Sanity check

[venta]

Our bathroom has the whole wall by the bath tiled. Between the tiles is a peculiar form of coloured grout, which wants to grow unpleasant mould[*]. The only way to reason with it is bleach and a scrubbing brush.

I know from experience that it's very difficult to do this without getting covered in water, bleach up your sleeves etc. Therefore, getting undressed and getting into the shower to tackle the scrubbing is:

• Clearly a sensible course of action


• Clearly something else, involving the words "lunacy" and "risible"

You decide. There's a difference of opinion in our house over this :)

[*] I'm sure this shouldn't happen in non-student houses. I guess our house has realised we're all students at heart, and only pretending to be proper people.

Comments

[nevecat.livejournal.com]

Normally I'd agree with this as a method of shower-cleaning (in fact, would go so far as to say 'take a shower straight away afterwards - gets rid of any gunk & avoids getting covered in water twice :)...

...but, um, sensitive skin/body parts and neat bleach *winces* - doesn't bear thinking about!

Have you tried any of the anti mould/mildew products around? They may have useful stuff in them beyond just bleach (or they may just be expensive bleach - only real way to tell is to look at the active ingredients!)

[metame.livejournal.com]

I've found that a long handled mop-thing(NATT) [1] is a very useful item for separating me from the violent chemicals. Gets round the 'bleach running up the sleeves/arms' problem.


[1] NATT = not a technical term, which definition I guess means that NATT is a technical term.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Not really - a considerable portion of the tiles are above (my) head height, which means that the bleachy water just runs down the handle of the Long Handled Mop Thing then runs down your sleeve.

Use Stilts ?

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Or cunningly rearrange the household jobs so that it becomes someone elses problem ?

I personally dislike the idea of neat bleach on bare skin, so tend to go for the various mold and mildew options suggested by Caroline. (We too have this problem and it is over a decade since *I* was a student.) However, I do agree that bleach tends to work better/fast/etc. than the alternatives.

Stilts? With *my* sense of balance?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Despite coming from a family with a history that long of skin problems, sensitive skin etc, I seem to have completely bomb proof skin.

Well, it's certainly bleach proof, anyway :) The only time I ever bother with rubber gloves is if I'm dealing with something really evil like caustic soda.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

You could stand on the edge of the bath, so you get higher. This does mean that you are liable for comedy plummetage resulting in nasty injuries, so this might put you off. It's probably for that reason that it would be exactly what I would do.

[metame.livejournal.com]

There's surely some solution involving a super soaker we haven't fully explored yet...

A line from the Simpson's springs to mind: 'The goggles... they do nothing!'

Actually...

[ieyasu.livejournal.com]

...I'm just happy to know that someone else has a problem with mold in their grout. I use Ajax-style scouring powder, though, which has the advantage of not getting all over the place--or rather, not all over me. It seems to work.