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

I am definitely gonna try charcoal briquettes for my Mystery Kitchen Smell

 

I know the usually-recommended method for tea stains is dish soap, water, and scrubbing, but does anyone know if there's something that would minimize the amount of scrubbing necessary? Because I've got some stuff I'd like to get clean that's really inconveniently shaped.

 

I've used Milton sterilising fluid for steeping stained china items - using the cold water method specified for baby items. It usually works decently well. It's not for metal though, it will corrode.

Speaking of awkward items, I have a stainless steel polished baby tankard which is hellishly tarnished. I think someone may have cleaned it with Brasso in the past; it's got a very distinct tarnish pattern and a yellow cast. I've tried a mild acid bath and also scrubbing with salt and vinegar mix as a mild abrasive and it has come up somewhat but still looks, frankly, a bit minging. Any ideas?

 

I've always used Bar Keeper's Friend on anything stainless steel. I'm not sure if that's available in the UK, but its main ingredient is oxalic acid which seems to do super well at removing things from stainless steel without totally fucking it up, so if you can find a powder with that in it, it might help.

 

I do have BKF and I love the heckie out of it, but there is a warning there not to use it on polished items, and since the cup's not actually mine I'm kinda wary of Ruining It Forever.

Edit: apparently it's not Li's either so I will have a go at it tomorrow.

 

Ah, fair! I don't think I've ever owned a polished stainless steel item, my bad.

 

Just spent an hour scrubbing the oven with a baking soda paste and while it's taken the worst off (and you should have seen the colour of the water) the damn thing is still not completely clean. I hate cleaning dammit.

 

Ovens are just Difficult if you want them to be spotless not just Better.

 

Yeah, I did not even go for "spotless" when I was frosting the inside of our oven with baking soda paste - I just went for "is it not completely gross any more? yes? have I removed as much of the baking soda as I can reasonably get off? yes? okay, good enough".

Unless you need to have the oven in like-new condition for some reason, don't push yourself to get it spotless. You just need "good enough to be usable".

 

A ballpoint pen Sibling left in a pocket while doing laundry got blue ink all over the inside of the dryer. Most of the load was jeans or black things so it's not a total catastrophe, but does anyone have any advice for de-striping the dryer itself? Google suggests alcohol.

 

yea, rubbing alcohol and wipes. Or alcohol wipes! Though, my experience is more with dye than pen ink.

 

Does anyone know how to clean instant coffee residue off of metal? I’ve got one of these, and it’s a great insulator but the shape makes it almost impossible to scrub. That plus my bad habit of leaving milky coffee dregs in there overnight/over the weekend means it’s got a lot of crud built up. I’ve tried using a bottle brush to no avail. Would soaking it in vinegar work? I’m hesitant to use it because I don’t want everything i put in there to taste like vinegar forever, but I’d be willing to try if it would work.

 

My desk chair has wheels and there's a lot of hair stuck in them - they barely spin anymore. I can't seem to find a way to take the wheels off the chair or take them apart to get the hair out, and if I try to use a pincer to grab the hairs they break off and are still stuck :( Anyone happen to have another idea for how to do thing?

 

fire

that is actually probably dangerous sorry i dont have any serious ideas

 

I would cut the hair with a boxcutter or something similarly sharp and narrow with a single blade in two or three different places and then use tweezers to get the segments out

 

Soaking it in vinegar should work, and then rinsing it with water a couple times and letting it air-dry afterwards will mean that there's no vinegar taste lingering.

 

It almost worked :( Thanks for the advice, it was a good idea!

 

Apparently it’s possible to dissolve hair with baking soda and vinegar, though I don’t know exactly how you’d go about doing that with a chair wheel rather than a clogged drain.

 

If the wheels come off, you could probably soak them in a small container of baking soda and vinegar, though it should be set in the sink first, just to make sure that it doesn't spill everywhere.

 

I'm at my parents' house dogsitting, and it's... bad. I'm not exactly a neat freak, but I've already scrubbed black stains off from around all the doorknobs and some of the lightswitches, scrubbed the cabinets, washed every piece of bedding lying around, and removed a bunch of cobwebs. Since I'm going to have to exist in this space for a while, I've got an ongoing hitlist which includes several areas of floor that seriously need scrubbed, the washing machine (covered in scuzz and weird crusty soap + hard water deposits), and possibly the fridge.

But the part I come to this thread for is that most of the bathroom fixtures look like this.

Obviously, a lot of this is well past the point where the most sensible option would be "replace it", but that's not really on the table. I know vinegar is good for dissolving hard water deposits, but I'm not sure what the best delivery method is when it's this bad and a lot of what needs it is, say, vertical on a shower wall and therefore a little hard to soak.

Anyone have tips?