7 Tips For Safely Cleaning With Strong Chemical Products

A guest post from Tim for readers of Jewishlifeorganized.com

Cleaning products are the miracles of the modern age. They allow us to accomplish housework in a fraction of the time it used to take and it allows us to combat bacteria and viruses quickly and efficiently. These products are often our best tool against dirt and grime, but they can also be ineffective and possibly very dangerous if they aren’t properly used or handled with the respect they deserve. Today, we are going to address these concerns and give you tips that will help you utilize these powerful housecleaning agents to their full potential and at the same time protect the health of you and your family.

1. Read Instructions Carefully

Before you use any cleaning product you should be thoroughly familiar with its proper use and application. Make sure that you have not only carefully read the instructions but fully understand them. Not reading the instructions increases the likelihood that the chemicals are going to be used in a fashion that is inconsistent with the labeling. This is also a good time to pay attention to emergency instructions and poison control contact information on the bottle in case there is an accident.

2. Wear Proper Protective Equipment

Before you use any cleaning product you should familiarize yourself with the potential hazards that particular chemical poses to your health and make sure you take adequate precautions. Cleaning products can be corrosive to human tissue and cause damage to soft mucous membranes. Some cleaning products can also release fumes that may cause damage to the lungs or soft tissues of the throat. Make sure you protect these sensitive areas of your body with the proper use of protective equipment such as gloves, safety goggles and face masks.

3. Never Mix Cleaning Products

Cleaning products should never be mixed together under any circumstances. Many cleaning products that are quite safe and stable under ordinary circumstances can become quite dangerous when mixed with other chemicals. For example, bleach and ammonia are fairly safe when used by themselves, but release deadly vapors when mixed together. Since you can never be truly certain the exact chemicals that may be in a cleaning product, the safe thing is to only use them as standalone products.

4. Protect Children and Pets

While cleaning products can often be tolerated quite well by healthy adults, these products can be very toxic to children, pets and those with frail health. Before you begin using these products make sure that these individuals are away from the area being cleaned and that they are out of the area until any fumes have subsided.

5. Maintain Proper Ventilation

While you are using cleaning products it is very important that you keep the area well ventilated. Make sure that you open windows and if necessary, set up a house fan. The fumes from cleaning products can be deceptively strong and can quickly overwhelm a person using them in a poorly ventilated space.

6. Cleaning Up After Using Cleaning Supplies

After you have finished your cleaning duties it is now time to make sure that you are properly cleaned up. Make sure that you rinse off your gloves and make sure they are safely put away. Also make sure that you wash any areas of your body that may have been exposed to the cleaning supplies. If you have spilled cleaning products on your clothes, then make sure that you remove them and make sure they are properly laundered.

7. Properly Store Cleaning Products

Once you are done with your cleaning products you should make sure that they properly put away. Make sure that the lids to your cleaning products are firmly in place and make sure that you place these products in areas that are inaccessible to children and pets.

Following the above steps will not only ensure that our home is clean and free from nasty viruses, but it will also ensure that we are safe from the hazardous side effects of these very cleaning products.

Tim is currently working with a dealer of vacuum cleaner bags, so he spends most of his time sorting through Bosch hoover bags.

Week Four of a Kosher Passover 2011- Turning Over and Final Phase of Cleaning

1. The Vacuum is going to be out all week. Go over all the bedrooms, living rooms, offices, dining room, kitchen, every possible area that needs to be vacuumed-this is going to be your final cleaning phase.

2. Prepare the common ingredients that are listed in your Kosher Passover recipes. For instance, if you’re going to be using a lot of sautéed onions in meals, cut up a whole bag of onions and store those chunks in a Ziploc bag. You can even saute all of the onions, distributing them into different Kosher Passover recipes. It’s the Prepping of those common ingredients that will save you much time in actually cooking your meals and following your Kosher Passover recipes.

3. Prepare Seder Plate Items (don’t save this for the erev Pesach, I promise your erev Pesach will be much more relaxed if you don’t!)

4. Set up guest areas

5, Make sure you have some time for yourself- to take a nap, get your nails done, put your feet up, wash your hair.

Those are the final steps necessary for a happy, fun, sane, and Kosher Passover. I hope you’ve enjoyed your solid 30 days of work, you did a wonderful job!

The Best Passover Cleaning Product

I get a little too excited about cleaning products sometimes Well, what do you expect from Jewish-life-organized.com?

Anyhow, I was cleaning the grime from my refrigerator in preparation for my “Chametz-detox” and I used a steel wool pad with soap built into it- a.k.a. a soap pad.

The pros of using a soap pad are that you don’t need to spray anything, find good rags (sounds easier than it is!), and use toxic heavy-duty cleaning products. Though the soap in the pad is probably pretty toxic, I like the fact it’s not being sprayed.

My only complaint is that it rusts! So I began searching for how to mitigate the rust from these soap pads so they can be used and reused, since they are really such a wonderful cleaning tool.

Instructions for how to prevent rust in a soap pad.

1. When you’re done using a steel wool pad for dishes or cleaning, rinse it well in clean, cold water. Squeeze out as much moisture as you can.

