Cleaning the Kitchen with Vinegar and Water

I started using Vinegar as a laundry deodorize and began to discover its benefits elsewhere. It turns out, you can use vinegar to clean every room of your house. It is very inexpensive, safe and natural. White distilled vinegar is available at any grocery store. Buy the generic or store brand, vinegar is vinegar. You may want to have baking soda and salt on hand as additives for special jobs. These are inexpensive cleaning items too. In fact you can buy all 3 and still not reach the price of a bottle of brand name household cleaner. In addition, there are no chemicals or harmful additives when you clean naturally. For normal jobs, you may try vinegar and water mixed half & half. For tougher jobs you may need to use vinegar at or near full strength.

In the Kitchen, vinegar & water is a green way to clean and sanitize. You can use it on the stove top, to clean and deodorize the refrigerator, to mop the floor (it will remove soap residue) and to clean your sink and deodorize your garbage disposal. Vinegar will also shine chrome nicely to make your sink sparkle. If you need scrubbing power for stuck on messes, add salt to a tablespoon of vinegar and scrub the tough spots like scouring powder. For pennies, you have a clean kitchen, free of chemical residue.

Use Vinegar in a dishwasher cycle to clean and deodorize the dishwasher. Soaking cloudy glasses and vases in vinegar will clear them up. Put vinegar in coffeemakers and tea pots and let soak to remove lime deposits then raise well. It's nice to know that there will be no reside from chemical acid lime removing products in your coffee or tea.

Use vinegar and water on your windows, for a clean streak free shine. You can see the theme, vinegar is great on glass. Vinegar cleans plastic too. Use to deodorize and clean out plastic food storage containers so you can save them rather than toss them out.

A cup of vinegar and a cup of water brought to a boil in the microwave will loosen dirt and grease and deodorize the microwave. Carefully remove the hot water, then wipe out. Plain water works, but adding vinegar loosens grease and crud much more effectively.

Surprisingly, vinegar works as an insect repellent. Vinegar repels ants. Spray vinegar where ever you see ants and where you think they are coming in such as along window sills and in doorways. It is much safer than chemical ant killers and should make the ants leave for a more desirable place to live.

The next time you shop, before you pick up the stove cleaner, the window cleaner, the floor cleaner and the countertop cleaner, grab some vinegar instead. You will save money, eliminate chemicals from your life and have a sparkling clean house at a fraction of the price.