Craziest cleaning practices

[wowfudge]

Okay - so what crazy cleaning practices have you witnessed/heard about, or is there anything you do which is a bit odd maybe?

Many years ago when I was an exchange student spending a year in a European city, I shared a flat with a group of other exchange students from various countries. One of our flatmates clearly thought the place wasn't up to his (or his mamma's) exacting standards . He bought some alcohol from the chemist's and proceeded to pour it all round the inside of the bath. He then set fire to it with a match 'to burn the dirt off'! There was a plastic shower curtain hanging over the bath; I can't remember what the bath was made of.

I am so glad I was not in when this happened because I would quite possibly have lost it with him - we actually had a cleaning rota and everyone did their bit every week and the bath was not dirty.

Ha ha - an old flatmate of mine couldn't be bothered scrubbing a saucepan so filled it with washing up liquid and put it in the oven. He set it as hot as it would go and went out for the night. The smell was something else and the pan had to be chucked!

Setting fire to the bath to clean it?!?

Think I would have moved out. That is not normal behaviour.

Now you see ColdCottage, I'd been there a number of moths before the bath burner moved in and if anyone was moving out, it wasn't me. It was a gorgeous place with lots of original features such as mosaic tiled floors in every room and was in a fab location. We had words with him after the incident and a mutual friend intervened to set him straight on a couple of things. There was a never a problem after that. But he was odd.

I can't believe this only has 4 posts.

Many many years ago, when I was a student nurse, it was normal practice to pour alcohol onto stainless steel kidney dishes and set them alight to sterilise them prior to aseptic dressing changing etc.

A staff nurse I was with one day decided we would try the same technique on a whole trolley. The flames were shockingly huge and we made a hole in the ceiling!

Less pyromaniac than the above, but a colleague (who lives in a 1 bedroom flat) goes through a bottle of bleach every day.

Bumping because I would like to hear more of these!

A girl I was sharing dorms with couldn't be arsed to take her dirty crockery (bowls, plates, a saucean etc) downstairs and wash them. I watched her throw them all out of the window

We were 2 or 3 flights up.

Ludwig Wittgenstein used to throw used tealeaves on the floor to absorb dirt and then sweep them up when dry.

Now you see, Knackered, strictly speaking that's cleaning avoidance. Was she made of money?

My granny would flick her cigarette ash on the floor and rub it in with her slippers to absorb the dirt and kill fleas I loved her dearly and at the time didn't notice the dirt but looking back she wasn't the cleanest of ladies.

My school friends mam also used to rub fag ash into her carpet. She said it was good for carpet.

Tw

Two people putting fag ash on carpet - hmm I wonder if that was some old wives' tale at the time?

I used to work with somone who steamed their cutlery in the their steamer.

Ash did used to be used for cleaning carpets and rugs. It was rubbed in then beaten out and it took dirt with it.

Ash also used to be used in soap.

LadyIsabella I think used tealeaves was standard cleaning practice in the days before vacumn cleaners - I'm pretty sure Mrs Beeton recommends it. I think it helped to remove smells as well (the same way that you can remove the smell from a jar or container by leaving some black tea in it for an hour or two).

I once lived in a seriously skanky student house - as in we were fine but it was uncleanable, keep your shoes on inside.
The living area carpet was damp, stained, and appearedto have grease from a thousand takeaways soaked into it.
It was laid directly onto a concrete floor. So one night it occurred to us (intoxicating substances may have been consumed prior to this) that we could set fire to the carpet, burn the grease off, and the concrete would stop it going too far. The carpet was too icky and heavy to just throw away.

So flatmate lit a newspaper and started poking the carpet.

Rather fortunately, it didn't burn.

NotCitrus - so glad you admitted to being intoxicated before you tried this. My flatmate was stone cold sober when he set fire to the bath!