DIY Cleaners: A Better Way

Every homesteader knows the natural cleaning supply recipes of citrus and vinegar.  Both of these things are powerful cleaner and degreasers but the drawback?  When you clean your house with vinegar it makes you feel like you are living inside a pickle jar.  Some people don't mind the smell, some people even like it, but a lot of people refrain from using natural "DIY" cleaning products because because they can't stand that strong and lasting vinegar scent.

Lately I have been more concerned about the chemicals in cleaning products because we got a very tiny dog, and we have 3 cats.  I read a story (I can't remember where it was now) that told of a family who's cat died from liver failure from overuse of cleaning products.  As people, these things don't affect us as much as they do our furry roommates.  We are on two legs, high up from the floor and other surfaces where these cleaning products fall when they are sprayed in the air and stay.  Think of the corners in your house that inadvertently get sprayed with the chemicals that never wiped away.  They just accumulate over time.  However, our furry friends, with their sensitive noses pick up all of these things as they adventure around our houses.  They get them on their paws as they walk across surfaces that we don't even touch.  This can be especially dangerous for indoor cats because they never get an escape from it. And over their lifetimes their little bodies ingest and store concentrated amounts of these chemicals that we think nothing of using every day.  This is what eventually killed the cat in the story I read.  Long term accumulated concentrations of chemicals found in the owner's kitchen cabinet.

So through some experimentation I came up with this method of heat infusing a citrus concentrate with vinegar for a unique DIY recipe for cleaning products.

What you need:
White vinegar
The citrus fruit of your liking
 A jar
A pot of water
and a spray bottle for when it's done

I have tried this with lemons, lemons and limes, oranges, and grapefruit.  Each turned out equally as effective.  To make the concentrate, you take the jar and fill it (fill it to the top and pack it in there as much as you can) with cut up chunks of the rind of fruit you choose  and pour in as much vinegar as you can.  You can leave some of the flesh of the fruit on for a stronger scent, but the more flesh you leave the more your chances that the cleaner will actually leave a sticky residue.  Take the jar and put it in the pot of water to make a kind of double boiler.  What you want to do is heat the contents of the jar through the water in indirect heat.  Turn your stove low and let the water in the pot heat up. 

Let the fruit break down in the heated vinegar for about 2 hours.  Remove the jar from the stove and put the cap back on the jar.  Put it in a cabinet or another dark cool place for about a day.  Strain the fruit out of this and you have your concentrate.  Pour this concentrate in your spray bottle and fill it the rest of the way with vinegar.

Since everyone uses different sizes of jars, spray bottles, etc you will have to experiment with the amounts that work for you.  I use a regular sized 16 oz. spaghetti sauce jar and a 20 oz spray bottle.  Since the fruit takes up so much room in the jar, you end up with a lot less vinegar than you would think when it's all done.

I have had a lot of success with these cleaners.  They work just as well as any store bought product that I have tried.  Even though when you use them, they will smell like vinegar, the citrus makes the smell a little weaker and the smell does not stick around as long as with conventional citrus and vinegar cleaners.  When I use the ones I have made, the vinegar scent is gone within 5 minutes.

If you do make the mistake of leaving too much flesh on the fruit rinds or infuse the vinegar too long you may end up with a sticky residue caused by the cleaner.  In this case, it's really not a big deal. You just wipe down the area you cleaned with a wet paper towel real quick before you are done.  Yeah, it may be an extra step in your cleaning routine, but I'd take it over harming my beloved pets any day! 

The specific recipe I use is as follows:

3 lemons
3 limes
24 oz spaghetti sauce jar
20 oz spray bottle

Trap Cockroaches by Getting Them Drunk!

I know here up north, roaches are not as big of a problem than they are in the south.  I (thank goodness) have only had the displeasure of living with roaches once in my life, but that was enough for me to have sympathy for anyone who has the misfortune of battling for living space with this dirty and resilient pest. 
Here's a way to trap them that I heard from a friend recently that I figured I would share here:

Ingredients:
A couple of pieces of bread
Beer
A coffee can or other container with a lid

All you do is take the bread and put it in the can.  Pour enough beer in there just to get the bread wet.  The roaches will go after the bread, get drunk and either die from alcohol exposure or become incapacitated enough not to be able to get out of the can.  So check this trap frequently.  Once you have caught the roaches put the top back on the container and dispose of it.