Recently, I saw a video on YouTube
I tried to use the toilet bowl cleaner ( with bleach) and had great results. Here is my question:
I am not well versed with chemicals. The toilet bowl cleaner had left strong smell for half a day when I applied to the kitchen counter. I wonder if those chemicals are harmful when it’s near the food, regardless how many times I rinsed it?
I use regular old bleach with the kind of cotton that they use in a nail salon ( reinforced cotton coil…you can get on amazon). It works great and easy to get right in the lines of grout. You pour the bleach into a bowl and soak a leangth of coil. Leave on at least 4-6 hours but I ususkky just do st night and then take off in the morning.
I can see where bleach kills any molds/mildew but what about basic dirt?
The best grout cleaner ever costs $1 at Dollar Tree. It’s called awesome. It costs me $3 and a few hours every other year to clean the grout on my kitchen floor and hallway! It’s awesome!
Ok, I am upset now…I read this last night around 10pm last night, so I had to give it a try. I took out my only bottle of Clorox toilet cleaner and tried it on an area of 12 by 24" in my kitchen. I have little 1in by 1 in tiles in my kitchen, so there is a lot of grout. Let’s just say the youtube wasn’t exactly right about not having to use any elbow grease, but did it get a lot of dirty out, yes. I was just going to give it a try, but now that 12X24 looks a lot cleaner than the rest of kitchen and I am going to have to finish it. I am also out of toilet cleaner.
If you want to do this, you should set aside some time to do. My apartment also smells like toilet bowl (after it’s cleaned).
@oldfort
You are exactly right, the area treated does smell like a toilet bowl, but I think it works MUCH faster, less elbow grease and better than the Awesome, which I have tried a year earlier. I had several varieties of Awesome from Dollar Tree NONE of them works better than Clorox. The smell, nevertheless will go away after a day or so.
my question to the GROUP is: The Clorox smell, is it harmful? Before I start all over my house, I have about 1500sf of my house need to be cleaned.
Oh, geez. I used to use straight bleach with a tooth brush on my 4" counter tiles, years ago, another home. As far as “grout” goes, it really depends on what sort of filler between the tiles. Nothing seem to work, so far, on our shower tiles. (Not awful, I just want them better.)
Read the ingredients and warnings on a toilet bowl cleaner. I don’t think you’re supposed to breathe that stuff.
Different ques: if Coke is supposed to be a miracle bowl cleaner (at least, on You Tube,) how does that work on counter grout?
Or on your stomach?
I did a spot test yesterday using toilet bowl cleaner on the grout in front of our stove and, unfortunately, it worked like a charm. Like @lookingforward, I used to use straight bleach, but this is easier so, like @oldfort, I’m upset that I will be turning my kitchen into a toilet bowl soon but, if the fumes kill me, at least my kitchen floor will look like new.
I was reading about bleach and grout. It said the bleach can ruin your tile coating overtime. Maybe it’s better than Awesome, but I’m not taking the chance with that or anything with bleach in it.
I’ve read the same ^ about toilet cleaners. The grout and even the tile can start to disintegrate over time. Personally I wouldn’t take that chance.
I’ve always read that toilet bowl cleaner will make the grout disintegrate over time.
Yes, toilet bowl cleaners are usually highly acidic. Acids like this are often very effective at cleaning tiles and grout, but the can quickly damage/stain/fade both the tile and grout. If you want to clean with acids without a toilet bowl smell, you can get a variety of products at any good hardware store. I’ve used a diluted acid from Home Depot to clean my shower tiles before. Before the cleaning my tiles looked awful. They had many stains, including some that did not come out with standard spray cleaners with bleach. After the acid cleaning, it looked like showroom condition. I heard that some salesmen use this method prior to sale. However, I’ve only done this type of acid wash once, with good reason.
I’m going to try this…on my floor grout.
At the tile store, they did tell me that after cleaning, I should seal it with…granite sealer!
I think grout sealer is going to help.
I have had great success cleaning grout by assigning this task to DH.
He uses a small brush, and toothpaste, once or twice a year, leaves it on while he finishes, then goes back to rinse it off with a steam mop. The fumes aren’t as strong as bleach, and as he says, our kitchen smells “minty fresh”.
^^^ @3puppies
Its easy for you to say, since Its not my job! lol 