You have a great weekend too. Time to clean out those bottles of wine.

Did you clean out the commenters?

psychomom you make me laugh every day, I just love you for it! You have a great weekend too :)

Oh yes, the tumbleweeds of cat or dog hair on hardwood floors. I am aware of the phenomenon. The only thing to do is vacuum a lot, which you apparently like to do (you might want to get that checked out, I'm not sure it's normal). Or use your Swiffer frequently.
VERY IMPORTANT. Occasionally Swiffer/vacuum under the couch. Once I left that for....say six months. I found enough dog hair to make a third dog for my house. And I don't want a third dog.

Tumbleweeds of cat hair in the corners now that you have wood floors? A resounding yes.

A good hardwood floor cleaner (I know you didn't ask but I thought I'd share anyway)? I keep a spray bottle of water with a little Murphy's oil soap. Great for cleaning up cat puke/hairballs. I also keep a bottle of water with vinegar and a few drops of essential oil (grapefruit has been my latest oil) for the kitchen counters, floors, etc.

Yay to green cleaning!

Sadly, i have carpet so the cat tumbleweeds are not an issue here. Instead i get the gross splotches of discolouration that turn out to be - CAT HAIR. Friends with wooden floors and the aforementioned felines do, however, mention the tumbleweed problem on occasion. You are not alone! i do think you should hire an investigator to check on those wild animal parties . . . that would make for some fun posting pictures!

Re: Cat Blankie Washing--I wash Fred's hand knit blankie about every 2 weeks (it has to be washed by itself since there's enough fur in the lint trap to make another cat!), and use a lint brush in between for large fur tumbleweeds. Some cats will let you know when their bed is no longer enticing to them by avoiding it like the plague.

Cat Tumbleweeds occur naturally with wood/ceramic/tile floors. At our house we have dog tumbleweeds. Its' normal since the carpet isn't holding all that hair down any more. My policy for the tumbleweeds is to drink more wine and ignore them for two weeks at a teim, unless company's comin'.

Blankies for dogs and cats are washed (and bleached) at my house once a week. Dogs don't seem to mind hairy blankies and once again, wine helps me ignore them too.

You are inspiring me to get mo' green, myself! You go, girl!

Beth

Laurie -- I myself love getting cleaning tips, yesterday seeing all those shout-outs for Ecover toilet cleaner made me so happy (I'm thinking if my borax and lemon concoction doesn't work you know what I'll be buying!!) So thank you for the Murphy's oil soap recommendation!

I think those things are inspiring and give me lots of ideas and I actually wrote down several of the tips from yesterday's comment to try out this weekend!

Ah, the dustballs of doom. After living in a house with mostly wooden floors and 2-3 dogs, I can explain the dustballs. Basically without carpet, the fur has nothing to stick to. With carpets, it would seal itself to the floor in a lovely patina de fur, but without the carpets, the fur now wanders the floors lonely looking for company, and when they find a friend, they glom together. Eventually they want some privacy for their little orgy of fur, and head to the corners for a chance to multiply.

Good luck.

I think your tumbleweeds of cat fur are normal on wood floors...it used to get stuck/dispersed in the carpet. Now it all sticks together and haunts your corners...let me tell you with 2 cats, a dog, and wood/concrete floors, I bet my cat/dog hair tumbleweeds could take yours any day of the week!

wow!!

I'm like #4!!!

I so wish I could come see you in Peoria IL...I would probably hug you and cry if I was there.I'm just soo dang proud of you for plowing forward into this awesome New Millennium Woman!!!! I have been working at home for over a month now and have been listening to several self-Development tapes and I think you are making some very good decisions and keeping a sane attitude about it!!
Very inspiring!!
If you ever come to Chicago I'm coming to meet you!So there!

I have six dogs and hardwood floors. We generate enough corner tumbleweeds to build a whole new dog on a weekly basis! At least they collect in the corners, rather than just causing a fur tornado when you turn on the ceiling fan or open the windows.

