And what makes you think the main ingredient in those cleaners isn’t rubbing alcohol, or some other solvent?

Getting rubbing alcohol all over your hands are just as harsh as those “harsh chemicals” in those bottles.

Go see what happens if you have a bottle of rubbing alcohol open in a small, enclosed area. Most solvents used are volatile and will evaporate quickly, and therefore, easily inhaled.

Rubbing alcohol is just as toxic and dangerous as the chemicals you find in the commercial cleaners, they just warn you about the dangers that people are ignorant to. I work in a lab, and if you don’t wear gloves when handling a lot of ethanol (you know, the alcohol that you can drink, and is also a poison) your hands will be dry and skin will be cracked.

vinegar~~pour several cups in toilet & leave overnight , use toilet brush on it in morning & will remove all build up& mineral stains

cornstarch~~ mix some cornstarch with warm water & wash your windows with it , they will be the cleanest ever

polyester cloth~~ just take a piece of polyester & scrub off scuff marks on floors

kerosene~~ soak metal items in it overnight & the rust will come off

For example – I spilled chiraz on my satin & lacy shirt while out one night. Hours later when I got home, I poured the Club Soda over the shirt and the entire stain disappeared like magic.

I’ve also used Club Soda to get drops out of my couch cushions.

Baking soda and vinegar: great for bathroom drain maintenance. I make a thick but pourable slurry of baking soda and water first, send it down the drain, wait a few minutes for it to coat the gunk, and follow with a cup (sink) or two (bath) of vinegar. As with all drain cleaners, keep your face away from the action and have sufficient ventilation.

Blood: I learned the saliva trick mentioned in a post above at the knees of two Southern grandmothers and it hasn’t failed me yet.

I think Americans call dishwashing liquid dish soap. Anyway, it’s what you put in the sink before you clean up after dinner.

Baking soda is like magic pixie dust, I have decided. I now buy it in those huge Costco bags. I sprinkled the oven thoroughly with baking soda, sprayed it with water, and left it overnight. The baked-on oven guck peeled right off. I couldn’t believe it. It left a bit of white residue, but who’s looking inside my oven anyway? And it’s obviously non-toxic, since it’s edible.

I use the same technique to clean the stove top, though it’s not quite as effective, and a combination of banking soda & white vinegar for the toilet. I use vinegar for cleaning counter tops, mirrors, floors, etc.

For hard water stains on sinks, bathtub, etc. (not painted surfaces), I use a small square of drywall screen. It has solved problems that I thought were permanent.

I also make my own laundry detergent out of grated ivory soap (I like Zote better, but can’t find it anywhere since the “Mexican” market closed), washing soda (from the laundry aisle), and Borax. Doesn’t actually save a ton of money, but I started all this to minimize the use of potentially toxic chemicals; saving money is just a little bonus.

The only cleaning products I buy now are dish soap and dishwasher detergent–haven’t found any DIY recipes that actually work. I use vinegar in the rinse dispenser, though.

by “old style” propellants do you mean Freon? Freon by itself is an interesting and very effective cleaner. At work we have had an awful time coming up with anything comparable for some of the delicate parts we have. Alas Freon is now a no-no.

I’m an emergency department physician, and I see a good number of people who come to the emergency department with food stuck in their throats. Yes, sometimes it’s just a feeling of irritation in their throats from being scratched by food, and not an actual piece of food. But when it is, we do call GI specialists a lot of the time and get a scope put down your throat to take a look and possibly take it out. I learned this trick from another ED physician to chug a 20 oz bottle of Coke (he says it has to be brand name Coke and not generic cola) before you run to the ED. I’ve seen this work in the ED twice like a charm.

just don’t use it if you swallowed something actually dangerous or sharp.
that might save you a few bucks co-pay someday – not to mention an uncomfortable scope down your throat. or you could just chew your food.

We had a door to door salesman come in with one of those Billy Mays type cleaners, swearing that his snake oil could remove any stain. So I showed him the red stain in the carpet and told him I’d buy a couple of gallons from him if he could remove the stain from our carpet. 45 minutes and a lot of sweat later, he left a beaten man. In fact, he didn’t even go to any of the neighbors houses after that, he left the neighborhood entirely.

You can also get wax residue out of candle votives easily with heat. Put the votive in a small saucepan, add water around the votive (just a half inch will do), heat on low until the wax melts; remove the votive carefully and pour off melted wax, polish the inside with a paper towel, and presto.

We’ve found the best thing to do in most stain situations is to soak them a.s.a.p. Not wipe them up, but to apply water or club soda so that the substance can’t dry and also to let the water or club soda break up the stain before it becomes entrenched. At a minimum this buys time to come up with the long term solution. Club soda seems to work better, perhaps because of the bubbles.

A handy man in our area also offered up this advice to those with kids. Instead of painting the interior of your house with enamel paints (presumably because they’re less prone to stain and easier to clean) use flat paints instead, and keep a supply of paint handy. He said that kids can cause stains in the most unlikely situations and enamel paint is no protection to what they can dish out.

Some stains and discolorations will become such that repainting the spot is the only real option, and flat paints handle this much better. Fresh flat paint blends with the color of the existing paint in a matter of days, where the enamels will always look like they’ve been patched because old and new paint enamels don’t blend as well.

His advice is based on the idea that theories about kids and how to handle them don’t hold up in the real world. We used his advice and it paid off.