2. Fill a small- or medium-sized glass jar a little more than halfway with clean, cold water.

3. Sprinkle in a generous dose of baking soda. About 2 tbsp should do the trick, but there’s no need to measure.

4. Close the lid tightly on the jar and shake it vigorously to mix the baking soda and water.

5. Remove the lid and put the steel wool pad inside. Make sure the steel wool is completely submerged in the solution.

6. Keep the jar near your sink so that the steel wool pad will be accessible when you need it. As long as it remains completely submerged in the solution during storage, the steel wool should never rust. Just rinse the pad thoroughly before using it. Then rinse it again and squeeze out the excess water before putting it back in the jar.

I hope you enjoy the suggestions here and find that using soap pads are a very useful Passover cleaning product.

It’s not too late to get more complete plannning advice to making an organized Passover! I recommend you get yourself a copy of the Jewish Holiday Perfectly Organized Planner available here at this link.

Head on over to this page to see some passover organizing products that will help you when you use them in the next 2 weeks!”

Week Three of making a Kosher Passover in 30 Days

1. Clean your cars. I personally like to have the cars detailed once a year.

2. Create your meal plans using Kosher Passover cookbooks and from recipes you use all ‘year round that you’ve studied how to effectively convert them into Kosher Passover recipes. Then, capture your favorite recipes into my best recipe organizer software so you can print out corresponding grocery lists! It’s really easy, and that’s why I am especially promoting it this Passover.

3. Shop for some perishables using your meal plan lists and store the perishables in a section of your refrigerator that you clean this week. It could be that you cleaned out your grocery bins in advance and are beginning to put some of the perishables in there. If you haven’t shopped for your non perishables yet, go to Week 2 of Making a Kosher Passover in 30 days.

4. Clean the kitchen- include appliances, cabinets, chairs, countertops, floor, garbage cans, highchairs, oven, phone, sink, stovetop, table, windows. This is just an introductory clean to your kitchen. You’re going to need to clean it again but if there are really dirty sections of your kitchen, you’ll want to start now.

5. Cook meals in advance using a crock pot and freezing.

For more help with making Passover in 30 days and further details on exactly what you could be doing this week in order to make a perfectly organized Pesach, you’ll want to get yourself a copy of the Jewish Holiday Perfectly Organized Planner available at this link.

Countdown to a Kosher Passover 2011-Week Two

Cleaning Phase II, Create a Pesach Kitchen, Menu Planning and Food Shop Phase II

1. Continue building up your Kitchen Inventory and non perishable Kosher Passover items, including paper goods, kitchen lining supplies, aluminum tins, paper napkins, all kitchen supplies like cutting boards, pots and pans

2. Create a mini pesach kitchen in the basement or laundry room with a crock pot and a few knives, cutting boards, some spices, aluminum tins and a freezer in case you’d like to cook some dishes like meat early and freeze. You’ll need a sink and you could even use the laundry sink for this purpose!

3. Make all of your personal and house related appointments that need to get taken care of before Passover such as carpet cleaning and home repairs and drycleaning.

4. Clean the dining room breakfront, clean the fridge and freezer designating one chametz area. Stop shopping for chametz, and clean the rooms that are getting “closer“ to the main floor- laundry rooms, office, hallways, bathroom and tape up areas. Most likely, these are not high traffic chametz areas so deep cleaning may not be necessary.

5. Begin giving the kids snacks that may not be actual Kosher Passover snacks but that are not considered true chametz. For instance, rice cakes, popcorn, corn pops, anything that isn’t made of Barley, Rye, Oat, Wheat or Spelt.

6. Finish the clothes and shoe shopping

7. Begin looking for Kosher Passover Recipes and start collecting those recipes that look easy enough and appealing to you and your family. Talk to friends and other people that you know have made Passover before and ask them which Kosher Passover recipes they have that work well for them. Also, begin researching ways to convert your favorite all year round recipes to become Kosher Passover recipes. Find out what good substitutes are for turning those chametz recipes into Kosher Passover recipes.

If you prefer listening to someone walking you through these steps, I highly recommend you take a look at getting a copy of the Jewish Holiday Perfectly Organized Planner complete with checklists, time-sensitive Passover 2011 information, and a software gadget designed to make your shopping, cooking, and Passover menu planning a whole lot easier! All of the information provided in the Passover Perfectly Organized planner is current and was written with you, our readers, in mind because we know just how hard you are working towards creating a Kosher passover! Click here to read more about the Planner.

Can I really Turn my Laundry Room into a Pesach Kitchen?

If you read my recent post, How to Cook for Passover Early without a Passover kitchen, you know that I suggest creating a mini Passover cooking space in your basement or laundry room, all that is really required is a sink and an electrical outlet.

After posting more about how I create a Pesach kitchen in my own home, I received the following question from a reader-

(Regarding her Pesach kitchen) I guess you have to see it. It’s just random pieces all spread out in the laundry area and its a really small, old counter/drawers – probably from the original kitchen in the house. I think I need to open up a folding table and cover it and use that as counterspace for whatever I’m actually going to make. Hard to imagine doing much cooking in my laundry room, you know?

