Gnat Problem: Not

Quite by mistake I found a way to kill gnats flying around my kitchen.

I was playing around with my cleaning supplies and my wife was complaining about gnats flying around my countertop compost bin. So I made a fly bottle: I took a plastic bottle and cut the top off of it, inverted the top into the body and put some vinegar into it. This worked, it lured some gnats into the bottle and they couldn't escape. I then tossed the bottle and gnats into the garbage bin outside.

But I did something else that worked even better:

Like I said, I decided to play around with the vinegar since I had it out. I poured some vinegar into a flat dish (you could use a cereal bowl), then I poured some sodium percarbonate into the vinegar. Actually what I used was Oxo Brite. I just wanted to watch it bubble up. But then I left it there on the counter. As it turned out, more gnats were captured by these bubbles than by the fly bottle. I guess they were lured in by the smell of the vinegar and then got captured by the bubbles. It turns out that this combination of vinegar/sodium percabonate worked really well to rid out kitchen of gnats.

I later experimented with vinegar and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), but the bubbles produced disappeared too fast to kill any gnats, so I'm sticking with the Oxo Brite.

Cleaning Wood Cabinets and Floors

GoodGuide has a review of Method Wood for Good Spray. They give it an 8.7 which is a very good rating. They rate it better than alternatives such as Murphy Oil Soap (although they only have a rating for the Murphy Oil Soap Multi Use with Orange Oil) which gets a 5.6 which is decent, but not as good as the Method product. What brings down the Murphy cleaner is it's health 4.0 rating. This is the same rating as Bona and a few others get. Compared to the health rating of 8.7 for Method Wood for Good Spray, these other products score pretty low.

Method also sells a floor cleaner called Method O-Mop Wood for Good Floor Cleaner. It gets a slightly lower GoodGuide health rating of 6.0 which drops it's overall rating to 7.9. What happened? Why did it's health rating drop like that? GoodGuide answers the question by pointing out that O-Mop includes Propylene Glycol Monomethyl Ether. Although it raises a medium level of concern, Method
Ecos, and Seventh Generation all use it in some of their products. And all three of these companies are trying to produce greener products. The lower rated products like the Murphy Oil Soap have a whole list of ingredients that raise a "high level of health concern."

I think I'm ready to switch. What about you?

What makes a cleaning product "eco-friendly"?

There are a lot of commercial eco-friendly cleaning products and online recipes for green cleaners out there. But a truly sustainable product needs to have more than "baking soda" listed on the ingredients. There are other things you need to watch out for. Here's some questions you might want to ask yourself:

Where do the items/ingredients come from?

Just because something is non-toxic when used in your home does not mean that it's production is also environmentally friendly. 

Is the manufacturer socially responsible?

In other words, does the manufacturer exploit the workers who mine/collect/make the product? 

How is the product packaged?

What I mean here is that sometimes the product inside the package is "green" but that green product is wrapped in multiple layers of junk. If you are buying a cleaning solution look for the concentrated form. A concentrate may be equivalent to 10, 20, or even 40 bottles of "ready to use" sprays. I have a cleaner that I use that can make 64 gallons of cleaner from one gallon of concentrate. That means I can do a lot of cleaning and I only have one bottle that I have to recycle.

What do they mean by "Biodegradable"?

Is the whole item biodegradable or only part of it? And how long does it really take to break down? If the product is ultimately flushed down the toilet or down the sink what kinds of effects will it have "down stream" before it breaks down. And after it breaks down, what's left? Are the byproducts toxic or harmful in any way?

Why is the manufacturer calling the product "Green"?

Sometimes green products are made of a little recycled material, but not very much. Or it is recycled, but not biodegradable so after you use it it's just going to end up in a landfill for a thousand years. Or one of the ingredients is environmentally friendly, but there are also toxic ingredients in it.

Buying green cleaning products is kind of like buying food. Just because some cookies are advertised as "Low Fat" doesn't make them healthy if they have extra sugar to compensate for the lower fat content. For food to be healthy it needs to be more than just "low fat."

Get the right information
So finding out all about all this is a difficult task. Don't despair. There is help out there.

See this video interview with Scot Case of terrachoice.com
GoodGuide.com is also a very good place to find information.

Cleaning Carpet Stains

Before we begin talking about cleaning stains in your carpet, remember, in the end you may have to hire a professional. But there are some things you can do before that. I would try these things in the following order:

Before you Begin

• Identify what kind of stain you have. There are basically two types of stains: (A) water-soluble and (B) not water-soluble. I know, that's not very helpful. In category (B) you find things like fat, grease, oil and gum. Pretty much everything else falls into category (A). For now, we are going to concentrate on the water-soluble problems. Those are things like drinks, urine, vomit, and blood. 
• Carpet fibers are twisted, so your cleaning method needs to work with the twists in the carpet. This means don't rub back and forth on the carpet. Blot, and work your way from the outside towards the middle. 

