The supermarket shelves are lined with them. Cleaning products of all shapes, sizes, dimensions and, of course, prices. As we are all subject to falling for a bit of marketing, we purchase far more of these items that we truthfully need resulting in us eventually have a whole cupboard devoted to various cleaning products.
There are bath cleaners, toilet cleaners, oven cleaners, specific products for cleaning kitchens and kitchen utensils, window cleaners, carpet cleaners, products for making your wooden floor shine and of course that old faithful polish. Years ago our forefathers (or mothers) made do with far less. A bottle of bleach or disinfectant, a tub of lavender wax polish, a bar of carbolic soap and a lot of elbow grease was all that they needed to have houses gleaming and smelling fresh as a daisy.
So if you were put on the spot what four cleaning products could you truly not live without? You may be amazed at the number of products and utensils that you can purchase these days, some of which you may have never used yourself. So if you had to clear out that cupboard what would you decide that you couldn’t live without?
We live in a disposable environment. Everything we have can be thrown away so top of the list has to be the good old bin. As precious few of us now have open fires, burning the rubbish isn’t an option as it was for our ancestors. Bins come in a number of shapes and sizes. There are pedal bins so that you don’t actually need to touch the lid with your hands, swing lid bins and press top bins. All come in a variety of colours to complement the decor of the room
bucket
Cleaning floors is a necessary hassle, particularly if you have more wood and tile than carpet so who can manage without everyone’s favourite the mop and bucket. These adaptable little items can also come in handy for washing the front door and reaching higher spots on external windows. Mops themselves come in a number of varieties, the old fashioned string mop, cloth mops and mops with squeezing attachments to help rinse them out.
Bleach
The mop bucket always needs something to go in it, so that leads us to indispensable product number three. Bleach. Nothing cleans a surface or kills as many germs as a bit of diluted bleach. Add some boiling water and you have a magic solution that will clean anything. Modern day bleach comes in a variety of smells and is a common item in a bathroom where it can be used for cleaning the lavatory or giving the bath and shower a really good clean out.
Washing up liquid
Finally we mustn’t forget our favourite the washing up liquid. This is the product that we probably use more than any other. Combine it with bleach and you can clean anything and it can wash more than just dishes; add it to a bottle of water for screen wash, use it to clean windows and cars and the older members of the population will remember it as being the original bubble bath.