Ok, thanks for the tumbleweed reassurance. I will take Beth's advice and drink more wine ;)

Agreeing loudly about the cat and do hair tumbleweeds on hardwood. My house is plagues with them, but I try to remember that it would still be there if we had carpet but I would be ignoring it until it felted right into a new layer on the rug.

And thanks for saying that taking little steps is a good thing. None of us want to turn Mother Earth into a trash heap, but getting it all right at once while still feeding my child and the furbabies and working is just not going to happen. So if all I get around to this fall is eliminating plastic grocery bags (my goal) yahoo for me, and I'll fix some more stuff when I can.

I may add eliminating "Horrible butt creeping panties of doom" to the list.

We loves us some tumbleweeds. One minute of herding them with a broom vs. dragging out the vacuum and actually doing some work. Leaves more time for the wine.

Off the pet hair topic . . .
i know i'm not the first . . . and won't be the last. But i'm a recently crushed by divorce chica, and i wanted to say thanks for sharing as you move along. It's reassuring to see someone a few steps ahead who has worked through all the things i'm feeling and experiencing . . . and is honest about it all . . and is MAKING IT. Love you. Mean it. ;-)

I have two golden retrievers, a shorthaired cat and wood floors, and yes those pet hair tumbleweeds are normal. I use the furminator and a dyson but still have those pesky tumbleweeds. I opened the front door yesterday to let the cat out and the wind blew several large tumbleweeds out from under the couch. AND I had just cleaned under there a couple of days before! Wood is beautiful but carpet hides a multitude of pet hairs.

Multiple cats + hardwood floors = demon dustbunnies from hell. Trying to keep up with the hair is a sisyphean task, let me tell you! We try to swiffer every couple of days (or I send the husbeast out with the vacuum cleaner on special occasions) to beat it back to non-scary proportions, but there are days we seriously contemplate huge area rugs just to give that hair something to stick to.

And you don't even want to look under the bed. I think one of Sigfried and Roy's white tigers is livin' under there....

The only real solution for the tumbleweeds is swiffering. But if I ever figure out how to get the dogs to wear nylon windbreakers and run through the place attracting their own hair with static electricity, I will let you know.

Good morning, Auntie.

I do cat laundry once or twice a month. However, I brush her bed covers almost daily. She's a long hair, so it's that or drown.

Kitty hair tumbleweeds are normal if you have wood floors. Try not to let it make you crazy. It's part of not having wall to wall.

Happy Weekend!

I can't believe you get mean comments. I don't usually read comments anywhere, but your posts are so cheery I didn't think that the comments would be anything but. BTW, thanks so much for turning me onto Kim and Aggie. I love them!

I miss the days of dog hair tumbleweeds. My new apartment has carpet and as Kathy says above the dog hair just felts into a new layer on the rug. Oh, and we called them Fur Rhinos. Kind of like Dust Bunnies but bigger and scarier - especially from under the bed or behind the microwave stand!

I wash the pillowcase my cats sleep on once a week, and the pillow gets vacuumed once a week. We're all happier that way. I would suspect that there is no more fur than usual, but it is floating free now on the hardwoods.

My house is almost completely hardwood floors (except for the bedrooms) and the tumbleweeds are definitely an issue. The best solution I've found is to go directly to the source---get a soft, fine bristled brush and brush the cats daily. My cat actually enjoys this very much and practically brushes herself. I just hold out the brush and she rubs herself all over it, purring the whole time. That's her special brand of crazy; your cats may require you to actually employ a brushing motion. Anyway, the first couple of days you'll get LOTS of hair off with the brush and after that you'll get less and less each day. If you snatch the loose hairs off the cats before they have a chance to strike out on their own in search of a friend so they can "glom together and multiply" (thanks Lynda), the tumbleweed problem should decrease significantly. It'll also let you go longer between cat-blanket-washings.

My cats sleep on a blanket that I finally moved to the floor so I would quit trying to use it (they'd steal it on the sofa). I wash it once every week (usually when I'm getting ready to Dyson the floors). They scream, they hate me, and then they think I ruined it when I bring it back de-furred and smelling decidedly not like them.

