Mel Walsh

Clean 'N Green: The Way of the Geezer Healthnik

I love your lungs. In fact, I love everything that keeps you healthy, breathing and reading this column. But and however, it has come to my attention that you sometimes use cleaning products that are not good for you, that are bad for the environment and hard on your poor old tattered wallet, the one that used to have money in it.

            And Karen Logan feels the same way about these issues. She’s the author of Clean House, Clean Planet: Clean Your House for Pennies a Day The Safe, Nontoxic Way.  She begins with a list of the bad guy chemicals, the ones we spray and scrub with, such as ammonia, bleach, formaldehyde, lye, sulfuric acid and other chemicals. They are especially not good for young people or for us oldsters who may already have compromised health and so-so lungs that aren’t what they used to be.

But I didn’t need Ms. Logan to tell me about the effect of some cleaning products. I know after I use them it is sometimes hard to breath for the rest of the day, especially after using sprays to shine glass and mirrors.

            What I did need were some clues about safer nontoxic ways to keep the nest from looking like a pigpen, a thing I have never seen, but I imagine pigs don’t clean their bathroom mirrors. So here are a few of her ideas, tested in my own house, the home of mediocre but well-meant housekeeping. Actually, Ms. Logan’s products might make me a better housekeeper since I can breath easy after I use them.

Miracle Glass and Mirror Cleaner

            You have to try this to believe it, but club soda, applied with a spray bottle, is a very effective glass cleaner. It takes a little longer to dry than the commercial blue spray many of us use, but it cleans as well if not better. The trick is to use a lint-free cloth to rub the club soda around after spraying and another lint-free cloth to dry the surface to a sparkle. (I just use two ends of one long cloth---one end to rub the stuff around, the other to dry with.)

            Something funny happened to me when I first used club soda. The spray bottle began spraying on its own. Ah, a haunted sprayer.

            No, it was just the bubbles in the fresh club soda trying to get out of the spray bottle. So I took the top off, let the bubbles out and it’s now behaving.

Another Cleaner, This for Floors and Other Surfaces

            I’ve tried the vinegar spray routine as a floor and surface cleaner and abandoned it because I hated the house smelling like a salad, but there’s a way to get the cleaning and disinfecting power of vinegar and have a spray that smells good. Here’s Ms. Logan’s recipe.

            Fill a spray bottle half way up with water. (She uses a two-cup sprayer. I go for a three-cup number.) Fill the other half of the bottle with white distilled vinegar. (Don’t use wine or apple vinegar, just the clear stuff.)

Here’s the smart part: Add 15 to 20 drops of essential oil to make it smell nice. She uses peppermint oil, I use clove. You may use lemon or lavender or whatever you can pick up in the essential oil section of your health food store. Heck, go for it and use jasmine and pretend you are cleaning floors in Maui.

This simple concoction can be sprayed on floors and other surfaces. I’ve begun using it on everything in the bathroom and if Cranky Pants gets dirty, he may get spritzed.

 

So white vinegar, water and a scent. Simple.

Clean House, Clean Planet has many other recipes and then, of course, you can pick up more ideas with an online search. Dr. Andrew Weil has some cleaning recipes at http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/ART00580.

Now, I think I’ll refill my club soda bottle and watch it spray all by itself.

 Hey, it’s hot times here at the Mediocre Housekeeping Institute.

Plants as Heroes

Well, you better stop breathing now. That’s if you have typical indoor air contaminated by formaldehyde, xylene, benzene and other badzenes and nastyhydes. Where does this toxic mix come from?

            Carpets, particle board, paints, photocopiers, wall coverings, adhesives, gas stoves, grocery bags and cleaning products for starters. And today, indoor spaces are more efficiently sealed to save energy and protect us from drafts---that is, fresh air. An old log cabin let in plenty of fresh air. A super-insulated home keeps old air in and fresh air out.

So What?

According to the indoor air experts, there are at least eight answers: allergies, asthma, eye/nose/throat irritation, fatigue, headache, nervous system disorders, respiratory congestion and sinus congestion. I’d add that old indoor air just smells bad. Call it second-hand breath or stale air, it’s not what we were meant to put in our lungs and yet most of us spend most of our time inside. 

One Simple Solution

Open the doors and windows. Yes, that’s not the best idea when it comes to saving energy in the winter, but some of us clean out our insulated living boxes with a quick airing of the house every day. As Emily Dickinson said: “Inebriate of air am I….” meaning the lady got high on oxygen. Me, too. and I’m not alone.

In the last century, some houses were even constructed with sleeping porches. They had roofs and were screened and sometimes even had pull-down wall beds, so people had at least eight hours of fresh air.

Other Options: Plants As Air Fresheners

            Yes, plants look pretty, but a Boston fern is more than just a pretty face. It and other houseplants act as air filters for polluted air. They can take the badzenes out of the air and deliver them to the good bacteria at their roots. These helpful bacteria in the plant pot then break down the pollutants. OK, that’s simplified, but essentially what happens.

            The expert on this process is NASA scientist, Dr. B. C. Wolverton, he who has turned his experience with space capsules and fresh air into a good book, How To Grow Fresh Air: 50 Houseplants that Purify Your Home or Office.

            This book has excellent photographs of each plant, rates them for effectiveness in cleaning the air and ease of growing. Care directions are given and happily, most plants here do not need a lot of light.

Here are some of his stars, commonly available houseplants, some of which you may already have:

His top recommended plants include Boston fern and a look-alike, a fern called Kimberly Queen. Then there’s the well-known Peace Lily, which will bloom readily indoors and once tried to take over my master bedroom. Wolverton also says English ivy is an excellent filter.

Larger air heroes include indoor palms such areca, lady, dwarf date and bamboo palms. The rubber plant—hard to kill—also turns out to be a good filter as well as the ever-present ficus, or weeping fig.

 

Your Own Little Air Space

Wolverton recommends clustering the plants around what he calls “a personal breathing zone”. You probably have at least 3 personal breathing zones, places where you spend a lot of time. Think bed, desk chair and designated TV watching spot.

I am about to set up a little fern forest around my PB Zones. If Wolverton and NASA ever turn out to be wrong, I will still have a pleasant Garden of Ease and Comfort and a good level of plant-induced humidity. That moisture should keep me from drying out and crumbling into geezer dust.