cleaning hand-me-down bath toys

My nephew and niece are a few years older than my kiddo, and so we sometimes get hand-me-downs that my sister-in-law passes along to us. We also visit a kids' consignment store every so often. Between the two sources, we ended up with a nifty little collection of Fisher Price Little People and animals.

Back in the day, these were solid plastic, so if we played with them in the tub they didn't collect water inside. But the new ones (from the last 10+ years) are hollow, soft plastic. And as a local news report pointed out awhile back, hollow bath toys collect water inside, and grow bacteria and mold. Ew. Double ew.

So when I bring this kind of toy into the house, I give them a pretty good cleaning with the only thing I know will kill mold: Bleach. I dilute it in water according to the directions on the bottle, and I pour the solution in a plugged bathroom sink. It's best to do this during nap time when kiddos aren't around, and then keep the bathroom door closed and locked, anyway.

I squeeze as much air out as I can, then dunk and fill with the water. I shake, then soak.

The real problem is getting the bleach water out afterward. Squeezing releases most of it, but not all.

For this, you'll need an awl. You can find one in most hardware stores or in an art supply store (with the bookbinding supplies). It's basically a sharp spike with a handle.

Turn over each toy, and identify what would be the lowest point (where all the water would settle) were the toy upright. Poke a nice hole with the awl. Be careful of hands! In fact, don't follow my example in the photographs; work on a solid surface.

When you turn the toy upright again, give it a second for the water to drain to the awl hole, then squeeze gently to get all the water out.

Repeat the process with clean water to rinse all of the bleach solution out. Voila! Clean toys, ready for playing in the bath tub without spreading germs.

Because of the nature of the plastic, the holes disguise themselves so you won't even notice them . . . until it's time to clean the toys again!

Thanks for reading!

one item in, one thousand items out

A lot of people are surprised by how much I can fit into my little Toyota. I've used it to haul lumber (most recently, all of the trim boards for the outside of our recently-painted house); ten storage containers full of books and three folding tables for Wordstock in Portland two years in a row; a flat pack Tromso loft bed, Poang chair, Lycksele Havet chair, and mattress from Ikea (in a single trip); and, of course, stuff I need to get rid of (like the collapsed canopy, glass bottles, cardboard, and bags of trash you can see in this picture, taken at the recycling center).

One thing I can't fit into my little Toyota is a piano. A 106-year-old piano from the charity store three blocks away, hypothetically speaking. No, to carry a heavy wood and brass upright piano three slightly hilly blocks, you need a piano expert who talks a good game and shows up with a buddy, a piano lift, and beat-up Datsun pick-up truck. And maybe you'll overpay for the privilege, but on the other hand, you won't herniate anything. Not that I'm writing from experience or anything. (Photos to come soon.)

Of course, a piano is rather large, and if, like me, you're not necessarily a minimalist (ha!), you'll need to make space for a huge piece of furniture.

My house: I cut down a corner bookshelf into a shoe rack, moved another bookshelf into the kitchen, gutted my magazine collection, donated a bunch of this and that. There's a lot more to do, and a ton more to get rid of. A constant struggle 'round these parts. But I'm getting better. After all, I only brought one item in, and got rid of thousands.