The Solutions

1. If the stain is still wet: blot the stain with a white towel or wash cloth. Blot and move to a clean area of the towel then blot again working your way from the outside toward the middle. Get up as much as you can before it dries.
2. If the stain is dry: You might be able to remove some water-soluble stains with water. It's best to poor the water on your cloth and then blot the spot with the wet cloth. But sometimes I poor a little water on the stain and let it sit for a minute then blot it up with a white towel or, if you have a shop-vac then vacuum it up. 
3. Water-soluble stains can often be removed with some hydrogen peroxide, or non-chlorine bleach (I prefer the ones with hydrogen peroxide), or distilled white vinegar. 
1. With any of these products I would start with a mix 1 tablespoon product with 1 quart of water. You really should test the solution in an inconspicuous area first because they might discolor your carpet. It's not very likely, but you should be careful. 
2. If the weaker solution isn't working you can increase the mix up to 1:1 - one part peroxide or vinegar to one part water. 
3. I would try the diluted solutions first, but on particularly bad stains that aren't coming up I might try using 3% hydrogen peroxide at full strength. But be extra careful, apply the peroxide to your white cloth then dab at the spot. Remember, hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent, that's why it works so well on stains and why it can also damage your carpet.
4. For smelly stains like urine or vomit I would dust the area with baking soda first then use distilled white vinegar. Both baking soda and vinegar are good at removing odors. Since vomit is acidic you could use a stronger alkali than baking soda. I like to use Oxy Clean or OXO Brite. They are pretty cheap and eco-friendly. Since these products have a high pH they can act to neutralize the acid in the vomit. 
5. But dog urine stains might really call for a commercial product. If the urine comes from a dog then you should use a product that has enzymes that will remove all the urine. Dogs have a much better sense of smell than we do and you might not get all the smell out. If there is any residual odor that the dog can smell then he will probably return to the spot and do it again. A commercial product like KIDS 'N'PETS Stain & Odor Remover or URINE OFF might be best. 

Other Resources

• This Old House also has a nice article on removing carpet stains.
• There's also a whole web site devoted the subject: http://www.howtoremovecarpetstains.com/
• Care2 has an article on using baking soda to remove carpet stains.
• EarthEasy has a nice article on non-toxic home cleaning.

Some commercial carpet stain removers include:

Folex Carpet Cleaner, 32 oz

OUT! Stain and Odor Remover, 32 Ounce

Joe Campanelli's Stain Remover Professional Formula

Simple Solution Oxy Solution Carpet Stain Remover, 32 Ounce Spray

Cleaning Blood from Clothing

We own a couple of cockatiels. The other day one of them broke a blood feather and started to bleed. This is very dangerous and a cockatiel could die from it. We had to act immediately. I held him and my wife got some pliers and pulled the feather out. Everything turned out fine. But some of the blood got on my wife's shirt.

What do you do when you get blood on your clothes?
The first thing I did was spray some 1.5% hydrogen peroxide directly on the blood. Then I put 1/4 cup hydrogen peroxide into about a quart of water and soaked the shirt in it for about an hour. When I took it out there was no sign of the blood. And luckily there was no fading either. Hydrogen peroxide can, on occasion, cause your colors to fade. But I don't think it's too big of a risk with older clothes that have been washed numerous times since we use hydrogen peroxide in our wash anyway. Later, we washed the shirt and it's doing just as well as the cockatiel.

Remember, if you do put clothes with blood on them into the wash be careful. First, wash in cold water. If the blood does not come all the way out then try washing it again. Do not put it into the dryer since the heat will set the stain and you will probably never get it out.

GoodGuide

You want non-toxic, environmentally friendly products from companies with good social and safety records. GoodGuide rates over 65,000 products based on these factors.

I use GoodGuide all the time to see if I'm purchasing good products. They even have an iPhone app. Check it out, you might find it useful.

http://www.goodguide.com/

Trying to green clean that shower? Consumer Reports says...

GreenerChoices.org, the eco-minded version of Consumer Reports. They test as report on supposedly "green" alternatives.

Cleaning up the shower? GreenerChoices says:  "Most 'green' shower cleaners haven’t wowed us. We found one decent choice by Green Works, called Green Works Natural Bathroom Cleaner, but it wasn’t great at removing mildew. Do-it-yourself cleaning recipes might be a better way to go."

Their recipe for a tub and tile cleaner.

Mix 1 2/3 cup baking soda, 1/2 cup liquid soap, and 1/2 cup water. Then, as the last step, add 2 tablespoons vinegar (if you add the vinegar too early it will react with the baking soda). Immediately apply, wipe, and scrub.

This is a variation on the common recipe for a tub and tile cleaner for your bathroom.

Other Recipes

EarthEasy recommends:

For simple cleaning, rub in baking soda with a damp sponge and rinse with fresh water. For tougher jobs, wipe surfaces with vinegar first and follow with baking soda as a scouring powder. (Vinegar can break down tile grout, so use sparingly.)

Green Joyment breaks it into two parts: 

Combine 2 cups of baking soda with enough water to make a smooth thick paste. Apply the paste to the tub or tile and let sit for 20-30 minutes. Scrub off with a soft rag in a circular motion. After the paste is removed, spray the tub or tile with a 50/50-vinegar and water rinse. The rinse will remove any residue and disinfect the area as well.

Someone on Associated Content has a little different take on it:

1 1/2 cups of white vinegar (only use white vinegar it works much better than apple cider or other flavored vinegars); 1 1/2 cups water; 3/4 cup of hydrogen peroxide (comes in a brown bottle you may already have some in your first aid kit). If you would like you can also add 40 to 50 drops of essential oil, for this recipe and oil that is naturally antiseptic such as lavender, orange, grapefruit or lemon will give the recipe added disinfecting power.

What are these recipes really telling us?
In your shower/tub you will basically have three kinds of cleaning to do: hard water spots, soap scum, and mold/mildew. What does this really amount to? Let's have a closer look at each problem.

Hard Water Spots: This is also known as limescale. The minerals in your water remain behind after the water evaporates off the tile and glass door. Lime is an alkaline substance (above 7 on the pH scale), so the best way to attack it is with something acidic. But hard water is also hard so you will need something abrasive to scrub with.

