Sparkly Clean: A Kintsugi 'How Do I Clean This' Thread

I use those melamine sponges/magic eraser things, and that seems to work pretty well. Just need to get them a bit damp first, doesn't require much elbow grease at all.

 

thank you so much for the dish soap tip on cleaning blood...

i will save so many undies

 

So, um. My friends are on vacation and I'm looking after their pets and incidentally the house as well.

Spoiler: Food grossness

There's a skillet with a lid on the stove top. It's been there a few days and I didn't bother noticing it because I haven't needed to use the stove. But this morning I got idly curious while puttering around in the kitchen and lifted the lid.

There is a seriously *impressive* mold colony residing in there. It looks like someone stuffed it full of cotton. I couldn't even tell what was originally in there. Some sort of meat, maybe? I think I might have seen the end of a bone.

I'm guessing the skillet is cast iron, maybe? It's solid black and really, really fucking heavy. Lifting the lid at all was an Effort.

Anyone have any ideas about how I can tackle this abomination without ruining the skillet (or ruining it further)? I'm kind of really fucking grossed out by mold and holy shit do I not want to touch anything in the general stove area, but I also don't like the idea of just having it there in the kitchen, or my poor friends coming home to it.

 

Cast Iron is quite forgiving ... if the skillet is cast iron, I'd do this:

Take whatever nastiness can come out and chuck it in a produce bag before throwing it in the garbage. There's no shame in wearing either rubber gloves or latex gloves because I totally would if I had to do this.

Step One: boil water in (as emptied as possible) skillet.
Step Two: gentle scrub with a sponge or brush, then dump/rinse.
Step Three: salt the bottom of the skillet (generously), and scrub it with one of those green scrubby sponges, or with enough elbow grease a kitchen towel or cloth will work.
Step Four: rinse salt and nastiness out of skillet
Step Five: sit skillet on low-heat burner until moisture is evaporated
Step Six: re-season the skillet. (if you need help with that let me know and I'll explain).

IF the skillet is NOT cast-iron, don't follow these steps or you'll take the non-stick right out of whatever the pan is.

Hope this helps ...

 

@NatashaBezmena, thank you so much, I already feel way less intimidated. I'm home at the moment but as soon as I get back over there I'll get the mess out of there and double check the cast iron status.

 

thats the process i was thinking would work, but i have little experience in cast iron.

 

Managed to tackle the skillet horror yesterday. To that end acquired:

Ten (10) Mr Clean disposable latex gloves from grocery store. They really do make me feel a lot better about touching gross.

One (1) kitchen trash bag from home. i wanted something I could feel pretty sure wouldn't leak. I mean, I'm sure my friends own trash bags but executive dysfunction. It's just easier if I know exactly where shit is.

One (1) Infected Mushroom playlist on youtube. So I can get to Smashing the Opponent. *snaps glove* U R So Fucked.

At this point the cats ran for cover.

I successfully extracted the worst of the mess and then had to go lie down and have vapors so I'm doing the actual cleaning now. It is indeed cast iron, I was able to look up the manufacturer and found the listing.

(Also whatever they were cooking in there smells fucking delicious and I'm a little disturbed by this.)

 

Wow, it's so clean! @NatashaBezmena, thank you again for the help! The salt trick was like magic. I'm so happy to exist in a less moldy reality. I think I'm gonna let them reseason their own skillet though. That's just a little too far over my pay grade of zero dollars and no cents.

 

Well done @Verily <3

 

So, apartment move-in is going on, and we got a little fake-leather ottoman foisted on us. Problem is, it got left in a room years ago while someone was painting the walls, and has a big white paint splatter down the side. Does anyone know the best way to get that off? I'm thinking paint thinner, but I'm not sure if there's risk of discoloration or something from using that on the fake leather.

 

Just got finished fostering three little kittens that didn't want to litter train. Any help to get the smell out of carpet would be great.

 

My Mom always used Vinegar for pet smells. She'd dilute it with water and then take a rag or a hard brush and scrub at it. Then, when the fabric was dry, she'd sprinkle baking soda on it. That had to sit for a few minutes, then it'd get vacuumed up. It helped.

Edited for clarity: scrub at the stain. That's what she'd scrub at.

 

Oh, another addendum - I think it might be best for the baking soda for it to placed on the stain when it's dry. I think it's more effective that way.

 

Just tried using some enzyme cleaner on the worse off area and sprayed the lesser spots with a mix of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. Here's hoping it works.

 

hhhhhey guys how do I get hairdye stains of out marble again

 

so i looked around and it seems like rubbing alcohol is a lot of people's go to? it might take a lot of applications though. others warn that it may spread to un-colored bits of the marble if you're not careful though.. so i'd suggest poking around a lil bit to find the most direct way to lift it. :o

 

Thank you!!! I've tried regular soap, and a bunch of other stuff—baking soda seems to work the best rn? Mr. Clean Erasers did not :(

 

The enzyme and peroxide treatment seems to have done the trick. My room no longer smells like a litter box.

 

So this is super gross.

Spoiler: Old food and such

so I bought some onions a long time ago. TOO long ago. Long story short, they went bad. I tossed them out and bleached the spot. The problem is that I have fruit flies now. Like, A LOT. I have a really, really strong aversion to fruit flies. They absolutely horrify me. I need them gone ASAP. I can't do one of those DIY chemical fumigation kits because of my weird living situation. I found a 'recipe' online to basically make a trap for them. I made two. I have fly paper hanging up. Does anyone know of any other way to get rid of them? I know they're harmless but I'm freaking out.

 

@ZeroEsper is burning some incense an option? they're teeny, it'd suffocate'em and most people are chill with some incense. I've also used hairspray in the past to some good effect. :o just spray the lil fucks when they congregate or if there's a lil cloud.