Scrub scrub scrub

So I had taken to scrubbing the house down this week room by room. Yesterday I finished scrubbing down the entire house. I feel better walking in now. The walls are brighter, the floor doesn't feel like it sticks to you.

I knew vinegar and amonia were cheap alternatives to the name brand cleaning products so I used a common formula often found on the back of amonia containers. For every 1 gallon of water add:

• 1 cup of ammonia
• 1/2 cup of vinegar
• 1/4 cup of baking soda

Optionally add 1 tablespoon of dish soap. Ammonia normally doesn't bubble up and the suds act as a visual indicator where the cleansing agent has been applied. Plus I think it helps lift the dirt out.

Other items you need:

• a deck mop - for scrubbing floors, not those weak mops often advertised on TV, although you will need one of those too
• a self rinsing mop - I prefer a butterfly mop with a durable cloth end, not just a sponge
• mop bucket - the wringer is worth the cost
• scrubbing brush - scrub the areas that have the cleaning agent applied to it
• rag - wiping away cleaning agent from the walls and additional scrubbing
• knee pads - for scrubbing the floors, I found these thick disposable knee pads at Home Depot
• protective eyewear - keeping the soap from your eyes when scrubbing sprays soap
• large dish gloves - keep your hands dry, you also want them a little larger so you can get in and out of them quickly, long cuffs keep liquid out
• 409 - for those tough stains, like crayon markings

So this is how I go about it.

First I clean the walls with with the butterfly mop. When I'm done, I use the scrub brush to get all the trouble spots. Don't forget to wear the protective eyewear to keep spray from burning your eyes. When I reach a really difficult spot, I break out the 409 and scrub some more. Be careful about the fumes that 409 can emit.

Then I mop the floors with the deck mop. For now, I let the cleaning agent set into the walls a bit. When I cover the floor liberally with suds, I get down on my hands and knees (hence the knee pads) and scrub every inch of floor to bring up the dirt. Again the 409 comes in handy for really difficult spots.

Then I go back to the walls with the scrub brush making sure I got every trouble spot. Then I break out the rag and wet it down in the sink. I start wiping up the walls with the rag. What I'm doing is wiping up the soap and dirt. When I finish a section enough to fill the rag with soap I rinse it out and the sink and repeat. Take note of the amount of dirt rinsing out with the rag. I wipe down all the walls at least once in order to wash away the soap, and twice or more to until the dirt running from the rag is a light gray.

Then I take a look at the floors once more making sure that all the trouble spots are clean as I can get them. I empty out the bucket of all the soap and fill it as much as I can with clean water.

I do to the floors with a rinsed out deck mop what I did with the walls. I wring as much water as I can from the mop and then sop up the soap and dirt. Dunk that into water, shake the dirt from the mop, wring it of water and sop up some more. I do this until I cover the entire floor. Again, note the darkness of the dirty water in the mop bucket. Dump it out and refill it with fresh water and start over again. I'll keep doing this several times (usually more than twice) until the water in the bucket after mopping up the entire floor once is a light gray.

That's it!

WARNING! Do not mix bleach with ammonia. The combination will produce chlorine gas. This is the stuff that Germans used in both World Wars to try and get the upper-hand in combat.