• Vinegar is a mildly acidic (below 7 on the pH scale), so it makes an excellent choice to attack the limescale. Lemon juice would also work, but I think white vinegar is a little more economical. However, lemon juice is actually more acidic, so if you have a tough problem you might want to go with the lemon or even lime juice.  Another way to getting more work out of your cleaner is to let it sit longer before wiping it up. So try leaving the vinegar/lemon juice to sit there for a five or ten minutes before wiping it up. 
• Baking Soda is a mild abrasive, so it should work well with the vinegar to give it some scrubbing power. However, baking soda is an alkaline and will neutralize the vinegar. You can see the reaction taking place as it bubbles up. Something like Bon Ami or Borax is a little more abrasive (and alkaline) and could be used instead of the baking soda. (But be careful with Bon Ami on glass shower doors.) All you need to do is make sure you don't let the vinegar and baking soda sit around mixed together for too long. 
• If I were using this vinegar/baking soda combination I would wipe or spray the vinegar around the shower/tub and let it sit for a few minutes. Then put some baking soda on a sponge (a little liquid soap can also help) and start to scrub. But be careful: vinegar is acidic and if you use it too much it might eventually eat away at the tile grout and caulking.

Soap Scum: Basically, soap scum, like limescale, is above 7 on the pH scale, so the same thing we said above about limescale applies here. Vinegar and baking soda make a good combination, along with some elbow grease.

Mold/Mildew: Tackling the mildew problem is a little more difficult. Vinegar, because it's an acid, can kill mildew but it's not always completely effective. Many sites will recommend using essential oils and tea tree oil because of their disinfectant qualities. But I would stay away from them for reasons mentioned here. It seems to me that a better solution is to use hydrogen peroxide along with the vinegar. However, like the vinegar and baking soda, I would not combine them beforehand.

My Recipe
So my final recommendation would be along these lines:

1. Put some white vinegar in a spray bottle and spray your shower with it.
2. Wait five minutes.
3. Put some hydrogen peroxide in a separate spray bottle and spray your shower with that too.
4. Wait another five minutes.
5. Mix together in a jar: one part baking soda and two parts borax.
6. Put a few drops of liquid soap on a sponge and sprinkle the baking soda/borax generously on the sponge then start to scrub your shower in a circular motion. Use some water if you need more moisture.
7. Rinse your shower out with water and wipe out any residue with a clean rag/sponge.

Certificate from FEMA

I just took the online course (IS-55 Household Hazardous Materials - A Guide for Citizens). The course is free and only takes a couple hours to complete. It covers a lot of different areas from household cleaning supplies to outdoor fuel tanks. There are a lot of hazardous materials around our homes. They teach you about acids, bases, and pH; pesticides; gases such as carbon monoxide, and how to read labels on hazardous chemicals.

They also give practical advice for making your home a safer place. One eye opener is a video demonstration of how pool chlorine mixed with brake fluid can easily burst into flames. It would be easy to buy some pool chemicals at the store, put them in the trunk of your car where you might have petroleum products stored, and drive off. One bump or a tap on the brakes and your car could burst into flames. They are certainly right when they state: "You may be surprised how dangerous mixing chemicals can be. After only a few seconds, the mixture begins to produce heavy smoke and then burst into flames."

Get trained, get safe. We can all use a little refresher course now and then.

The Two Most Important Environmental Lessons I Ever Learned

Discover has a site that I really like called Green Planet. They have sections and articles about almost every kind of eco-friendly topic. The site covers topics such as fashion and beauty, food and health, home and garden, as well as technology and travel. Almost everything we do impacts the environment in which we live. I learned this lesson years ago in two separate incidents.

Lesson One: Lowering My Consumption
In the mid-80s I took a trip to Tanzania. It's one of the poorest countries in the world. While I was there I stayed with some friends of a friend. I had a great time and got a chance to see all kinds of exotic wild animals such as giraffe's, zebras, a hippo, elephants, and others. But what really impacted me the most is that the people I was staying with had to be super careful about their consumption habits. The littlest thing impacted me the most. To this day it has changed the way I live my daily life. One night after dinner they were washing the dishes and I saw them washing a plastic sandwich bag. At first I didn't get it. "Why are you washing that?" I asked naively. But their answer was so obvious that I should have known. That's what really shook me up: the answer should have been obvious, but it wasn't. "We can't just run down to 7-Eleven and buy more. It's a four hour drive to the nearest store." And besides that, they didn't have a garbage service. They had to either bury, compost, burn, or drive all their refuse away.

But why should I be any different? Shouldn't I make the best use of the products I buy? Why can't I use a plastic sandwich bag until it's unusable. And it isn't just sandwich bags, it's everything. Because we have weekly garbage pickup we can't be bothered to wash and re-use plastic bags. But the reality is our garbage doesn't go that far away. We are throwing away far more than we need to. So I've learned to wash those flimsy sandwich bags and I've learned to compost. You can too, just read a book like Complete Book of Composte and get a little compost keeper for your kitchen (Norpro Ceramic Compost Keeper, White). You'll be on your way to a healthier garden and a healthier planet.

Lesson Two: Reducing My Impact
In the mid-90s I went on a week long backpacking trip in Yosemite. If you walk around out in the woods you might be like me and think you're taking care of the earth if you pack out what you pack in. As the slogan goes "leave only footprints, take only pictures." But on that trip our guide had what might seem like a strange rule: don't leave any footprints. We all had to walk in a line and stay on the trail. As it turns out, millions of people hike around in Yosemite and even though one person's footsteps won't hurt the forest, when you do that a million times you leave a wake of devastation in your trail. The grass can only bounce back so many times before it withers and dies. If all the hikers follow the same trail then all we end up with is a six inch wide dead strip instead of killing the whole place.