As for the tumbleweeds....God yes. We have ceramic tile in the kitchen/dining room right off the living room and we get tumbleweeds all the time. Granted, we also get them in the bathroom from me and my long hair. Dyson works great to track those little things down. I love that John already had a Dyson when I moved in! But then again, he loves his cats and also loves to vacuum and have clean floors.

Ummm... Laurie... I really really do get the whole 'don't have a go at the way I'm changing things' thing, but "You are what you eat"? Ummm... great fun, but please don't take her diet advice too seriously - she's been seriously debunked over here in the UK (and has now been banned from describing herself as a Doctor - although her products are still all over the place, and she still gets plenty of tv coverage). Most of it is fine - get more exercise and eat more fruit and veg - but some of her ideas about food intolerance are distinctly more suspect.

Um...you wash the blanket in your cats basket?

*is embarrassed to admit she has never washed her cat's basket blanket*

Actually, I washed it once. And she wouldn't go back in there for weeks. She was angered and offended that I would dare remove her carefully laid foundation of fur and dander. Her basket is in a remote corner of our bedroom, so I just leave it be and only wash it if she pukes in there or something...Yeah, I'm probably gross. But to be fair, I wash my baby's blankets weekly!

Concerning the cat hair tumbleweeds: my mom has a non carpeted kitchen and two dogs. at one point, she also had Ralph, the giant hairball that kept accumulating in the one corner. the hairball did not exist in the carpeted rooms, so one can only assume that the hair wanders around on the non-carpeted surfaces and congregates with its own kind, you know birds of a feather flock together kind of thing. So yeah, it's normal, just easier to find and clean up.

I recently found a cat hair tumbleweed in a candle, down in the part where it burns. Is that a sign I need to clean?

I see you've been reassured as to the normalcy of the fur tumbleweeds--I get them too. I used to use the Swiffer disposable thingies, now I use the microfiber cloths from the automotive section on my Swiffer mop instead. The ones from automotive aren't as pretty as the ones in the kitchen section, but they're bigger and a whole lot cheaper, and I don't care as much if they get stained or anything.

So, what, you don't want your shiny gold Blogstar? You know, we could have given it to Franklin, but then you went and blew us away with your wonderful writing yet again ...

Why yes, I was raised Catholic. Why do you ask?

Hmm, interesting...yesterday was massive cleaning day at mi casa. Maybe its a SoCal thing, its finally not 800 billion degrees & humid! Unfortunately I used the bad stuff. The kid found my stash of vinegar & baking soda & made "volcanos" in my vases. "but its for science!" Ahem.
I too love to vacuum, which is good cuz this summer has been a shed-a-thon between the dog, the cat & the kid. We had 4 indoor cats growing up. My Momsie cut strips of mesh onion bag stuff & tied it to the inside of the vent cover on the bottom of the fridge, & that would catch most of the fur. Then to clean it, just pop off the vent cover & vacuum that. Fridge will work less hard (read: save electricity)in the heat if it has good ventilation. This PSA brought to you by cold wine & ice for margaritas. Birks are comfy. That is all I have to say about that.

I have so much I want to say today, I will have to enumerate to keep it all straight:

1. First, I get incredibly cranky when I see someone has written a post that is critical of you - they are so missing the POINT. We should be here supporting you and each other in all the baby steps of improvement that we take. I know that you already know this but those who criticize are trying to deflect their own self loathing and/or issues onto you. Loathing might be too strong, but it is their issue, NOT YOURS. (to borrow a phrase from someone yesterday...descends from lectern...)

2. On a happier note, I am afraid that I am a complete nerd because it completely made my day to be mentioned in your column, even though you were just answering a question I had. Whoo hoo.

