Cleaning Your Coffee Machine

Your drip coffee machine needs to be cleaned just like anything else does. It can gradually collect a build-up of calcium deposits and mold making your coffee taste...well...not so fresh. Rather than buying a fancy cleaning solution (eww..more chemicals?) from the store, buy a jug of white vinegar and brew 1 part vinegar, 2 parts water once. It will strip the calcium and kill any mold spores hanging out (vinegar naturally kills mold). Turn off the machine, and leave it in the pot for 15 minutes. Dump the solution out and do that again 2 more times but with straight water. Be sure to wash your grounds basket and the carafe often, and compost your grounds!

Real cleaning supplies

There are WAY too many cleaning products on the market. You only need a few simple things and you can clean anything you need (with a few exceptions of course). One of my goals was to share real effective ways to clean your house/apartment because there is too much effort being put into cleaning, and usually with too many harmful chemicals that are bad for you and the environment. At my cleaning job, we didn't use "green" products because, I will admit, they are not as effective. As much as i love bio-degradable and natural products, they just don't do as good of a job. but if you rotate your products, they work fine. the major problem lies in when you have serious caked on scum. I have done some research though and try to use green products in my own household as much as I can. This blog should help you decide on what kind of products you would rather use and what their substitutes are.

The Complete Cleaning Kit

To make life easier for you, get a bucket that can hold your supplies. This way when you need it, you can grab it and you're good. This is mine:

A few supplies that are absolute staples are: feather duster, 2 scrubbie sponges, a large plastic cup, toilet brush, tooth brush, squeegie, and about 20 white rags (wash cloth size). These are the tools of the trade that you must have. Below I have listed the cleaning products with natural substitutes.

Chemical ----------------------Natural

Orange citrus cleaner ------Lemon juice, vinegar and water

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Comet------------------ -----Baking soda

--------Windex-------------------- Vinegar and water

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Toilet bowel cleaner --------Baking soda and vinegar

---------------Pledge ---------------Mineral oil or Murphy's soap

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--------Bleach ------------Vinegar, lemon juice and baking soda

Wood/tile/linoleum/etc. floor cleaner------ Vinegar and water

In my own apartment, I don't hardly ever use any of the chemical cleaners. One in a while I do use the Orange citrus cleaner (you can pick this up at Home Depot or Lowes) for it really cuts through soap scum, food, mold, etc. If I can give something, like my bathtub/shower, a really good cleaning, I can usually keep it up with natural products.

The basic point is you have to think about every product you use, from the dish soap that you wash your dishes with, to the lip balm you basically eat several times a day. What are in the products you use, and where does it go? In your body? Into our streams that run into the ocean? Imagine if just the population of Seattle all switched to natural products, think about how much pollution would be reduced?

So with these items in mind, I plan to go through some steps on how to clean areas like your bathroom and kitchen with both chemical and natural products. But that will be for another day!