One human living out her life on this planet can't do much damage. The ecosystem in which we live can absorb anything we throw at it. The earth is huge and I'm a small part of it. Even if I drove a Hummer around all day and had a fire in my fireplace running constantly it wouldn't matter. But when six billion people do that same thing it's like all those hikers in Yosemite. We devour the earth like a swarm of locusts. One little locust can't eat very much, but when they swarm it becomes life threatening. One swarm in 2004 was 230km long and contained an estimated 69 billion locusts. We're no different, our collective impact on the ecosystem can have disastrous effects.

Our carbon footsteps are just like our physical footsteps in our national parks such as Yosemite. We all need to make a conscious effort to limit the damage we are causing.

President's Cancer Panel

I regularly read Nicholas D. Kristof's New York Times essays. They are informative and interesting. Recently he had an essay on the President's Cancer Panel. This is a great article, mostly because he has given the panel's report a much wider audience than it otherwise would have had. I've noticed mentions to the report on LinkedIn as well as by Seventh Generation.

So what's the report about? You can Read the Report yourself. Although the report is 240 pages, there is a nice executive summary that's worth taking a look at. Basically, as Kristof point out, the new thing about this report is that they essentially support many of the same things the organic food movement has been advocating. They also suggest testing for radon (you can buy a detector here: Safety Siren Pro Series HS71512 3 Radon Gas Detector, or just get a test kit here: Pro-Lab RA100 Household Radon Gas Test Kit), and microwaving food in glass containers rather than plastic.

The report states: “Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety,” the report says. It adds: “Many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated.” This exactly what many organic and green advocates have been complaining about for years.

The report also says that "Children Are at Special Risk for Cancer Due to Environmental Contaminants and Should be Protected." This is one reason that many women first become interested in organic products and green cleaning products when they get pregnant. We know this is true, but it's more than just lead paint that we need to be worried about.

The biggest problem, however, is that these 80,000 chemicals mix in all kinds of different ways that it's impossible to study thoroughly. Even products that are safe in isolation may not be when combined with other chemicals.

However, now the American Cancer Society has come out in criticism of the report. The New York Times covers this side of the story too. The American Cancer Society is right to point out that there is not enough hard evidence for linking a lot of cancers to environmental causes.

However, my mother died of cancer and the doctors never told us what caused the cancer. Sure, there's no conclusive evidence that it was caused by this or that combination of chemicals, but that seems to me to be the point that the President's Cancer Panel is trying to make. We don't know, but we should be trying to find out.

Even though we are not just going to stop using these 80,000 chemicals, we can start to do something now. We know that there are dangerous chemicals in our household cleaners. We also know that there are safer alternatives: Method, Seventh Generation, etc. Besides these commercial products, with a little searching we can find ways to making our own green cleaning products out of common household items such as baking soda, vinegar, salt, and hydrogen peroxide.

Mixing it up with Bleach

When I was in the Marine Corps we had to clean, clean, clean all the time. It's what got me into the cleaning business. But when I was in boot camp one of my fellow recruits was taken to the hospital because he mixed bleach with ammonia. Boy did we get a big lecture after that.

When you mix bleach with ammonia you get a very dangerous gas. That's easy, don't mix bleach with ammonia and you should be alright. Right? Well, it's not always that easy. Bleach (sodium hypochlorite or calcium hypochlorite) is found as an ingredient in some household cleaners other than the bleach you might have in the laundry room. And it's the same way with Ammonia. Ammonia is found in glass cleaners, some interior and exterior paints, and -- drum roll please -- urine. So when you're cleaning our the kitty's litter box or the diaper pail you might want to stay away from bleach. And if you are cleaning your shower you might be tempted to use window cleaner (ammonia?) for the shower door and tile cleaner (bleach?) for the tiles. This can get you into trouble. If you are cleaning your shower, first do the tiles, rinse the shower out, then clean the door.

Or better yet, use a non-chlorine bleach (I usually look for one that uses hydrogen peroxide) or other green alternatives for your tile cleaner and your glass cleaner. Hydrogen peroxide can help you keep mold away. For scrubbing the tile and grout you can just use some baking soda and water. If you need more power to get the grout clean you can spray some vinegar before scrubbing with the baking soda (but be careful because vinegar is acidic and can eat away at the caulking around your tub/shower and it might eat away at your grout too). You can buy baking soda in bulk for cleaning (but don't bake with the bulk stuff as it's not food grade).

A little Bon Ami might also do a nice job on the tile, but you might not want to use it on the shower door as it may scratch glass. There's some controversy about the scratching. Bon Ami has feldspar which has a Moh's hardness of 6 which is the same as glass. But I think it's a good cleaner and I like to use it when I need a little more scrubbing power than baking soda can give.

Biodegradable (NOT)

I bought a "green" mop that also happens to be colored green. It is advertised as green because it's made out of recycled PET bottles. These are the kinds of bottles that you might get when you buy water or a soda. Although it is good that these bottles are recycled into a usable product (and the mops work nicely), the problem with PET mops (as opposed to pet rocks) is that they are still not biodegradable. So you recycle your water bottle so that it doesn't end up floating in a giant floating garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean.



But in the end, is a floating mop any better than a floating water bottle?

This is one reason that more and more people are advocating reduction rather than recycling.  Getting a water filter seems to be a better choice than buying bottled water.

You can get a water filter that attaches to your sink.












Or one that you fill and put in the fridge.

