More natural cleaners

One of the biggest pains about getting relicensed for foster/adoption is some of the standards...
I can do the invasion of my home with social workers coming to check out whether I have fire extinguishers and safety caps on all my outlets, checking on my trash can to make sure it has a lid, and wanting a fire escape route hanging on my walls (how DO you make that attractive?).

But the biggest pain to me is that all medicine, even the headache ones that I HAVE to have on a regular basis, my herbal remedies and itch creams have to be locked up in a box.  And that all my cleaners must be either locked up or out of reach of a child.

Even though the kiddos I'm adopting right now are 15 years old and 6 years old, sitting the Ajax on top of the fridge really wasn't safe enough, the caseworker told me.  I laughingly said if the girls were so determined at the age they are to harm themselves by climbing on top of the fridge to eat Ajax, then they might be beyond my ability to help them!

But I really, really want them to stay...

So I am after finding natural ways to replace even my Ajax, which is about the ONLY unnatural cleaner I buy.  I use essential oils and vinegar for just about everything!  And I don't want to have to find a key or climb on a chair every time I want to scrub out the sink.

So with one of my last visits to the Dollar General, I bought several boxes of baking soda.  Do you know they keep that in the cleaning supply isle now?
Then last night, I poured it into a glass jar, and added Tea Tree Oil and Lavender Oil, and shook it up.  This morning, I tried it on the bathtub before I took a bath.  It worked pretty well to clean the tub, but I think I will add some salt to it to give it just a bit more grit.

I found a wonderful cleaner on Pinterest: warm up vinegar and mix it half and half with Dawn dish washing detergent.  I was floored by how well that truly cleaned.  But guess what - dish washing soap is toxic, so CPS isn't going to go for that sitting around under the sink.   Once I run out of what I have already mixed up, I'm going to heat the vinegar and add a soap nut to each bottle, and see if it works just as well.  I think the kids could eat the soap nuts and be okay, although I am sure they will much prefer the all natural Popsicles in the freezer, right under the Ajax sitting on top.  They aren't crazy, you know!!