Dirty Talk

Candle wax in the carpet comes out easily with an iron and some blotting paper. Just pop the paper on top and let the iron’s heat melt the wax into the carpet. Be careful not to scorch the carpet…

If you’ve got a partial blockage in your bath drain, try filling the bath to the top with water and leave. The weight of the water sometimes clears the blockage. Don’t try with a completely blocked pipe as you could find yourself wading in lots of water trying to fix it.

If you’ve been putting off de-frosting the fridge for a while, don’t! It’s not nearly as efficient and bad for the environment. I always put it off as it was never empty enough, and I didn’t want to chuck away a load of good food. Then I invested in a cool bag and a couple of ice packs that live in the fridge. Now I can dump all the food in the cool bag with the ice packs, get my defrost done in two hours and everything’s still fine to put back in!

With burnt-on gunk on the cooker, you don’t always have to soak. Using a plastic or wooden spoon, so you don’t scrape the surface, you can usually dislodge a good portion of the filth before you get to the rather messy soaking stage. This doesn’t apply to non stick surfaces, which should be treated with care to keep them non-sticky!

Always use a damp cloth when dusting, it will pick up and hold loads more dust.