Have you noticed on the labels of many cleaning products there is a telephone number to call poison control as well as what symptoms to look out for in case of an allergic reaction? You’re basically cleaning your home with a toxic substance. Actually, it’s not an allergic reaction. It’s a poisonous reaction. It’s ironic that cleaning your house can compromise your health, but many of the most popular cleaning products are responsible for calls to the poison control center.

Cleaning products are often made with toxic, corrosive substances that contribute to poor indoor air quality and merely breathing the fumes can cause red eyes, inflamed lungs, and a host of allergic reactions.

There’s a price to be paid for being able to just spray and wipe away grime. Products containing phosphates, petroleum, and chlorine affect the environment as well. They don’t disappear when we flush them down the drain. They go into the soil and water supply and cause strange things to happen–like fish having both sexes.

Many people who are sensitive to chemical decide to make their own cleaning products for their personal safety and well being. While there are gentler products available at the health food store, these products have to be manufactured and transported.

Many cleaning products don’t actually leave surfaces clean. They leave a residue behind that attracts dirt and thereby surfaces get dirtier faster. So what is the best cleaning agent? Most surfaces will come clean with just water. It’s just that we don’t give water, a natural solvent, time to clean.

If you saturate a dirty surface with water and leave it for a few minutes, it will come clean. Only the smallest bit of vinegar or Castille soap added to water will be needed to clean almost anything.

Save an old toothbrush and use it for scrubbing things like shower tiles and mix baking soda and Castille soap to form a creamy paste. This mix will clean anything in the bathroom.

The beauty of Castille soap is that it can replace all the soaps you have. You can use it to clean the floor, the dog, your hair, and body.

Many people think that natural products may be good for light cleaning, but what about things like the oven? There are natural recipes for every dirty job imaginable.

Stubborn Oven Cleaner

• ¼ cup ammonia
• ¼ cup baking soda
• ¼ cut white vinegar

Preheat the oven to its lowest setting. Once the light goes off, turn off the stove. Put ammonia in a bowl or pan and let it sit in the oven for 4-6 hours and remove. Mix the vinegar and baking soda to make a paste. Remove the ammonia and add vinegar and soda to make a paste. Use the paste and a heavy duty sponge to scrub most stubborn areas. Mist the oven with water and wipe clean.

How many cleansers do you have in your home? One of my pet peeves is the number of cleaning products that are marketed to people. Do you have a soap for the dishes, another for floors, shampoo for your hair, the dog, and on and on? I’ve narrowed down my soap collection to just Castile soap.

Castile soap is so versatile that you can use it to bathe a baby or clean the toilet. You don’t need every new cleaning product on the market. Not only are they environmentally unfriendly, but they don’t really clean any better than homemade recipes. Many people hesitate to use simple home-made cleansers because they feel it’s not really clean if you don’t use strong chemicals. In fact, the opposite is often true. Commercials cleansers often leave behind a residue for the dirt to cling to and the surface gets dirtier quicker.

Lately Americans have become obsessed with germs. It seems almost every new cleaning product contains germicides. Remember when hand sanitizers could only be found in hospitals? Did you know that only 10 percent of the cells in our body belong to us? The rest are germs. Mostly they’re in the digestive tract.

We need bacteria to help us break down food. Germs also make vitamin K. Without it our blood wouldn’t clot. Ever heard of pond scum? That’s the blue-green algae that makes oxygen. We need germs. Instead of trying to kill everything in our environment, we need to strike a healthy balance.

I’m sure you know at least one good use for vinegar and baking soda, but there are a many ways to use them in your home. Vinegar and baking soda, when used separately or together, can clean many of the items in your home just as well, if not better, than the cleaning products on the shelves of your local store. But what exactly can they be used for?

In the Kitchen

Replace chemical drain cleaners by putting the following ingredients into your drain: 1 cup table salt, 1 cup baking soda, and ½ cup plain white distilled vinegar. Let them sit for at least 15 minutes. Then, carefully pour two quarts of boiling water into the sink. Follow that with running water for at least one minute. Your sink should now flow freely, and no chemicals have entered the water supply.

Clean your microwave by boiling a mixture of one-fourth of a cup of vinegar and one cup of water. Boiling this solution will create steam in your microwave that will help loosen any stuck-on food. Just remove the food with a soft cloth or sponge.

In the Living Room

Is your carpet stale? Sprinkle baking soda straight from the box onto your carpeting. Leave it on the carpet for at least 15 minutes, and then vacuum it up. Your carpet will smell fresher, and you won’t be adding unneeded chemicals to indoor environment. If you’d like a light fragrance, mix a few drops of lavender essential oil into the baking soda, then use as described above.

Is that a stain on the carpet? Remove stains with a mixture of two tablespoons of salt dissolved in one-half cup of white distilled vinegar. Rub this mixture into the stain and let it dry. Vacuum the stain right up! Add two tablespoons of borax to the mixture if the stain is large or from a dark liquid.

What about the paneling? Does it look dull? Mix one pint of warm water, four tablespoons of vinegar, and two tablespoons of olive oil. This mixture, when applied to the paneling and left to soak into the wood, will clean your paneling. Polish the wood with a dry cloth to help revitalize it.

In the Bathroom

Never throw old toothbrushes away. They’re great for scrubbing around faucets, toilets, and baseboards. Dip an old toothbrush into undiluted distilled white vinegar. Now scrub away the dirt and stains from the grout between the tiles in your shower or around your sink.

If your shower stall and doors need to be cleaned, make a solution of one-half cup white vinegar, and one-fourth cup of baking soda added to one gallon of warm water. Wipe down the walls and door with this solution immediately after a shower. If course there are environmentally friendly commercial cleaning products available. It would be unrealistic to expect people to always make their own products, but the choice is there.