Removing a Frosting Stain

My daughter got a nice white dress for her birthday, tried it on, and then had some birthday cake and immediately spilled blue frosting on the dress. Since frosting is a fat I figured that the best way to remove the stain was to use an alkaline agent. So I mixed a tablespoon of Oxo Brite in some cold water. Oxo Brite is mostly made of sodium percorbonate and sodium carbonate.
When you mix sodium percarbonate into water it breaks down into hydrogen peroxide and sodium carbonate. And since Oxo Brite already has sodium carbonate in it, the pH is about 11 which makes it pretty alkaline. Hydrogen peroxide by itself is slightly acidic, so while it's a good cleaner it wouldn't work as well on the blue frosting. The high alkalinity together with the hydrogen peroxide combines to make a nice bleaching agent.

So I soaked the stained part of the dress in my mix and five minutes later you couldn't even tell that anything happened. I rinsed the dress and then later washed it. So a birthday disaster was averted. Of course, since this has a bleaching effect you would need to check for color fastness before you tried this with anything but a white garment. It will also work for stains on carpet or furniture, but again, check for color fastness.

See also:
Organic Chemistry Portal
Ecos.com

Web Site Hosting

In an earlier post I talked about my research into hosting services. Well, I finally decided on a service. I decided to use InMotion Hosting. I went with the basic business plan. So far the service has been fine, but after one day it's hard to really make a good evaluation. I spent a couple hours putting the site together.

The next thing I would like to do is see if I can get this blog to load into my main web site, but I'll leave that for another day. For now you can get to my new site through the link in the upper right hand corner of this blog or just click on this link: http://www.demesser.com/.

Tea Tree Oil: An Evaluation

When you look around the web for green cleaning or eco-friendly cleaning products, especially the home-made kinds, you will sometimes come across Tea Tree Oil. This is not to be confused with the tea you drink. Tea Tree Oil comes from a different plant altogether. Tea Tree Oil comes from a tree in Australia known as melaleuca alternifolia.

Warning: Tea Tree Oil, which can be purchased in health food stores or online, is toxic and should never be swallowed. Even though you can buy it as a mouthwash (e.g. DESERT ESSENCE, Tea Tree Oil Mouthwash Spearmint - 8 fl oz) you should not even swallow the mouthwash version. And it probably should not be put in the ears because it may cause hearing loss. [See these warnings by the Mayo Clinic]

The great thing about tea tree oil is that it has antimicrobial properties. People claim that it can be used to treat a variety of medical conditions including acne (DDF Benzoyl Peroxide Gel 5% with Tea Tree Oil 2 oz (59 ml)), dandruff (Neutral ph Tea Tree Oil Shampoo 16 fl oz (474 ml) Liquid), warts, athletes foot (FungaSoap Pedifix Liquid with Tea Tree oil - 6 oz.), and many more. But you have to be careful, even when you apply it topically to your skin, because some people have adverse reactions to it, especially if you use the undiluted oil.

The Mayo Clinic's conclusion is that for every human trial that's been conducted "there is a lack of definitive available evidence for the use of tea tree oil in any of these conditions, and further study is warranted."

However, what I'm interested in is should it be used as a disinfectant or to kill mold and mildew? Should I add it to my cleaning solutions? I'm not really sure that there is sufficient scientific evidence to warrant it's use in cleaning products either. Here's my reasoning:

1. First, there is reasonable evidence that tea tree oil does have antimicrobial properties. This fact is not in dispute.

2. However, at the low levels that it is used in cleaning solutions, it can create microbial resistance.

3. In the long run, creating resistent strains of dangerous microbes is more detrimental to humans.

Therefore, for now I'm not going to use tea tree oil in my household cleaning products.

The study where I got this information can be found here: http://jac.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/59/1/125

Web Hosting

I've been looking into getting a real web site. This means two things. First, I will need a name. You have to register a domain name before you can have a web site. Places like GoDaddy will register your domain for $1.99 for the first year, but when you want to renew it the next year then the price goes way up. The second thing you need is to find someone to host the domain for you. A web hosting service is a place that has a lot of computers and your domain points to their servers (servers are the computers that your web pages are on). Once the domain name points to the right spot then you can log into the host's servers and upload your web pages, graphics, and other things like videos or documents. If everything is named correctly and the links all work then when someone types in the address to your domain name they should find a nice web site.

The problem is that there are many hosting services and deciding on which one is best can take a lot of time. There are web sites that do reviews for web hosting services. If you Google "Web Hosting" you should find these sites. I don't want to spend a lot of money, but I do not want to use any of the so-called free web hosting sites. These free sites are filled with advertisements and their services are usually unreliable. If you want a site that looks professional then you will have to pay for it.

It is possible to host your web site on your own computer in your house, but I wouldn't recommend this. First of all the domain has to point to a specific IP address. And IP address looks like a bunch of numbers like this: 74.125.65.99. If you type this number into the address bar of your web browser you should get Google. As you can see, it's easier to remember www.google.com than 74.125.65.99. But your computer at home probably does not have the same IP address all the time. Since your Internet service provider (such as Comcast) changes your IP address you can't host your own web site with a nice name like www.mywebsite.com. It is possible to get around this using a DNS forwarding service, but your name options are limited. I use one of these myself, but not for important stuff like a business web site since I turn my computer off every night when I got to bed. That means that my web site is down much of the time.

