Ten housekeeping tips for Honduras
In a quick switch from corruption buster to ama de casa (housewife), here are few tips I've learned since moving to the tropics:
10. Stove extractor - Use it and use it often. Not only does it suction the hot air out of your kitchen, it limits the coating of manteca grease to about one square meter of your kitchen.
9. Dust - a) get used to it, b) budget a zillion dollars for air conditioning and seal up your house, or c) hire an empleada (housekeeper) − oh, never mind, just get used to it.
8. Laundry - Don't underestimate the value of a pila (concrete wash tub), the bigger the better. In addition to hand washing, they are good for baby and dog baths, washing large household items, storing water during a water outage, thawing turkeys, and a myriad of other things.7. Stocking a pantry - This is a tough one. You have to find a balance between stocking up for potential disasters like hurricanes, bridges going out, or a city-wide shortage of tea bags, and maintaining only what you can use over a few weeks because of the climate. Pasta molds. Unopened cookies and crackers get soggy. Even canned food doesn't last as long.
6. Framed pictures - Clean behind them frequently. You'll find spiders, spider webs, ticks, gecko poop, and all sorts of embarrassing nasties.
5. Clothes washer problems - The majority of your problems with your clothes washer will be clogged inlets or outlets from the unfiltered water. Check those first before calling a repairman. Other appliance problems - Electrical overages and brownouts will be the major cause of problems. Good luck finding repairmen or parts.
4. Spices - never buy spices with salt included. They will turn into a nasty looking brown clump of moisture. Many spices will mold, so keep your stash of spices in the freezer or use them within a few weeks.
3. Salt - A pinch of corn starch in the normal salt shaker will keep the salt free-running for a month or two. Rice in the salt shaker is effective for only a couple of weeks. Kosher salt doesn't get so wet and clumpy, but they don't sell it here in La Ceiba. Import it and keep some in an old fashioned sugar shaker.2. Flour, sugar, cornmeal, etc: A bay leaf or two in the canister will keep the bugs away. It's guaranteed, unless you brought the bugs or bug eggs home with you in the package from the store.
And La Gringa's best tip of all:
1. Window screens - It is important to keep window screens clean because dirty screens block the breeze. Difficult to remove window screens can be semi-cleaned by rubbing an old damp bath towel over the surface, but I've found the best thing yet.A swivel-headed floor duster with a damp, removable, washable terrycloth cover does an excellent job and helps you to reach the top of the screens without carrying a ladder around with you. Easy to use inside and outside when the handle is an adjustable length. Rinse the terrycloth cover frequently during use.
You'll thank me for this one.
Related article:
And now a word from our sponsers (Pumice stone for sinks and toilets)
Posts
12 comments:
Hi, speaking of your filthy toilet post. I read it and thought, excellent. I am sick of the dirty water line in my toilet, and my son isn't coming down for two more months. With all my shopping list items I hope.
So I was walking along the beach, looking for pebbles that might work. A friend of mine was what I was doing, and she said, "Oh those rocks are down at the end of the beach". so we walked down there, and sure enought there were little pumices between the bigger rocks. We collected some pocketfuls and my toilet is sparkling. Thanks alot. And I am glad the bag guys haven't found you yet. Good job!!!
"Hints from Heloise", the Gringa version.
We know the suffering that went into the acquisition of this knowledge.
I'm going to try the screen cleaning tip this weekend!
OK. La Gringa, where can I get the swivel-headed mop in LaCeiba? I have a friend there who comes over to the island periodically and will buy and bring stuff back with him if I can tell him where to get it. I could really use this to clean the ouside of my screens. The inside is another story as my windows are wooden louvered and I have to get my hand between the louvers and screens with a sponge to clean them - a time consuming, hateful job.
Guanaja Sharon
Gringa,
I'd like to recommend using the
Food Saver to make your food last
longer. You can get them anywhere in the States, Costco, Walmart, Target etc. You can use the canisters or the bags.
Also waxing the cans makes them last longer (keeps rust off)
http://www.endtimesreport.com/waxing_cans_and_boxes.html
Thanks for your great blog & yahoo group
I got a kick out of your household tips. Quite a twist on Good Housekeeping. They don't have a clue what a challenge tropical housekeeping presents.
Oh, yes the pumice stone works great.
