Vinegar

I was reading a post by Kacy Faulconer regarding household flotsam and discovered that Kacy has an aversion to vinegar.

Kacy - I also read and became disillusioned with Not Buying It after hearing about it on NPR. I checked it out from the library so that I was following the not buying it theme.

I thought I'd add my two cents worth and say that vinegar is a must have in the laundry room. We're not talking Apple Cider Vinegar. You want WHITE DISTILLED VINEGAR. I haven't used it as an all purpose cleaner, but this substance has made me a happy laundress on many occassions. How could this be? Let me tell you!

• Keep a spray bottle of 1:4 diluted WHITE DISTILLED VINEGAR:water near your dirty clothes hamper and in the laundry room. Spray it in the armpits of shirts and inside the necks of white dress shirts before you put them in the hamper and before they go in the washer. Taa-daa! No yellow arm pits or ring around the collar. I don't know if you really have to spray these items twice - it's just that at the rate I do laundry, the spray has dried by the time it gets to the washer and I want to make sure it really does its job.
  
  The smell isn't great when you spray, but that dissipates quickly.



• When you buy a brand-new front-loading washing machine and have done exactly 4 loads of laundry and then decide to play around with various cycles, your wet towels and sheets will suddenly become locked in the machine. It will take nearly a week to get a repair man to your house. Those wet towels and sheets are just sitting there becoming all sorts of funky. The repair man will fix the washer and will tell you that there is no manual override to open the door while there is water in the tub. He will also tell you there isn't a labor charge because of the warranty, but you're going to have to buy new towels and sheets. Never fear! Do not open the newly unlocked door. Just put a couple of cups of straight WHITE DISTILLED VINEGAR in the detergent drawer and run the load. Follow it up with a regular cycle using detergent. Hunh - what do you know? No stanky towels.



• Same thing works when your boys leave the swim bag full of wet towels, swimsuits, diving sticks, and goggles in the back of the Yukon covered up with a sleeping bag while the Yukon simmers in nearly 100 degree heat. I had to drive this puppy to the store, and the smell was so bad that my eyes were watering! Of course the boys said there was nothing in the car, but when I pulled said sleeping bag out, I wanted to cry. Again - I should not have worried. Just put a couple of cups of straight WHITE DISTILLED VINEGAR in the detergent drawer and run the load. Follow it up with a regular cycle using detergent. Hunh - what do you know? No stanky towels.
  
  I don't know if this will work for a sorry sleeping bag. I figured I've already locked towels and sheets in the washing machine - I don't need to add a sleeping bag to the list. I think the ammonia-ish scent should be similar to deer or elk urine. Taking this bag on the hunts will surely lure the animals right to him. Sounds like a great plan to me!


• You know those dish rags that pile up after a few days when boys are in charge of "cleaning" your kitchen? They get funky, slimy, and develop a case of rigor mortis, right? Silly - I'm talking about the rags, not the boys... Guess what! Just put a couple of cups of straight WHITE DISTILLED VINEGAR in the detergent drawer and run the load. Follow it up with a regular cycle using detergent. Hunh - what do you know? I think you're catching on!

BTW - while I was spell checking rigor mortis I found out that it is not a permanent thing! So what? Well - this was a topic of conversation between myself and Jon's older sister a few days ago. Rigor mortis begins about 3 hours post-death and lasts up to 72 hours when the muscle proteins start to decompose. I wonder if WHITE DISTILLED VINEGAR would help that smell.

Oh - here's another off-topic observation. Yesterday I was at IKEA, and there was a family with 3 adorable little girls loading up their vehicle in the parking lot. They were all speaking French! In Utah! It was beautiful - just like my clean laundry.