So I'm stuck paying for a web hosting service. From my own research I'm currently thinking about using InMotion Hosting or Blue Host or maybe iPage. iPage seems cheap at only $3.50 per month, but when you go to sign up with them they want to add on a lot of extra services and the price jumps up quite a bit. InMotion offers a range of options from $3.00/mo to $17.95/mo, but the service I'm considering costs $7.95/mo. But for that $7.95 you get some services that cost extra at iPage, so the difference in pricing isn't that much. Blue Host is $6.95/mo and is really similar to InMotion in terms of services and pricing. The problem comes when you look at the reviews. With every hosting service there are people who love it and people who hate it. And you can't always trust the review sites because when you click on the link and go sign up with the site you prefer the review site gets some money from the hosting service. That means that I'm a little suspicious of some of these reviewers. Who knows, maybe they are recommending one site over another because they make more money by recommending that site.

Well, I guess you'll know which hosting service I choose when you suddenly find my site somewhere else.

Cleaning a Hardwood Floor with Tea

You might be surprised to find that a lot of people recommend cleaning hardwood floors with plain black tea. This actually works because of the tannic acid in the tea. It's simple, cheap, green, and effective.

The steps are fairly simple:

• Make a pot of tea with two tea bags. 
• A quart of water should be just about right. 
• You don't have to use high quality tea, the cheap stuff will work just fine. 
• But don't use the instant stuff. 
• Let the tea cool down until it's warm or at room temperature. 
• You can discard the tea bags. 
• Clean the floor the way you normally would, but using tea instead of your normal cleaning solution.

Remember, wood floors don't like lots of water and that goes for tea water too.

If you are like me you will probably want to use a damp sponge mop, but the best way to clean a wood floor is to get down on your hands and knees and scrub it with a damp cloth. Make sure to rinse the rag out with clean water periodically and then dip it in the tea and squeeze it out before proceeding.

Books About Starting a Cleaning Service

There are a couple of publishers that have a series of books about how to start your own business. Each book in the series covers a different business and they are written by people who have actually done it. I have two that I read: Start Your Own Cleaning Service (Start Your Own …) by Jacquelyn Lynn and How to Start a Home-Based Housecleaning Business, 2nd (Home-Based Business Series) by Melinda Morse and Laura Jorstad.

Start Your Own Cleaning Service is published by the same people who run http://www.entrepreneur.com/ and publish Entrepreneur Magazine. I like the web site. They have a lot of good information. It covers the cleaning business in general, gives you the options of how to get into the business, and then covers the major cleaning businesses: maid service, janitorial service, and carpet and upholstery cleaning services. Then it talks about some other specialized types of cleaning businesses such as window or pressure washing. Then the book turns to the business side of things: business plans, legal structure, accounting, employees, purchasing, equipment, and marketing. The very last chapter is filled with practical advice. All-in-all it's an informative look at the cleaning business for someone with no experience running their own business. However, the business chapters are so basic that you will probably need to read other more targeted books to get more complete information. I'm not sure I would be able to decide on a legal structure or be able to set up my accounting based on the little information contained in this book. But these chapters are still valuable in that they bring these issues to your attention and give you a basic overview of them. And the book doesn't actually tell you how to clean anything.

How to Start a Home-Based Housecleaning Business is very similar to Start Your Own Cleaning Service. It covers many of the same subjects such as getting a business license, record keeping, taxes, and advertising. But it does have some additional information such as screening clients, some basic information on how to clean, and developing a service manual. As the title indicates, this book is specifically aimed at the housecleaning business (maid service), and does not cover areas that the other book deals with such as janitorial services and carpet cleaning.

I think both of these books are worth reading before going into the cleaning business. They take different perspectives and you will learn things from one book that are not covered by the other. But neither book is really complete. To get a better understanding of cleaning itself you might want to also read a book like 2001 Amazing Cleaning Secrets. This book is mostly an encyclopedia of how to clean almost anything. You just look up the item you are interested in and find what methods and/or chemicals you would use to clean that item. It also has a chapter with a nicely designed housecleaning system. This system will help you plan your attack so that you can clean quickly and efficiently.

You will also need more information about the business side of things. NOLO press (http://www.nolo.com/) has a plethora of books about the legal issues surrounding small businesses. You could also read Small Business For Dummies or other similar books. These books deal with many of the same issues that are in the cleaning business books, but they go more in depth. There are other more specific books dealing with marketing and bookkeeping that you will need to read to really get the best advice.

Hydrogen Peroxide

In my last post we talked about two of the most popular household green cleaning agents: baking soda and vinegar. Today I want to talk a little about another popular cleaner that you might have at home. Hydrogen peroxide's formula looks a lot like the formula for water. Water is H₂O and hydrogen peroxide is H₂O₂. That means that water has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom while hydrogen peroxide has two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms. In fact, when two hydrogen peroxide molecules breaks down they turn into two water molecules and one oxygen molecule. The formula looks like this: 2 H₂O₂ → 2 H₂O + O_2. 

You can't get more environmentally friendly than water and oxygen. But that does not necessarily mean that hydrogen peroxide is safe. In fact, before it breaks down it can be quite harmful. It is an oxidizing and bleaching agent. Hydrogen peroxide is a stronger oxidizer than chlorine.

If you've ever bought non-chlorine bleach to do your laundry then you have probably used hydrogen peroxide as a cleaning agent. In most grocery stores you can buy hydrogen peroxide in that familiar brown bottle with the white cap. Normally you will find it with just 3% hydrogen peroxide. But if you look around you can find it in 12% solution (Hydrogen Peroxide 12% 16 Ounces) or even 30% (Hydrogen Peroxide 30% (ACS) [ 1 Ea.]) or more.