Definitely hard to imagine cooking in the laundry room, and if you look at these pictures you’ll understand why.

Let’s see if we can fill in the blanks for our reader.

I drew some very ridiculous drawings that are meant to explain my suggestions. Not sure if you can figure out what in the world I meant by the drawings but here goes.

Can you see the kitchen getting homey-er? Not really, okay I tried. But, it does have what you need to connect the dots from laundry room to Pesach kitchen.

If you look at the drawings on the last photo, you’ll see we’ve added a folding table with a cutting board and some knives, shelving for spices and other canned goods you might be using in your crockpot, and a large kitchen trash can, and your crockpot.

What else do you think you’d need to make this Pesach kitchen more functional?

I might put a large basin in the laundry sink because of how yucky laundry sinks tend to be, include some tinfoil and aluminum tins on the shelves, and labels so I can label what I will be freezing. Oh yes, the freezer? Where is your freezer for Pesach? It would be great if you could keep a designated pesach freezer in your mini-Pesach kitchen.

That’s it! You’re all set- feel free to post your own photos or ask questions about your own personal makeshift or real Pesach kitchen!

Countdown to a Kosher Passover- Week One

Establish a Pesach Center, Food Shop Phase I, Cleaning Phase I

1. Order your Meat now before the prices go up

2. Organize and Clean out your Closets. You decide what the difference between spring cleaning and cleaning for Pesach is! If you can devote some time to streamlining what clothing fits and no longer fits, you will have a head start on the next tip which is to start shopping for yourself and the family to make sure you have new Yom Tov outfits and shoes that fit.

3. Start shopping for clothing sales now and create family clothing sizes charts before you shop to know what everyone needs

4. Clean the upstairs rooms from back to front starting with the closets and storage centers in each bedroom, such as drawers and bureaus, so you know they are chometz-free and could potentially have stuff moved into them in order for you to clean each room. This begins your first phase of cleaning- bedrooms, closets, guest rooms, and storage areas.

5. If you have made Pesach before, look over your Pesach Kitchen Inventory and determine what kitchen and cooking items you need this year. Purchase them brand new and then on to Toivel (dip them in the ritual bath for utensils). If you have never made a Kosher Passover before, everything that you purchase now for Passover will go into your Passover Kitchen Inventory. Designate a place in your basement, or kitchen cabinets to stow away all Kosher Passover Goods.

6. Create a pantry on the main floor to store your non perishable Kosher Passover grocery items in and that way you can start shopping early. Now would be a good time to order your Matzahs. If you don’t have room to create a separate pantry for Passover goods, start to move your chametz foods out of this newly assigned Kosher Passover food area. Find a list of Kosher all year round brands that happen to be Kosher for Passover as wel so you are not limited to buying expensive Passover brands. Do this step after Purim and instead of putting all of the food you received over Purim back into the pantry, keep paper bags on the floor lined up against your hallway or dining room so everyone knows all of that food is no longer going back into the pantry, but that the pantry now is being used to stow Pesach non perishables.

That’s it for Week One, your first Solid Week of preparation towards making Pesach in 30 days. You did it! Congrats! If you wish to see all 4 weeks in one glance with audio/visual instruction walking you through the process, treat yourself to a copy of the Jewish Holiday Perfectly Organized Planning Guides.

Enjoy your video and if you want more information on how to get a copy of our more detailed plan, Passover Perfectly Organized, click here!

Are you more clear on how to get started making Pesach? Great! Now, go ahead and pick up a copy of the Jewish Holidays Perfectly Organized for more help! Go to:
http://www.jewish-life-organized.com/jewish-holidays

You’ll be glad you did!

If you’re been a JLO reader for a while, you probably know that the BEST kept secret to preparing for Passover in advance it to create a mini Passover kitchen.

How to do it? It’s simple. This was my brainchild after I needed to go on a business trip 1 week before Pesach a couple of years ago. I felt bad leaving my husband with a lot of work so I made sure the house was clean so that all he would have to do was turn over the Kitchen. “What about the cooking?” you might ask?

Here’s where the Best kept secret was born. I purchased a crockpot to be used on Passover ONLY. I brought it down to my laundry room which contains a freezer, washer, dryer, and laundry sink.

I added a folding table, plugged in the crockpot, added a meat cutting board, a knife or two, and made use of my leftover Passover non-perishables, canned goods and spices.

Because I had already ordered my meat and cleaned a section of my freezer for Pesach, all I had to do was cook the meat in the crockpot, throw on some spices and perhaps some canned vegetables like potatoes (Think Brisket and potatos) or even fruit like pineapple (think Pineapple Chicken) and I let it cook for a few hours.

That was it! I froze most of my entrees before I had even left on my trip! Into aluminum tins the food went.

A caveat or two: If you don’t like the idea of using a crockpot, purchase an electric burner for yourself. Or, get a crockpot that doesn’t turn the food into mush. (Here’s the one that I use) Cut back on the cooking times-no, your food will not become cholent.

Watch this video to learn more about how to freeze food properly and Enjoy the Best Kept Passover Secret brought to you by Jewish-life-organized.com!