Is Your Bathroom a Truck Stop on Route 17?

Route 17 comprises over 400 miles of well traveled road that extends from Northern NJ through Western New York State to the Pennsylvania border.  Thousands of trucks travel the road every day bringing goods and services to the region.  A businessman or a family that travels frequently gets to know which rest rooms are "safe" which is code for, "they clean the place regularly." The soap and paper dispensers have been refilled and the place smells of bleach and other chemicals.  Whoever cleans has to be quick and efficient and little thought is given to the cleaning product that is used. Still you're grateful that the restroom is in decent shape considering that hundreds of people march through there every day.
I thought about this scenario a few years ago when I was cleaning my own bathroom.  Before I began I opened the front door of the house, the slider going out to the deck and the window in the bathroom.  Sequentially I sprayed a myriad of products around this 6 ft by 5 ft space-shower cleaner, bowl cleaner, sink cleaner and floor cleaner. Halfway though the process I ran out of the room to breathe some fresh air because I was starting to get dizzy.  My head was pounding and the chemical smells were making me woozy.  That's when it hit me; "Why am I cleaning this bathroom like it's a truck stop on Route 17?  Two responsible adults are the primary users of this bathroom.  No child with bad aim has used the room in the past week and I'm cleaning the place as if were a public loo off the highway."  That was it for me.  My cleaning epiphany.  Like the rest of America I had been duped into thinking I needed a product for every surface.  The TV commercials and print ads had gotten to me.  I thought I needed a separate cleaner for the tub and another for the bowl and another for the floor.  And the products needed to be really strong to get the job done. Each product must have anti bacterial properties to work effectively.  And the lovely smell that's infused in each product-I needed that too.  Yes, lemony fresh  was the way to go.  Until I got dizzy and felt a migraine coming on.  That's when I realized there's was a better way to clean.  A new idea called green cleaning was hitting the industrial market.  New York State worried about the rise of asthma and respiratory related illnesses among school age children was about to pass legislation demanding that traditional cleaning products be replaced with less toxic cleaners that cleaned as effectively as conventional cleaners.  Well if its good enough for the kids at PS 19 then its good enough for me.  Out went the 5 cleaners I used for one small bathroom and in came a lightly scented multi purpose cleaner that had been manufactured to the new green standards.  I could throw away the face mask and haz mat suit.  I no longer had to throw open all the windows even if it was 30 degrees outside. My green cleaner cleaned and shined as well as the other products I had been using.  So unless you're hosting a longshoreman's convention in your house and your boss buys only traditional cleaners, take a tip from me and get rid of all those caustic chemicals and find yourself a good green cleaner.