Living can really take its toll on your home. Even if your home is brand new, eventually something is bound to break, crack, or what have you. Owning a home is pretty costly, so you don’t want to have to drop a ton of money on repairs.
But you won’t have to if you know a few good tricks. There are plenty of inexpensive ways to find solutions to common household problems.
Here are 10 genius solutions to common household problems:
1) Gross Garbage Cans
The bottom of your garbage can get pretty gross with mold and or slime. The best way to prevent this is by placing some newspaper at the bottom of your trash bin before you put the trash bag inside. The newspaper will catch and leaks that occur and will keep your can clean. Just toss out the newspaper and replace every time you change your garbage bag.
2) Quickly Chill Warm Drinks
Need those beers you just picked up from the grocery store to be icy cold A.S.A.P.? Wrap a wet paper towel around the bottle and toss them in the freezer for about 15 minutes. They will be super cold when you take them out.
3) Stuck Window
If you have a stubborn window that won’t open or close, you can spray silicone spray on it so that your window will have a lasting slippery coating on its window tracks. You can also rub a paraffin or beeswax candle on the track so that it leaves a slick trail that will help your window to slide.
4) Refrigerator Fix
If your refrigerator just stops working out of nowhere, the culprit could be your pets. Pet hair can get caught in the coils (the black tube and wire grid that cools the fluid in the compressor) of your of your refrigerator and cause it to overheat which will trigger the overload switch and turns your refrigerator off. Use a coil cleaning brush, then vacuum that hair up to get your refrigerator working again.
5) Remove Stainless Steel Rust
Rust happens but is it possible to remove it from your stainless steel appliances. Mix some vinegar and baking soda until it becomes a paste and spread it over your rust. Let the paste sit for about 5 to 10 minutes before you scrub it off with water and a scrub pad. You may have to repeat the process or leave the paste on a little bit longer until the rust is fully removed.
6) Tarnished Copper
Restore tarnished copper by mixing lemon juice and rock salt and using it to scrub your copper clean. The acid from the lemon will eat up the oxidation and the salt will scrub the gunk away.
7) Toilet Flush Problems
There could be a few different reasons that your toilet isn’t working correctly. If your tank isn’t fully draining, your lift chain could be too loose. If it’s leaking the chain could be too tight.If the flush arm is broken, take the tank lid off and unhook the lift chain. Use a crescent wrench to remove the nut inside the tank that holds the handle in place. Replace the new handle by following the directions on the packaging of the new flush handle or popping it in and screwing it with the crescent wrench.
8) Fix Your Hardwood Floors
Use some stain markers that match the coloring of your wood to hide scratches on your hardwood floors. Use some paste wax on the large gouges. Some acrylic wood filler is also an option for those larger gouges.
9) Food Not Heating All the Way Through
Sometimes when you microwave food, the outside can get super hot while the inside stays super cold. To prevent this, just leave a hole in the middle of your food so that it looks like a doughnut. This will ensure that your food heats evenly.
10) Messy Medicine Cabinet
If your tiny items are constantly falling out of or getting lost in your medicine cabinet you can place a magnetic strip on the back of the cabinet so you can easily find things like tweezers, nail clippers, and scissors.
