Decluttering Ninja & The Ammonia Incident

I’m completely obsessed with decluttering this year. I reorganized the bottom potion of the hall closet again and am getting rid of some decorative candle-related items that I haven’t used in years. I’m talking over a decade!!! Why I kept hanging onto it, I have no idea, but the more often I declutter, the better I get at letting things go. Along with other stuff, I now have three decent-sized boxes of donations plus a handful of items I want to try and sell. In the past month I’ve also decluttered under the master bathroom sink, all of our paperwork on a snow/ice day where the office was closed last month (and now have two bags of paper to shred), my nightstand, the pantry, the kitchen cabinets, the “junk” drawer, and under the kitchen sink.

That last one is where I ran into an issue. Wednesday evening I was rounding up all the chemical-based cleaners I no longer use (and had forgotten I even had) when I found a bottle of Ammonia. I decided I was going to bring it to work the next day to see if they wanted it, but apparently it had a small hole in the bottom. It kept getting wet, so I left it in the kitchen sink overnight. Thursday morning, I opened the bottle so I could place some saran-wrap inbetween the bottle and cap to seal it better, when, unbeknownst to me, the bottle starting leaking much quicker. I had placed the bottle on a paper towel and a minute later it was soaked. Me, being an idiot, sniffed it, and it burned so bad! At that point I decided to pour it down the sink, slowly, to keep the fumes to a minimum. Despite that, the house completely stunk and I was worried it would bother Wookie, so I ran around opening windows to air the place out. I ended up being a few minutes late to work because I didn’t want to leave until I was certain the fumes were gone. I ended up bringing a bottle of Windex, 409, and a few other things to work and there’s actually space under the sink now. I will NEVER buy ammonia again. That stuff is evil!

Oh, and apparently we had an unknown hard-on for hydrogen peroxide – I found two bottles under the master bathroom sink and two bottles under the kitchen sink, and there’s a bottle in the cabinet above the dryer. The funny thing is we barely use it so WTF is going on? I poured out the three really old (expired) bottles and kept two. I think that’s plenty. Plus it’s dirt cheap.

It’s funny how I’m more concerned about chemicals now that we have a dog. Apparently our own health wasn’t important? I am now on the hunt for pet-friendly floor cleaner I can either buy or make myself. I have been using vinegar and water which seems to work ok, but I don’t think it cleans the floor as well as say, Mr. Clean, but I read that is really toxic so I need a better solution (literally).