Friday Fail

I decided that I will reserve Friday's to tell you about my projects or ideas that have failed. I'm hoping this won't be every Friday!

But I have one for you this Friday ... a cleaning project that did not work so well. The shower in our master bedroom is completely tiled. When we moved in, it was beautiful. Three weeks later, it looked horrible. The grout had gotten completely dirty with mold and mildew. Part of the problem was that we were taking hot showers without turning on the fan and when done, we closed the door, keeping in all the moisture.

I tried lots of cleaning products in an attempt and get it to go away,  including a magic eraser, but nothing seemed to work perfectly. Of course, I did a little Google search and saw this article. I read the comments and noticed one woman who said that it would have worked great, but she couldn't get past the smell. I immediately coined her as a "wuss" and bought all my supplies, which included:

Shower Cleaner
Scrub Brush
White Vinegar
Paper Towels
Clorox Bleach

First, I cleaned the shower with the cleaner and scrub brush. That was the easy part. For the next part, I opened the window and turned on the fan, because what I had to do was soak the paper towels in the white vinegar and line the shower walls. 

Already, the smell was getting to me. I coughed quite a bit. But, I finished and left the paper towels to do their thing. You are supposed to leave them on a few hours, keeping them wet. Unfortunately, I ran out of vinegar, so I couldn't re-wet them. Also, I should mention that I did this on the same day we painted the dining room, so I probably did rush the process, which wasn't wise. 

After about two hours, I removed the paper towels (still coughing from the smell) and scrubbed. Nothing happened. Since I was without vinegar, I thought I should try a little of the next round, which includes soaking the paper towels in bleach. 

I think I was able to soak about 10 paper towels before the fumes overtook me. I had to get out of the bathroom and decided it was time to give up.

The lesson I learned through all of this was ... don't let your shower get dirty! Ha! Okay, I will say that the bathroom did look a little better after, and we have started turning on the fan and spraying the shower down with daily cleaner after every use, which has also helped. 

Have you found any tried and true cleaning tricks?