Genius Household Hacks, Secrets, And Gadgets That Will Blow Your Mind
Your bathroom counter is riddled with germs, so it’s never a good idea to put your toothbrush directly on it. Sometimes you may just not own a toothbrush holder, but there’s a good alternative. Take a clothespin and put it on the neck of the toothbrush, then you can put it down. The toothbrush will stay off of the counter indefinitely.
Got a drink you want to finish but have to get out the door? All you need is a straw and some Press n’ Seal. Put the Press n’ Seal over the top of the cup or glass around the straw. You can still drink from the cup and spilling will be much less of a worry.
Not exactly for home repair, but it’s never a bad idea to know what’s safe to eat. Sometimes you buy a carton of eggs and just forget to use all of them. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to tell if an egg is still good or not. Place the egg in a glass full of water. If it sinks, then the egg’s still good. If it floats, then trash it.
This is another one that’s not explicitly for home repair, but it’s still a really helpful bit of information. Did you know that marshmallows can be used to soothe a sore throat. It’d certainly be more fun and tasty to pop a few marshmallows than to suck on a lozenge.
If you scratch your kitchen table or some other nice piece of furniture, don’t worry about going out to get some kind of expensive product. You can use toothpaste instead. Take some non-gel toothpaste and rub it on the scratch until it buffs out. Then just clean it up with a damp towel.
While this is another one that isn’t quite a home repair hack, it is a home remedy that many people swear by. And like many home remedies, it’s one that science can’t quite prove or explain. The problem? Cramping or restless legs disrupting your sleep. The fix? Placing a bar of soap under your fitted sheet. Experts guess that the reason this works may be due to the placebo effect — or possibly due to the presence of magnesium in soap. There isn’t consensus about which type or brand of soap works best, so you may want to test out a few different bars to find out which one (if any) works for you.
Lemons are particularly useful when it comes to cleaning. Take some lemon juice, mix it with boiling water, then pour it down the drain of your sink. You’ll have you sink smelling lemony fresh in no time.
Sometimes, warm water and soap might not be enough to keep your pipes clean. If the smell wafting up from the pipes becomes unbearable, or if there’s otherwise a clog, you can use bleach. Once a month, pour 12 ounces of bleach straight down the drain at the end of the day. This’ll clean out any muck and remove any clogs. Don’t let it sit in your sink’s basin, and especially don’t use bleach if you’ve recently washed your sink with ammonia. The following morning, run some water from the faucet down the pipes to flush out any leftover bleach.
Ironically, the same chemicals — tannins — that cause tea to stain cups over time can also be used to clean dishes. If you have a sink full of greasy dishes, BobVila suggests you fill it up with hot water and about a dozen used tea bags before you take to scrubbing. The astringent properties in tea tannins can help cut grease. If you have just one greasy pot to clean, adding hot water and just a couple tea bags should do the trick.
If you run out of dryer sheets or prefer not to use them on your clothes, simply ball up a few pieces of aluminum foil instead. This’ll cut down on static that clothes drying can produce and also help keep the items apart for faster drying.
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Celebrity tidbits...
- Taylor Swift owns a framed picture of Kanye West interrupting her at the 2009 MTV Music Awards. It's captioned "Life is full of interruptions".
- Jennifer Lawrence has an H20 tattoo on her hand to remind her to drink more water.
- Michael J. Fox's middle name is Andrew.
- Leonardo DiCaprio's mother gave him his name because he first kicked while she was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting.
- A new species of horsefly discovered in Queensland, Australia was named after Beyonce. Its scientific name is "Scaptia beyonceae" because of the golden hairs on its abdomen.
- Grimes legally changed her name from Claire to c in 2018. It is, in fact, supposed to be lower case.
- Gwenyth Paltrow and Maya Rudolph have been best friends since they were seven. Their dads were friends in college.
- Jon Bon Jovi's birth name was John Bongiovi Jr.
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