The normal bottle of 3% is often recommended as a mouthwash or you can buy it formulated and marketed as a mouthwash (Mouthwash-Hydrogen Peroxide - 16 oz. - Liquid). I would recommend that you never use a solution of more than 3% as a mouthwash or for washing your teeth. You can make a toothpaste out of it if you mix it with baking soda to make a paste. It apparently works as a teeth whitener. I would recommend, however, that you also brush with a toothpaste with floride in it after you use the hydrogen peroxide. This is because hydrogen peroxide's oxidizing process can weaken the enamel on your teeth. Fluorine has just the opposite chemical effect. You can read more about this in the Wikipedia article Oxidizing agent.

There's a nice web site that talks extensively about using hydrogen peroxide as a cleaner. Amazingly enough, it's called http://www.using-hydrogen-peroxide.com/. You can get a lot more information from them than I am going to cover in this post. For that matter, you can do your own Google search and find a number of articles on it. The main reason I want to address post my own article on it is to point out that a hydrogen peroxide based cleaner is what I use for most of my own cleaning. I use a professional concentrated cleaner called Clean By Peroxy. I buy mine at a janitorial supply in Chattanooga called Advanced Paper Company, but you can order it over the internet at places like Green Chemical Solutions. It seems expensive but it's highly concentrated, so a little goes a long way. Clean By Peroxy is Green Seal certified.

But there are also plenty of other hydrogen peroxide based cleaners that you can probably get at your local grocery store or hardware store. You can usually spot them because they will have the word OXY in the name somewhere. Or you can just stick with that bottle of hydrogen peroxide antiseptic in your bathroom.

Since hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent you can use it for whitening and brightening most of the same things you might use bleach for. You can use it as a general cleanser for your kitchen, it can get stains out of carpets or off floors or out of your clothes. Of couse, you will always want to check it first on an inconspicuous spot to make sure the item you are applying it to will not be discolored by the hydrogen peroxide.

The only environmental reservation I have about hydrogen peroxide is in its manufacture. I'm not sure if the process of making it has any harmful environmental impact. If I find out more about this I'll give you an update. Or if anyone who reads this article knows more about the issue please let me know.

Two Popular Green Cleaning Supplies

When you read books about environmentally friendly cleaning techniques or search the web, you often come across two popular products: Vinegar and Baking Soda. You may already have both of these common household products in your house.

On the pH scale, baking soda is on the opposite side of vinegar. Vinegar is slightly acidic while baking soda is a base. Water is considered neutral with a pH of 7, vinegar is acidic with a pH of 2.4 and baking soda is on the other side of the scale at 8.4. So as you can see, while neither vinegar nor baking soda are strong, they do have different qualities.

VINEGAR: Since vinegar is slightly acidic, this means it is good for getting rid of hard water spots in your shower, but there are some things you would not want to clean with an acid. You need to make sure you know when and where to spray it. You might also find the smell to be somewhat of a problem. I used to spray straight white distilled vinegar in my shower and my wife would complain that the bathroom smelled like ketchup. Although the smell will go away after a few hours, if you buy a little lemon oil and add a few drops to the vinegar you might find the smell less offensive.

BAKING SODA: You've probably heard that baking soda is good for getting rid of smells in the refrigerator. It can also be used in other places where smells accumulate. Anything with a high pH is also a whitening agent. By comparison, bleach has a pH of about 13. This means that while it can be used to get stains out of your carpet or off your counter, you should be careful and test it first in an inconspicuous spot because it could also discolor that nice rug of yours.

Since vinegar smells bad and baking soda gets rid of bad smells, couldn't you just combine them and get a super cleaning agent that smells nice? Well, not really. The cleaning power of each of these substances has to do with their pH. But if you combine them the pH becomes neutral, meaning that it would clean just like water does. This isn't bad, but it might not be what you are looking for. However, there are a few instances where you might want to combine them. You see, if you put baking soda in vinegar it will bubble up. Some people recommend pouring baking soda into a clogged drain and then put vinegar into it. The bubbling might help break up the clog. Next time you have a clog you might give it a try. Although I haven't had much success with this tip, it's definitely worth trying before you go dumping lye into your drain.

Tracking Expenses

A small business owner needs to track expenses. Especially those that can be deducted on his/her taxes. The IRS has all kinds of rules about what can and cannot be deducted. You should probably talk to your accountant to make sure you're doing it right. But if you want, you can also read the IRS Form 535. It can be very helpful. For instance, it says that "When you go into business, treat all costs you had to get your business started as capital expenses." I spent a lot of time reading books and travelling around learning how to start a business. I need to track down these costs and add them to my expenses spreadsheet.

Yes, I'm using a spreadsheet to keep my expense records. There are better methods for keeping track of the accounting aspects of your business than a simple spreadsheet but I'm trying to bootstrap my business so, for the moment, I'm keeping expenses low by delaying this important purchase. 
Many small businesses use QuickBooks for their record keeping. It's quite powerful, and reasonably priced compared to some other options. There's also a QuickBooks Simple Start 2010 option that costs even less. Unfortunately for me I can't use the Simple Start version because I'm using a Mac. There is a version for the Mac called QuickBooks 2010 for Mac, so there's a good chance that that's the version I'll eventually buy. But beware, powerful programs are often quite complicated and you will have to read a book or take classes in order to use Quickbooks to it's full potential.