I'm envious of your pretty pila. Mine's the ugly knuckle-scraping concrete kind.
You have a pretty pila. I need to figure something out about our screens too. I have a problem with the glass being dirty on the outside facing window that slides in front of the screen....I'm not describing this well, but there is glass that I cannot not get clean without taking the screen out. Pain in the a$$.
Our onion salt is fine, but the garlic salt and lemon pepper are clumps. We still use them, just break it up and throw it in.
Your list of hints makes me appreciate the work that we don't have to do, LaGringa - mainly because of airconditioning. I have had to keep flour products in the freezer and it's essential to use the exhaust fans.
But the builders here in Austin are seldom so forward-looking as to install a Pila! In Illinois most houses had concrete sinks for tasks like cleaning, washing and painting. I wish we had one now.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Thanks a bunch. I'll try those tips once I get to Puerto Rico. I'm sure they'll be useful.
My "filthy toilet" post...yeah, I have no pride at all, do I?
I'm glad you found some pumice and I'll bet you were amazed at how well it worked!
Tom, I'll be waiting to hear how it worked for you. As you can see from the photo, my mop thingy has a terry cloth cover which really gets in the little holes of the screens. I don't think a smooth cover would work.
It was a god-send for us, because removing our screens, washing them, and then reinstalling them was a two day job. On top of that, it was very difficult to adjust the springs on the rollers properly. Cleaning toilets was more fun than this!
Sharon, I wish I could tell you. Ace Femosa would be my best guess, but probably you would have to go to San Pedro or the U.S. to find one.
Those louvers sound like a nightmare to clean. I don't envy you!
Hernandez, Thanks for the tips. I keep a much smaller supply of canned goods than I use to, but still, I can't really see myself waxing the cans. I'm kind of lazy, ya know? I might check out the food saver though.
1st Mate, I designed the pila to fit the tiles and we just tiled over the outside. The painter's ruined the inside -- the bums!
If you were interested, I'll bet you could mosaic the outside if it isn't flat enough or the right shape for tiles. Check out this blog:
http://salamanderverde.blogspot.com/
I went back and checked comments on the toilet post and saw that you were one of the ones who was going to try the pumice stone. I'm so glad it worked for you!
Sprout, I know what you are talking about and the only way I know to clean the outside of that window is to remove the screen.
On those wet spices -- check for mold.
Annie, air conditioning makes such a huge difference. You wouldn't believe how quickly the floors get dirty....and the dust!
Pilas may be old fashioned but they sure come in handy for lots of things.
Minerva, I'm glad you liked the tips.
Pilas look like a great idea, but I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to get a fiberglass sink like those used in U.S. restaurants for mops? If they are available, that is. But it would be lighter and easier to install (less construction hassle). The ones I've seen are much larger than a regular sink, but probably not as big as a pila - still very useful though.
Also, your terry cloth mop looks like a great idea. I've just done screens by hand using an old towel that I've dampened. Lucky for me, the screens in my house are easy to remove. I will definitely get one of those mops though!
Back before we had mosquito control planes bombing us, we used to rub the screens with kerosene to keep the no-see-ums out. It worked, but smelled awful and the screens got dirty in no time. Air conditioning works much better in keeping the critters at bay and keeping the dust down!
I have the same humidity problems with spices, and have just resigned myself to never buying anything with salt in it and buying the smallest possible amount to avoid throwing out so much. Also, I try to grow as many herbs as I can so I can use fresh ones. I just wish I was a better gardner! In my own defense, it's a time issue - I never get around to watering until the weekend, and that is not really enough for some plants. I call it the Darwinian method of gardening!
Gail in Key Largo
Gecko, I don't know if the fiberglass sinks are available. I know when I was looking for kitchen sinks, only very shallow ones were available so I bought mine in the U.S.
The last couple of times we cleaned our screens we used a damp towel but the mop works so much better and you can reach to the top of the screen easily.
The spices that I can buy here, I keep in the cupboard but the ones I have to get in the U.S., I keep in the freezer since they would be so hard to replace.
The "Darwinian method" of gardening -- I can identify with that. I had a stand of thyme for about a year. It was wonderful but I need to try to get some started again.
I would love a pila how handy. We are using laundry buckets for now. Off to read a word from our sponsor.
Post a Comment
Go ahead! Don't be shy. Tell us what you think.