++ Clean silverware by laying alumninum foil in your sink, filling it with warm water then put in some baking soda and salt (or laundry detergent instead of salt? I dont recall). Submerse the silver in the water and have it touch the foil. Just a few seconds or minutes and the silver will be restored.

++ If you have dings or dents in expensive wood, dabble the spot with water, take a rag, and iron over the spot with the rag as a buffer. The steam will expand the wood and fill up the ding.

++ Use chopsticks when you're eating cheese doodles, and your keyboard won't be sticky and yukky.

++ Fill your wet shoes with newspaper.

++ If you don't have a dishwasher, do yourself a favor and rinse the dishes before you leave them in the sink.

++ You can throw clothes in the dryer for about 5 minutes or so to get wrinkles out.

++ If you ever spill red wine on light carpet, shaving cream will get the stain out pretty well.

++ The best way to get out red wine from carpet is to pour white wine on the spill.

++ Taco Bell hot sauce is very good at cleaning pennies.

++ Drinking coffee or tea at a restaurant, and there's a bit of liquid in the saucer under your cup that keeps dripping when you drink? Tear off a bit of napkin and put it in the saucer -- instant drip-proofing.

++ Put the smelly shoes in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer overnight. The smell is caused by bacteria, which will die when deep frozen.

++ Lemons can be used for a lot of things. Make shoes look like new, get rid of coffee/tea stains on old mugs, rust (put a lemon drenched cotton ball on the rust spot overnight), polish copperware, etc.

++ Rubber Dish Gloves get cat hair off of furniture very well.

++ To get candle wax off carpet, use newspaper and a warm iron once you've chipped off what you can. Put the newspaper down and run the iron over it - the wax gets absorbed into the paper. You need patience, but it does work.

++ Want to keep your car smelling fresh without having to buy those stupid pine tree air freshners that smell like crap? Take a dryer sheet and place it under your seat. April freshness!

++ Super cleaning, sticker removal, stain removal and more! -- Lighter Fluid, the kind you put in your zippo. Its a great solvent, it cleans plastics, melts the glue on stickers and always evaporates away to nothing. It's good at getting tar and oil out of clothes, and its a great degreaser for mechanical stuff. Its also cheap. Brilliant for taking the price tags off gifts, even book covers.

++ If you have a stone countertop with a stain in it, make a paste using bleach and flour. Smear the paste on top of the stain, and then cover it with saran wrap and tape down the edges. Let it sit overnight, and in the morning you should be able to wipe the paste off, which should have absorbed the stain. If it is really bad, you may need to do it a couple of times. If you own a pool, Diametrecious Earth (the white powder stuff you use for the filters) works a lot better than flour.

++ If you feel the need to spit into the sink, run a little water in it the instant before you expectorate. It will all go right down.

++ In an emergency, saliva is a pretty awesome cleaning agent. Good for things like blood in clothes.

++ If you smoke in your car, put one of those silicone absorber packets underneath the ashtray. It will make a big difference in the smell in your car.

++ If you use a kettle to boil water you know it collects a white scum in the interior. Boil some vinegar and it dissolved instantly.

++ If you have a pot or pan with crap stuck to the bottom, put water in the pot and put it on the stove on high heat for a while. If that doesn't work add a splash of alcohol. Then try vinegar. You've pretty much covered all of your bases for solubility, so you can be pretty sure that whatever was down there will dissolve.

++ Vinegar makes for a good Windex substitute. Vinegar will also clean hard water residue much better than commercial cleaners, but for truly streak-free windows, use newspaper instead of towels.

++ If you ever get blueberry juice on anything, immediately pour boiling water over the stain. Don't put anything else on it first, or it'll set permanently. Boiling water, mind. This works like a charm.

++ Bloodstains, I find, come out best if you pour ice cold water through the fabric. Like the berry stains, don't get anything else on it until you can get the ice cold water, or that stain is set.

++ Guitarists: Rub the tips of your fingers on your fretting hand on the sides of your nose, natural grease will get you moving a little faster. Just be sure to clean your strings often.

++ If you have a long-haired pet, don't use finely-toothed combs or brushes to groom it; they pull and tangle fur. Get an English rake (check Google) instead.

++ Also, when packing lunches in plasticware, it can help your clean up later if you line your tupperware with a tortilla before you dump in the spaghetti or the cheese doodle casserole. Most of the time, what you pack for lunch won't be ruined by the addtion of a tortilla, and it will reduce how much dried cheese or tomato stains you will have to clean out of the container later.

++ If you go fishing, or handle sardines or whatever, and want to get that fishy smell off, you will find washing with soap does not get rid of it, even after several tries. Put abunch of toothpaste in your hand and rub it in good, the antiodor ingredients will remove the stink in 1 wash.

++ Pert Plus will clean the grimiest of bathtubs. Squirt product on affected surface, allow to streak downward and apply moderate scrubbing vigor.

++ Toothpaste will take scratches out of CDs. Buff from the centre outward with a clean, soft cloth or sock. Only regular toothpaste, not the gelly kind.

++ Axe Deoderant is a good cleaning agent. When using a plunger to unstop your pipes, the secret to quickly getting the job done is to put your force on the pull rather than the push. Push in slowly, then pull out quickly and with some force. Also, make sure there is a good amount of liquid around the drain you're plunging. This will assist with the suction. If plunging a double-sink, have someone hold a stopper in the other side. When plunging a bathtub, tape some cling-film around the overflow (usually where the shower/spigot selector is).

++ If you get yellow arm pit stains on your clothes dilute some asprin into water and soak the shirt over night.


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