Household Tips

Hi everyone! How's the weather where you live? Has Spring arrived yet? I love this time of year when it's not too hot yet. 

I'm back today sharing a few household tips that I've found useful. I love reading lists of household tips. I always find new things to try and hopefully you will too. :)

First up, we have this guest bathroom that never gets used. The tub will literally go months and months without ever being used. After a while, I'll start to notice a smell in there. All I have to do is run the faucet for a minute and the smell goes away. Be sure to run both the hot AND cold water too.

A friend of mine had the same problem in her bathroom and she called a plumber. The plumber said sometimes if the tub never gets used, it can have a gas build up in the pipes and you just have to let the water run once a week for just a minute to keep that from happening. Thankfully, the plumber didn't charge her for that visit. :) I now let the water run (hot and cold) for a minute every week when I clean that bathroom.

Vinegar is good for so many things, isn't it? I was so happy when our garbage pick up started a recycling program years ago. We have a bin in the garage for recycling. Thankfully we don't have to separate things. We just put cardboard, plastic, glass, etc. in the same bin. We rinse out all the bottles and jars before placing them in the recycle bin, but sometimes you can't get all the stuff out. A few years ago, we rinsed an olive oil bottle and tossed it in the recycle bin. The next day, I was taking the bin out to the curb and the olive oil bottle rolled out of the bin. When I picked it up to put it back, I freaked out when I saw a roach INSIDE the bottle!

Eeeewwww! I guess he could detect the smell of olive oil and was attracted to it. That's when I started putting a squirt of vinegar mixed with water in every jar and bottle that goes into recycling.

The vinegar smell will deter roaches, ants, etc. from coming near the bin. I mix up a bottle with 50% vinegar and 50% water and keep it under the kitchen sink. After we rinse a bottle for recycling, I simply give it a couple of squirts of the vinegar mixture before dropping it in the recycle bin. Works like a charm and I haven't had any more critters invading the recycle bin. :)

With allergy season upon us, I wanted to include this tip about eating local honey. I've heard that eating LOCALLY produced honey can help with allergies. Here's the thing though...it has to be honey from your local area, or at least from your own state. A friend of mine swears by this. She eats about a tablespoon of local honey almost every day during allergy season and it really helps. Honey is also really good for you, but don't give it to a child age one or younger.  

Below is what we have in our pantry right now. It's from Chicota, Tx. I'm not sure where Chicota is, but at least it's in Texas. :) We've also purchased local honey from Ace Hardware and there's a coffee shop that sells local honey as well. If you look around, it's probably not too hard to find. 

My hubby seems to have a few allergies in the Spring time, so we try to stick to local honey year round. 

Here's a little laundry tip I came up with. We have two baskets in our closet. One white and one dark blue. At the end of the day, we toss our light colored clothes into the white basket and the dark colored clothes into the dark blue basket. That way, when it's time to do a load of laundry, I don't have to sort the clothes. The lights are already in the "light" basket and the darks are in the "dark" basket. 

I can't use this system for my boys though. Even though they're teenagers, I STILL have to check their pockets before I wash things. I've found everything from retainers to rocks to pens and pencils to candy, gum, you name it in their pockets. :) Since I'd have to sort through all their pockets anyway, this system wouldn't work that well in their rooms. But, my hubby is (usually) pretty good about emptying his pockets before placing items in the dirty clothes basket, so this works for our clothes. It's nice to just pick up a basket and toss everything in the washer and not have to sort everything into different color piles. :)

One more tip...if you don't dry a lot of your clothes (like me) then you could have a third basket that's labeled "do not dry" and just toss everything that you hang up to dry in there. Then you could just wash it all together and know that none of it goes in the dryer. I know I spend a lot of time setting aside things that don't get dried when transferring things from the washer to the dryer. I literally have to pick up each individual piece of clothing from the washer to the dryer to see if it's something I hang up to dry.

What are your favorite household tips? Please share in the comments. I'd love to hear them! :)

~Lisa