By Ashley Hinker
Living with a dirty house is generally never pleasant. Then again, cleaning the house with powerful and putrid supplies is not much better.  I feel I need to use a respirator mask in order be able to complete the chore at hand. I understand many of these cleaning supplies provide a quick and easy solution to even the toughest of chores, but having to fumigate a room for an hour after using these cleaners seemed a bit excessive. When a person has children or is tired of the smell leaking out into the rest of the house, one cannot simply close the room door.  This would obviously defeat the purpose of “airing it out.” In order to try to solve this dilemma, I scoured the Internet to find a cleaning product that would not fill my whole home with a lingering odor but would still get the job done.

My findings were actually surprising. I had expected to find some brand name item I could buy at a local general store. In fact, I found a way to concoct my own cleaning solution with simple ingredients I already had at home.
I live in an older apartment building, which means I have numerous previous tenants’ stains and burns to live with around my house. The hard water stains, rust and lime build up, and whatever other type of cleaning nightmare one can think of in the kitchen and bathroom. Using potent, and pungent, cleaners have not really provided any progress in that battle. Pictured below are my own kitchen sink and bathtub even after using chlorine bleach.

(Top row: Kitchen sink/drain/bathtub before photos.  Bottom row: After photos)

I tried scrubbing. I tried soaking.   Nothing helped by way of these odoriferous substances. When I found this homemade mixture, I knew it was time to try something new. The simplicity of the combination and the results are astounding. Mix ¼ cup of baking soda then add just enough hydrogen peroxide to create a paste. The list of uses for baking soda is long and well known, but when the oxidizing power of the peroxide is added, you have a new odor-free household super-cleaner!

A little elbow grease is required to obtain similar results.  This does not provide the “spray, wipe, rinse, then done” effect most are used to.  However, the uses for this mixture are endless (it will even polish silverware!) and having a clean home without the stench are worth the extra effort.