From: faintly_mcabre@hotmail.com (Faintly McAbre, The Singular Pocketwop)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house misc.consumers.frugal-living
Subject: Re: Bathtub Cleaning
Date: 9 Aug 2003 10:35:16 -0700

"Jose Luiz"  wrote in message news:...
> Hey, I'm trying to clean my bathtub which has 7-8 months worth of
> accumulated dirt in it. I went to Wal-Mart and bought one of those cheap
> Scrub-Free spray cleaners and, despite actually doing a lot of scrubbing,
> the dirt didn't come off. I also, in desperation, tried some dishwashing
> liquid but that didn't work either. What would be the best cleaner to use to
> get rid of the dirt in my bathtub?? Would Lime-A-Way or some detergent work,
> or is there something better out there?? I appreciate any advice!
> 
> Jose

When I moved into my boyfriend's apartment, the bathtub was really,
really scary - literally years worth of mildew and water stains there.
 The maintenance staff had made some effort to clean in between my
boyfriend and the previous resident (an even more forgetful guy), but
it didn't take very well.  It took me several shifts of doing this,
but I was eventually able to get the tub looking new the
old-fashioned, brutal and unhealthy way:
- plug the tub, start filling it with hot water, and pour in about a
third of a bottle of bleach.
- leave the bathroom, and just check on the tub to see when it's full.
 You don't want to breathe too many fumes.
- when it's full, shut it off and let it soak for an hour or two.
- drain the tub and scrub with Comet or similar and a scrubby-brush.
- especially wise is to grab a mop and go over the tile around the tub
with the bleach water before you drain the tub and scrub
- scrub those walls with comet, too!
- rinse very, very well

Cycle through this once a week for a few weeks.  My bathroom is pretty
fabulous now, and now I only need the extremely occasional bleaching
(with only a little bleach) and a much quicker scrubdown with any
ordinary cleaning product (when I don't just make my own).  Just try
not to inhale too many bleach fumes.  My boyfriend worked for the
rental office of our building at one point, and our bathroom now
compares favorably to every bathroom in the complex, save for the guy
that got permission to redo his bathroom himself (along with
everything else, and has the most astonishingly beautiful apartment,
but he's an architect, and I'm not).

Fondly,
Faintly McAbre, who likes brutal and possibly harmful but cheap and
effective cleaning supplies