Tenerife Forum member's handy hints and tips

[Cazten]

After seeing this :-

Originally Posted by Margaretta

..........What WAS Wayne doing with the bin liners?....OH, got it!...Making a recycled dress now the bar has taken the shirt from his back!
(Seriously...You can make wonderful black plastic roses from binliners!)
Margaretta

It got me thinking, about other useless and not so useless "tips" so here's a thread dedicated to all our handy hints.....

Here's one from me:-

You know that awful build up of limescale on the ends of your taps? The Viakal just drips off, so doesn't do the job.

Cut the corner off a plastic bag, fill it with Viakal or something like it, then put the plastic over the end of the tap so it's immersed, and secure it for a couple of hours with an elastic band.

If you're environmentally friendly - you can use ordinary vinegar, but leave it on overnight

Works a treat..

By the way Margaretta, how DO you make black plastic roses from bin bags?

So come on forum fans, what's your best "handy hints and tips"?

[Paulrock]

Never clean your windows or mirrors with these sprays you get form the supermaket (might work at first but when the sun comes round! oh the smears) Just use soapy water (with a drop of vinagar) and a clean dry cloth or newspaper.Works all the time and no more smears. But make sure you have stickers on the glass so you don't walk into it as we have found out when we have cleaned apartments, our customers have walked into the glass

[old golfer]

Hob bright in the orange container is the only one that makes a real good job of your Hob....

[Daverock]

My tip is never to make a very good job of windows then I am not allowed to clean them

Seriously though a good tip for the loo cisterns which continually jam up here is to use agua fuerte on them. Turn the water off to the cistern and flush the loo. Remove the lid and carefully cover all the working bits inside with agua fuerte (do not get it on your skin as it's acid and will burn badly. Only leave it a minute or 2 and turn the water on and flush it a couple of times. This stops the scale jamming everything up.

[lundi2407]

heres one for you all...
with your bathroom mirrors, to stop them steaming up... when cleaning them spray on some shaving foam... once wiped off will stop your mirrors from steaming up...!!

one for the ladies..
do you have a problem with skirts or dresses when you wear them causing static???
heres the solution......
when your ironing them... iron them on the reverse side.. but spray them with hairspray... strange buit true.. it stops the static....

[Cazten]

Originally Posted by lundi2407

one for the ladies..
do you have a problem with skirts or dresses when you wear them causing static???
heres the solution......
when your ironing them... iron them on the reverse side.. but spray them with hairspray... strange buit true.. it stops the static....

How bizzare lundi! Never heard that one before - may try it sometime.

As we seem to have a bit of a windows theme going... I buy ammonia from the supermarket, and put some in a spray bottle with water, it's great for cleaning windows without smears. (stinks for a while tho')

And neat ammonia will shift the hardest stuck-on oven gunk. Wear gloves and leave the windows open though!

Can you imagine being able to buy brilliant stuff like neat ammonia and agua fuerte (hydrochloric acid) in the UK supermarkets - without:- some kind of license, a few risk assessments, protective clothing, training in how to use it, special storage facilities, danger signs all over your house, and a visit from at least one health and safety officer? - I don't think so; lucky us then

[Delderek]

agua fuerte

You can buy the equivilent in th UK its called "Attaka", sold in Boots and some supermarkets.

[IREALLYAMLINDA]

well, my first job was as a Saturday girl in a cheap shop (bit like the pound shop I think) in Yorkshire and we used to sell amonia for 1 shilling and eleven pence a bottle. It was in glass bottles and we often had a broken bottle stinking the shop out!!!
Anyway if you put lemon peels on the garden it will stop the local moggies using it as a public convenience as they dont like the smell. Spray your plants with washing up liquid in water to get rid of aphids.
Flies don't like lavender so a nice little bunch of that here and there makes the house smell nice and keeps the moscas at bay, and if you don't like the smell of citronella, the flies aren't too keen on anything that is burning, so just light up a couple of candles or perfumed sticks and that will keep them away.
Use a little spray bottle (costs next to nothing in the 150 shop) filled with bottled water and a few drops of your favorite essential oil to spray your clothes when ironing, makes them smell lovely and spray a bit on your pillows as well - lovely.

[treble99]

This ones from Babytreb. If you move furniture and it leaves a "dent" on the carpet, put an ice cube in the "dent" and the pile will rise to the original level.

[robby1234]

feed up with ants in yer pants.
fill a bottle with water/sugar and spray round you boundary walls at the bottom(just a quik scoosh).
the scouting ant will follow the sugar trail and the rest of the ants follow the scouts trail.

feed up with white cutlery.
get the old coke out the fridge and put it in a mug/glass and put you cutlery in the citric acid will leave your cutlery wipe clean.

don´t use special doggie bags for poo get baby nappy bags they are cheaper.

if you have a laptop when you go back to the uk get a laptop portable solar panel and a back up battery(should only cost about 100 quid all in) and never pay a bill for powering your computer again(and you mobile phone,pda,mp3 player yada yada yada).

if you are making a dvd collection don´t use blank dvd´s get a hard disk media player. considering that 100 blank dvd´s can cost 80 euros and a 250gb hd player can hold more than 250 compressed dvd quality avi files for about 180 euros without the clutter it makes sense(to me anyway).