so I see a lot of this!" Metro’s healthy home toolkit is not just about vinegar and baking soda.
Safer, healthier pet care
Healthy pet care is often a matter of preventing flea outbreaks, but flea collars can be toxic. Metro asked, "What steps do you take to keep your home flea free?"
Bubba responded: "I turned the cats into indoor-only. Haven’t had a flea problem since, and they’re healthier for it."
Amy writes, "Flea comb daily. Put any fleas you catch into rubbing alcohol. Keep upholstery and bedding clean."