Thoughts/Advice from a Real Life Dad, thread time. Gonna range all over, no idea what or why I’m tweeting this, let’s go.

Commercially sold household cleaners are garbage. Get yourself a set of QUALITY spray bottles, (Harris Pro and Uneko good so far) and mix your own. You need- Orange oil + water for all purpose cleaner, bleach + water for mildew, and “Shower Gunk”...

Shows Gunk is a mix of 50:50 Blue Dawn and distilled vinegar. Your shower builds up mineral deposits from your dead skin and soap mingling and firming hardcore chemical bonds, the stuff turns into a kind of shellac that can’t be removed... except by Shower Gunk.

I’m serious, anything labeled “soap scum” removing is absolute garbage by comparison. After you Gunk the shower/tub wipe it clean, then hit it with the bleach mix to de-mildew and disinfect. Bleach is good for that, kinda bad for everything is.

Bleach ≠ Soap, it’s got basically no surphractant properties, it causes nothing to share or slide lose, it just kills stuff. But for mildew, mold? It’s aces.

I mentioned orange oil, this is what I’m using. Mix to the ratios on the bottle, this stuff is a miracle. You know GooGone, GoofOff all those glue removing things, really good solvents that aren’t toxic? Same shit. Clean your whole house with it, makes stainless look great too!

Wash your body with what you like BUT, Dr Bronners will result in less soap scum AND you can scrub the floor with it.

The only thing beyond that that I can’t home-make is Oxalic Acid, AKA Bar Keepers Friend. It’s not the same as Comet, it’s legit amazing, remove rust and tarnish and filth from all kinds of metal. Orange oil might still be better but I’ll allow Bar Keepers in my house

An aside while I’m in the kitchen: an Air Fryer IS a convection oven, they are the same technology. The Air Fryer is a lie.

At some point in 2021 you might have company over so fellas: your bathroom needs a garbage can with a lid somewhere in it. I’ll let the ladies explain. Also every bathroom in your home should have its own plunger. Do not force your guest to ever ask you for a plunger.

If you own your home or re-paint etc, keep extra paint for touch up work obviously, but what if you rent and don’t want to repaint? Get a sharp knife, like a utility blade, cut a 1.5x1.5 inch square out of the paint layer of each wall paint you have- basically make a paint chip

Take your chips to the paint store and have them match it, boom, touch up paint. Of course cut your chips from inconspicuous spots, and when you’ve got your touch up paint fix them.

This thread is full of typos. I don’t know why I’m terrible at tweeting- I think you guys can figure out what I mean in most spots though. Moving on...

Microwaving advice: the microwave vibrates water molecules and causes them to heat up. That happens super fast, but those water molecules transferring their heat to the stuff their in, like the leftover turkey? That’s slow. If you want evenly heated food from

A microwave, turn the power down and run it longer so the water-to-non-water heat convection cycle has time to work.

Magic Erasers, the Mr. Clean product are actually Melamine Sponges, they are HIDEOUSLY overpriced. You can buy 100 of them for like 4$ on Amazon.

Also paper towels: look if you’ve got a washer dryer buy a ton of kitchen style dishes towels and just cycle them in the laundry, they do more jobs, last longer, waste less.

Also: how do magic erasers erase? They’re sandpaper, basically. Yes they’ll take paint off of you go nuts.

Fellow renters: a small thing you can do to make the space yours is replace all the toilet seats and shower heads when you move in. Also get slow-close seats.

The sell-by / best-by dates on food are COMPLETELY made up.

Alright, let’s talk mopping. I’ve come to really love the spin-mop style of mops, it’s the closest I’ve come to an at-home version of a 2chamber ringer like I used in my janitor days. Use the soap or cleaning product you like- actually using that orange oil right now

And get your bucket filled with hot water. Hot. Water is the universal solvent, honestly just dumping boiling water from a kettle on the floor is great for spot cleaning. The water in your bucket is hot+clean, so step 1 is to mop ON the floor, completely.

You’re not gonna ring anything back into the bucket yet, just dip that mop, soak it up, splash it on the floor and scrub like crazy. The water won’t stay hot forever (unless you’ve got an electric bucket) so use that heat. Plus you don’t want to add dirt to your clean water yet

Once you’ve got the whole floor hot, wet, and scrubbed- ring out your mop hardcore, if you’ve got that spin mop you can get it damn near dry- and go back and pickup that dirt water and ring it all back into the bucket. You’ll need to ring the mop multiple times.

Basically, don’t go back and forth, ringing and washing, from the same water, you’ll be spreading dirty water on the floor. Addendum: if you’re using an enzyme based cleaner like simple green for example, you can’t take it off the floor. It’s designed to go on wet and dry slow.

This system: wash the whole floor, then dry the whole floor, is only necessary because home use mop buckets are single chamber, a professional custodian setup has a bucket for clean water and another for dirty, if you’ve got a double bucket at home, do as you like.

Generalized Relationship thoughts: the most consistent feature in every human’s network of relationships is the individual. You know people who seem to have trouble and problems with everyone they know any tell you about it? The non-variable in all those interactions is them.

Maybe that’s you, something to consider and work on, or not, idunno. But people who seem to have infinite bad luck, surrounded by trouble and strife, constantly feuding with folks? Be wary of people like that.

If someone tells you something offends or bothers them, you may not dismiss it- resist the urge to reply “oh this isn’t a big deal!” Take breath, stop, get on their side. This stuff takes practice and a conscious effort, none of it is automatic, unless you’re perfect or something

Also this doesn’t actually mean that you’ve got to be a doormat or whatever, you lose nothing in this process. In many cases simply unpacking this stuff will yield a middle way agreeable to all.

No one needs assholes in their lives, if you insist on being one: congrats, you’ll be all alone, maybe you can band together with other assholes no one wants around, have a grand old party of it.

Your life will be easier and better and more fulfilling if you make friends more often than enemies.

Back to the kitchen- the drawer under your oven is a broiler, not a storage spot. You use it in place of a grill to expose foods to fire, should come with a special broiler Pan but if yours is missing you can replace. Meats in here (if you eat meat) broiled veggies good too!

I’m being told that my broiler drawer is cheap and passé instead I’ll say: Know Thine Oven! Get an oven thermometer and keep it in there.