I’m sure you have seen the plethora of magic cleaning tips on Pinterest. They are almost as popular as desserts and miracle workouts. I am a naturally skeptical person so I’ve never paid much attention to them. Then one day, I was sick of struggling with my stove. The stove top and the drip pans were just not getting clean no matter what I did. So, I decided to give some pinterest remedies a try and thought I would report the results to you.

Problem: Baked on nasty on the stove top.
Proposed Solution: Lay ammonia soaked paper towels all around the burner holes and let soak 3 hours. Cover the stove with plastic wrap to act as a smell barrier.
Results: I was pretty happy with the results. You want the paper towels to be nice and saturated, mine should have had some more ammonia on them. I have scratched the stove top in the past trying to get it clean, so those scratches are still visable.  I will definitely use this method in the future.




Problem: Dirty drip pans
Proposed Solution: Let the drip pan soak in a ziploc bag with 1/4 cup ammonia for 12-24 hours. The grease and muck should wipe right off.
Results: My results were a little mixed on this one. A lot of the muck did come right off. However, the finish on my drip pans were all messed up from previous attempts to clean with harsh chemicals. My drip pans were not returned to sparkling new condition but they are so much better. I will be doing this method in the future for sure.

Problem: Baked on grease on the stove hood.
Proposed solution: Wipe the stuck on grease with cooking oil. The oil will remove the grease. Finish up by cleaning with some warm soapy water or a mild cleaner.
Results: This worked wonders! The hood on my stove hasn’t been cleaned in ages. I was too embarrassed for a before picture, but I really wish I had taken one. It was bad. The cooking oil took that grease off with minimal elbow grease. It was one of the ‘kookier’ cleaning methods in my opinion, but it was awesome.

Problem: Hard water stains on the faucet.
Proposed solution: Wrap vinegar soaked paper towels around the faucet and let soak for 30 – 60 minutes.
Results: This one was AMAZING. I ohhh’d and ahhhh’d over the results. We have really hard water in AZ and all that gunk wiped right off.

Here’s another hard water and vinegar example. Our water dispenser on the fridge is like a mega jet of water and we get water shooting all over the place. I could never get the bottom cleaned well enough so we usually get leave a towel sitting there to catch drips. I can throw that towel away now. The vinegar soak wiped that stuff right off. My 10 year old fridge looks like new.

Have you tried any cleaning remedies you found on the Internet? How did they work for you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. If you have a cleaning method you want me to test out, let me know!