Thursday 24 January 2008

Good household tips meme

Having been tagged by Ladythinker and spent hours yesterday evening scratching out ideas (I didn't cheat and ask Her Indoors), here are my top four tips:

1. Don't try to wipe tables, hobs etc with a damp cloth, rubbing away at dried on food or oil with a damp cloth is a waste of time. What you should do is make the cloth wringing wet, then squeeze the water over the areas you want to clean so that the stainy bits are actually standing under water. Leave for a second or two. Then wipe. You'll find that the stains come off more or less effortlessly. Water: the greatest solvent known to mankind.

2. Throw away your old potato peelers with the fixed blades and buy one with a swivel blade (mine looks a bit like this). You'll find you can peel potatoes, carrots etc in about a third of the time with one tenth of the effort.

3. Turn your mattress regularly, at least monthly (or even better weekly, as part of your Friday evening routine along with lighting the candles and opening a bottle of red wine, perhaps, makes the Saturday lie-in all the more enjoyable). Unless you have a square mattress or a new-fangled one-sided mattress, there are four possible positions. To help you remember whether it's time to turn it end-to-end or side-to-side, have a rule that says if the label is on top, turn it upside down and end-to-end, if the label is underneath, turn it upside down and side to side.

4. Having spent enough time knocking on doors as well as opening doors to salesmen, there is one killer line to which gets rid of 9 out of 10 salesmen in an instant, it's "I'm sorry, I don't live here". That shuts up all the double-glazing, npower and insurance salesmen on the spot. The really funny thing is, I've tried this with Jehovah's Witnesses as well, and it works a treat!

If anybody wants to pick up the meme, please leave a comment. Don't let me down!

4 comments:

Clunking Fist said...

If your child drwas on the walls, slap him. He won't do it again.

DRIVERS. Save money by putting much larger wheels on the back of your car. That way you will always be going downhill, thereby saving on fuel.
Daren Percy, Leigh (via Viz, of course)

Anonymous said...

Store your towels and whatnot in the airing cupboard rolled up, rather than lying flat in piles. It's far easier to take one out without disturbing the rest.

Penny Pincher said...

Oh well done mark - I'm glad you didin't chicken out. Extra marks for not asking 'her indoors'.

I particularly like the last one. I will try that. When our local builder was here he told us that a national double glazing salesmen called on them (at tea time as is usual) just after he had put in all new PVC windows, doors, guttering, fascia boards and erected a conservatory. His wife asked the salesmand "are you BLIND or just plain stupid?"

Danny Haszard said...

WHY DOOR TO DOOR?

The reason the watchtower corporation orders their Jehovah's witnesses members to intrude door to door is because in the beginning their leader Joseph Rutherford (who himself never went door to door) knew that this cold-calling tactic would get them recognition and "persecution" as pesky.
If they can get "persecuted" by picking fights then he can say they are 'persecuted for Jesus'.

It's all a Watchtower cult SCAM