However, there is another option that I've been thinking about and that's FileMaker Pro 11. I was also thinking about Bento 3but I think FileMaker Pro would make a better option for me. Bento is quite a bit cheaper than FileMaker, but it has limited functionality. Bento is made by FileMaker, so it's a good product, but it does not have the power of FileMaker. And even if Bento would suffice for a new business, it isn't robust enough to grow with your company. In reality, I think Bento hardly offers anything that I can't already do with a spreadsheet. The biggest drawback is that there isn't any way to do reports in Bento. You can fake it, but FileMaker is a real powerhouse. Your business could grow to a multi-million dollar company with thousands of employees and FileMaker would still be robust enough to keep up. The biggest draw back is, like I said about QuickBooks, there is a huge learning curve for database development with FileMaker. You may end up having to pay someone to develop your databases. Bento, on the other hand, is very easy to learn and use.

For now I'll just keep using my spreadsheet. At least I will be able to import the data into whatever database software I end up buying.

Mileage

The miles I drive for business related travel, now that I'm a business owner, can be deducted from my taxes. But you have to keep track of your mileage in order to take the deduction. For now, all I've done is set up a spreadsheet to track my mileage. As far as I can tell, I just need to note the date, the starting miles and ending miles and the business purpose. I have the spreadsheet calculate the miles I've driven by subtracting the ending miles from the start miles. Then I also have it calculate the actual cash value of the deduction. For 2010 the IRS has declared that business mileage can be deducted at $0.50 per mile. 

There is also a different method that one can use for the deduction, but since I am using the same vehicle for personal as well as business travel, I've decided to just use the mileage method. I just enter the miles into my iPod Touch and then transfer the data into a spreadsheet when I get home. But there are easier ways to do it. I could buy a mileage app in the iTunes store. But for now I'm just using a spreadsheet. I can access the spreadsheet from my iPod Touch whenever I have Internet access, but that's now always available. During those times I just jot a note down in Notepad and then put the info into the spreadsheet when I get home. 

Insurance

Today has been a busy day. After leaving the bank I went to see my insurance agent. I had talked to him yesterday about getting liability insurance for my new business. Since the legal form of my business is sole proprietor, and not a limited liability company or a corporation, I thought it was especially important to have proper insurance. This is my first big expense for my business, but as it turns out it's less than $60 per month for my policy. It also gave me a chance to use one of my new business checks. It doesn't take long for a business to start costing you money. But so far it hasn't been too bad. Total cost of doing business so far, less than $700.

Since I've got my business license I have also started to keep track of the mileage I'm putting on my car for business purposes. Not that I needed it for the insurance, since my insurance agent is just across the street and my bank is just half a block away. I like walking whenever I can. In fact, the people at the bank know me as the guy who walks there whenever I need anything. They were quite shocked when I came in from the rain soaking wet a couple months ago. I want to keep my carbon footprint as small as possible and I plan to keep my cleaning business low impact.

Setting Up a Bank Account

I took my business licenses from the county and the city and went to the bank. I figured that I needed to open a business checking account. They did want to see my business licenses so I'm glad I took those with me. I thought a business account would cost money, but they had a free checking account, so that was great. It's the same bank I do my personal checking and saving with, so I already knew them and since it's a small bank they already know me. They told me that I did not have to get those big business checks if I didn't want to, so I went with the same kind of checks I use for my personal account. I want to do all my record keeping with my computer, so I figure I don't really need special checks.

Things are moving along just fine.

Seeing the Small Business Development Center

This morning I went to the Tennessee Small Business Development Center. I think it's run by Chattanooga State Community College in conjunction with the Small Business Administration. There are books with helpful information, computers, and most of all they have people you can talk to about starting and running a small business. They were very helpful. I went down and talked to a counselor this morning and asked him if I was doing everything correctly. Basically he said I was doing fine. I've talked to them before, so this wasn't my first time. We also talked about record keeping, software that can be used, and marketing. How do I actually plan to grow my business? They always want you to do a business plan, which I've already done. I would highly recommend using them.

Getting a Business License

I went down to the Hamilton County Clerk today to get a business license. It's located at 625 Georgia Avenue in downtown Chattanooga. I basically know where this is, so I drove down the 24 to Market Street. As you are going down Market there is a little one way street that veers off to the right. This is the beginning of Georgia Ave. So I turned on this. After a block or two I saw some big building so I found a parking spot, put three quarters into the meter and started walking. Even if this big building isn't the one I'm looking for, my building should be close by. That's what I figured anyway. But as it turns out, I was parked around 11th Street. So I had to walk up hill for five blocks to get to the courthouse. When I tried to enter I had to remove everything from my pockets. To my surprise I had a pocket knife on me. So I had to walk all the way back to my car. I decided at that point to just move the car up the hill closer to the courthouse. I did and fed another 75 cents into the meter.

Once I got into the building, getting the license was rather painless. Filled out a form, but didn't know what classification to choose for my business. The very nice and helpful person at the desk told me to choose class 3. I wasn't sure if I had to fill out a special form for a fictitious business name (also known as a DBA), but he said I could just write whatever name I wanted on this form, so I chose Demesser Cleaning Services. Actually, I had already decided to use this name and I did prior research to make sure the name was available. But I didn't have to certify that it was available. He also told me, since my business will operate inside Chattanooga city limits, that I needed to get a license from the city, and that I needed to go down to 11th Street. So after paying my $15 fee I got my license and left.

But as you may have already noticed. I had to go down the hill again back to where I had parked earlier. Since I had plenty of time left on my meter (the whole process to get the license took less than 20 minutes), I decided to walk. I had a nice walk down the street, made it to City Hall and went inside. I looked to the left and there was a security guard. I looked to the right and there were some counters with people who looked like they were waiting to assist me. So I went right and told them I needed a business license. Fifteen minutes later, and after another $15 payment, I got my business tax license, left and walked back up the hill.

That was rather painless and not too expensive.