We sealed our deck two years ago with Weather-Bos. As indicated in my article about this product, it is nontoxic and is absorbed into the wood. However, the company advises that you should reseal your deck every 2 years.
Well, from the looks of my now gray and full of mildew deck, it was definitely time to reseal it. My husband was armed with paint brushes for the railings, rollers, and paint container. With company arriving quicker than we thought and in his haste, he put all of his gooey painting tools in my stainless sink.
Last night I discovered the mess and started to clean it with soap and water. I would clean one spot of gooey mess and it would move somewhere else. Every time I cleaned, I made it worse. It was almost like having Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat in my sink.
It was on my hands, on the sponge, then on the phone receiver, the inside of the sink tray. I felt like it just kept growing and growing. I started to panic (doesn’t take much) and then went into “I have so much to do tonight and this is the last thing I wanted to do” attitude.
I figured I had to scrub then scrub the sponge to get the gooey parts out. For a while it was working to clean the sink but I could not get it off the phone receiver or the plastic sponge track no matter what I did.
I called my husband for help and asked him what was in this product. He replied it was similar to tree sap, and immediately went and looked up on the internet how to remove tree sap. I was desperate at this time.
As he would look he would call out the products to use.
“We could use mineral spirits.”
To which I would reply, “do you know how toxic and smelly that is?”
“How about using nail polish remover?”
I replied, “I don’t have any. Got rid of it along time ago.” It was too long of a story to tell him that I had an acetone free nail polish remover.
After a bunch of toxic choices, he found another suggestion,” how about rubbing alcohol?”
“Well, we are getting closer.” At this point it was comical except I was not laughing.
Finally, he called out, “try using butter”
While he was still looking I decide to go in the refrigerator and use the butter. What is the worse thing that could happen?
As I was working it into the sink, he called out “you could use peanut butter too.”
As I rubbed the butter all over the sink, it worked like a charm. I would wipe it with a paper towel since the sponge idea just kept spreading the sap. Before I knew it, it was not only cleaning the sap off, it was also cleaning the stainless steel. (See the grime on the picture above.) My sink looked amazing.
Then I tried it on the phone receiver that I was sure I ruined. Take a look. Clean as a whistle but smells of butter. It also cleaned the plastic track.
Needless to say, all the Weather-bos was gone and Thing 1 and Thing 2 were no longer in sight.
Have you tried an ordinary food item to clean something?
CeeJay says
Apples and lemons can be used to clean any number of things.
I use apples to clean the windshield of my car.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....inary_uses
Green Talk says
Ceejay, how do you use the apples to clean your windshield? Do you dilute apples with water? Also, what is your recipe for a lemon cleaner? Do you have a link for both recipes? Anna
Michele holzman says
Your butter as goo gone article was very deja vu for me. Years ago I had a long haired cat that fell into a pan of oil from a neighbour’s do-it-yourself oil change. We were all hysterical, especially our cat, called the vet and he said use butter! We did and we were able to remove all the oil from our oil drenched cat in about 20 min. Nice to know about other ways to use butter to clean up messes!