Uncle John has been collecting strange household hints and bizarre cleaning tips for years. He can’t promise that all of them actually work, only that they’re weird…and fun to read.
- Having a copper-polish emergency? Look in the fridge: Ketchup eliminates tarnish from copper.
- It’s really gross to find mealworms in your cereal bowl. Keep them out of the cupboard with a few sticks of wrapped spearmint gum on the shelf. They hate the smell.
- To repel ants, find where they’re coming into the house and spray the area with a mixture of equal parts water and vinegar. They hate the smell. Bonus: It’s non-toxic.
- Besides being great on steak, Worcestershire sauce makes an excellent brass polish. It also repairs scratched wood.
- If you’ve got a dirty toilet bowl and you’re all out of cleanser…try Tang.
- Emergency shaving cream substitutes: whipped cream (not Cool Whip) or peanut butter (not the chunky kind).
- Over time, a thermos will absorb the stains and odors of whatever you put in it. To undo the damage, pour in a tablespoon of uncooked rice and a cup of warm water. Then shake it up and rinse it out.
- Need to paint a room, but hate the noxious fumes? Add two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract to a gallon of (waterbased) paint. It neutralizes the odor.
- Been pruning branches or chopping down trees and now your hands are covered in sap that won’t wash off? Try rubbing half a jar of Miracle Whip (not mayonnaise) on them—it makes the sap rinse right off.
- If you have stains on your golf balls or piano keys, erase them—with an old fashioned pink eraser.
- Did you spill coffee on the carpet? Sop it up with a baby wipe. It won’t even stain.
- Fill stinky sneakers with kitty litter (unused kitty litter) and leave them overnight. They’ll smell fresh the next morning.
- To prevent tools from rusting, keep a charcoal briquette inside the toolbox. It absorbs moisture.
- Don’t use paper towels or rags to clean windows and mirrors. They’ve got lint on them. Instead, use coffee filters. They’re lint-free.
- Attention cheaters: Lipstick stains on a collar go away with a dab of petroleum jelly.
- Ink is one of the hardest substances to get off of skin. If a pen leaks on your hand, rub shortening on it to help remove the stain.
- If you’ve got a nasty sunburn on most of your body, soothe it with a bath…in iced tea. Dissolve a jar of iced tea mix in a tub of warm water.
- Hard-to-remove price stickers can be taken off with a dollop of corn oil.
- Denture-cleaning tablets don’t clean just fake teeth. Dissolve one in water to polish diamonds…or hubcaps.
- Toothache? Apply a dab of Tabasco sauce to the gum.
- If there are holes in your car’s radiator, try adding pepper. It sinks to the bottom, lodges in holes, and expands to fill them.
- When a metal shavingcream can gets wet and rusts on the bottom, it can stain a shelf or countertop. To prevent this, apply a coat of nail polish to the bottom of the can and let dry.
- If static cling is making your pants stick to your legs, rub a dab of lotion into your hands until it’s absorbed, then rub your hands on the clingy clothes.