How to clean a very very dirty home?

Question

My family just bought a new house, and it is very very dirty! The toilets are yellow, the tubs are black and the house has a very bad smell becuase the previous owners had a dog and there's crap all over the house! Does anyone know what will clean teh toilets and tubs?And how to clean other appliances such as the microwave,stove,counters. I heard that this "toilet wand" does a good job but im not sure...And also does anyone know any good paint brands? and what paint should we buy?thank you!~

Answer 1

"The Works"... is the best toilet bowl cleaner around, but it is not safe for kids and pets so be careful. You can find it at the general dollar store for a buck.

For the tub, pour some baking soda, and vinegar in it, swish it around. It will foam up. Let it sit, and then take a non abrasive scour pad, and scrub. This should clean it up.

As far as the carpet? Well... even if you do find something to get it clean, there is still the carpet padding that will be soiled. I would advice pulling it up, and repadding, and possibly recarpet.

You can bleach the counters if they are formica, and also the stainless steel tub can be cleaned with the vinegar, and baking soda, or you can use toothpaste to polish it up.

I like KILZ paint for a less inexpensive paint. It does a great job, and for me I only used one coat.

PS.. Don't forget to have a BBQ..and invite all of your realatives over for a house cleaning party...lolz..

Answer 2

Get some good rubber gloves, thick ones like you would use when you do dishes, buckets, rags, big sponges like you use to wash your car, scrub sponges like what you would use for teflon pots and the heavier duty ones that are coarse and green, do not use these for stainless steel or items that will scratch use the sponge or teflon scrub instead and lots of elbow grease.
Work from the top down,whether you're doing walls, cupboards, windows etc.
Use ammonia, but be sure the windows are open, it doesn't hurt to put on a mask either and you DILUTE it, do not mix with any other cleaners!! Dilute with vinegar and water. I don't measure but I use mostly water, then ammonia then vinegar. You can also use this on windows, use a squeegee like the one in your car inside and out, it'll make fast work of it.
The tubs, toilets will have to be scrubbed down with this solution but I also add some baking soda to this mixture and good old elbow grease, when you're done with the toilet pop in a chlorine bleach tab, I prefer the clear ones cause the blue ones don't appeal to me.
If you have carpets go to your local supermarket and rent a machine or have them professionally cleaned because of the doggy smell. If it's not too bad then spread baking soda on the carpets, this will neautralize the odor and then vacuum. You can use this soda anywhere you want to neutralize odor, down the sink, carpets, fridge etc
As far as paint since you're going to be living in this house the paint smell can be harsh,so for not much more money get a low VOC paint or No VOC paint, better for the environment and for your health. I get mine from Home Depot the brand is called Natural Whites by CIL and it is a No VOC, low lustre paint for the walls, I also use the same brand in semi gloss for the trim and baseboards. You may not have this particular brand at your local store but just ask someone and they should have the same product by a different manufacture.

Answer 3

I would recommend Snow-Bowl for the toilets, Scrub Free for the tubs. There is a product called Natures Miracle that will help with cleaning up the dog messes. You can find it at Pet Smart. And for the appliances get a cleaner such as Orange Clean that will cut through the grease. Good luck, I feel for you.

Answer 4

First I would advise you to do the cleaning/painting before you move in. Without furniture, etc inside, the job would be much easier.

As for the cleaning:
Carpets: Rent a commercial carpet cleaner from Home Depot (or many grocery stores also have them) and a heavy duty carpet cleaner solution. If you want to replace them, look for a wholesale carpet dealer in the yellow pages. We got our berber carpet from a wholesaler for about half the price of home stores.

Bathrooms: Kaboom (available at Wal-Mart, Target), glass cleaning spray, some scrubbing brushes and elbow grease.

Microwave, stove, etc: Use a bleach cleaning spray and a scrubbing sponge. This would remove stains from formica countertops, clean and disinfect.

Paint brands: We had very good results with Dutch Boy paint. It comes in 5 gallon buckets that many home stores would custom match to a color if you want. Many times they have rebates so you could save some money there too.

Answer 5

Use a cleaner with bleach in it, something like fantastic for bathrooms, and pour bleach directly into the toilets, sinks and tubs and let it sit for a few hours. If there are carpets, either pull them up, or get a commercial cleaning machine and use 1 cup of bleach for every 2 gallons of water in that as well. Good luck! i have the feeling you will have to replace the flooring, though.

Answer 6

I'm not going to give you any individual hints -- just a link to what I think may be the best site on the web for what you need right now! Check below -- it will take you to a page that has links to all kinds of step-by-step instructions on how to clean virtually anything. If you look on the left side, you'll see it also has gardening, home repair and maintenance sections and at the top it has a search function. There is a lot of good, very basic information here. Much of it is just common sense with what you have on hand, also hints from other users, links to products, you name it. Sounds like you have a heck of a project there -- best of luck to you all!!

Answer 7

I have the Sctch-brite toilet wand thingy and I love it. Clean my tub and sink with it too.



With a different brush of course

Answer 8

You could do it all yourself, but if you can afford it, have a professional cleaning service come in. They'll have all the correct products for various appliances.

You could do the walls yourself--scrub with TSP (trisodium phosphate). It's a necessary step in preparing your walls for painting, and can be found at any hardware or paint store.

Answer 9

get a new tub/ toilet! keep the windows open to air out the stink and use febreze. also if possible get new carpet b/c the smell will have soaken into the carpet , but if you cant then clean the carpets really well. have fun!

Answer 10

"the works" you can buy it at walmart spray it on heavely and let sit for 20 min then scrub with a scotch brite scrubber it worked on my bathtub when i moved in my apt. it was gray and now its brand new white color