3. Thank you for the borax info - I will hitch up the 20 mule team this weekend and give her a go. Giddy up!

4. Wood/cat hair balls - oh yes in spades, but look on the bright side - it is so much easier to get the hair up off of wood versus carpet. I use a small brushless Shark vac on my wood floors, and it is strangely satisfying to see the little fur bundles go zipping away, up into the vacuum (see aforementioned concern about nerdism).

5. For what it's worth, flylady.net has a duster that works really well - it seems to pick up the dust, not just move it around - it has really simplified my dusting process.

6. Lastly (have I used all your comment space yet??) - I have taken to using old bath towels in the cat baskets - the hair comes off of them easier than any blankets I have tried. I put some cushy foam down first, then a couple of towels. The boys seem to like it and the towels are easy to wash - I try for once a week.

Whew! Download complete. Have a fantastic weekend...sorry I commented your ear off!

oh tumbleweeds! We have 2 dogs and wage a constant battle with t-weeds. My 2 yo son learned about tumbleweeds on an episode of Dora one day and the next day a formerly-known-as "dust doggy" rolled by and he said 'Tumbleweed, Mama!'. While I thought it was hysterical my mother was less than impressed when I related the story via phone. Perhaps we should have some sort of contest that involves no sweeping/swiffing/etc of any kind for a week then comparing tumbleweed sizes.
PS: I'm a big Method products fan and love that more people are going green in whatever way they can.
PPS: Al Gore is a hottie! ;>

I am a giant lurker, but the question about cat hair... yes, that is normal. I have large tumbleweeds of cat hair all along the edge of my very long front hall and under all my kitchen cupboards.

The solution is: your ever-loving vaccuum of joy. I have more cathair in upright than my cats have on their bodies.

Cat hair tumble weeds?

Totally normal. Back when I had one cat, one husband and zero kids and hardwood floors, I'd comment about the "exploded cat" behind the rocking chair about once a week.

The air currents swirl it around in little eddies like autumn leaves and it gathers in the corners behind the furniture.

And because it's not getting caught on the carpet it just keeps piling up and up and up until it looks like you are trying to collect enough hair to knit a new kitty.

Thank god for vacuums is all I'm saying.

Also, this will be why you'll never go back to carpets when you realize you had all that same cat hair invisibly covering the carpet all the time. Much easier faux cat removal this way, IMHO.

I also have the tumbleweeds. Mine is a nice mix of my own hair and my cat's. My husband just loves it.

Another thing we have in common, I also hate washing dishes. I was so depressed when we moved into our house. It is too small and old for a dishwasher. I have to wash everything by hand. The only thing that gets be through it is some rather expensive green dishsoap by Caldrea. It smells wonderful and isn't tested on animals. I think drugstore.com has the dishsoap cheaper than the Caldrea site. Like I said, it's expensive but it's a little bit of relaxing aromatherapy while you wash the dishes.

Ahh now that you have ripped out your horrible carpet (great work BTW) you are being introduced to the age old formula:
Cats + Harwood Floors= CatHairTumbleweeds.

Enjoy them, so much easier to bear then that carpet!

this is like - my 2nd time posting, ever. (red wine, or just can't spell Gewürztraminer?)but i had to speak upon kitty blankets. once a mo. at best. if i clean it too often kitty gets in a *frenzy*! she'll scratch at her (of course) knitted blanket till she feels it no longer smells of clean laundry. in between, i just take a damp (knitted) towel and wipe off the fur bunnies. as for the bunnies across the apartment - i've always wondered - if i just collect enough, do you think i could knit a sweater?

looking forward to seeing you at moa (mall of america). i suggested it the very day you posted kim's email, but i never heard back. now i'm hopping up and down, like kitty on a clean blanket!

Re: The basket question.

The answer is that, assuming I had such a blanket (which I don't), I wouldn't wash it unless it got REALLY gross. And by really gross, I mean pooped in, or muddy, or something. As long as the only 'dirt' on it was a little dirt and some cat hair, no washy.

Cats tend to be comforted by things that smell like them. (This is probably why those face hormone things work, BTW) A blanket will, in time, absorb those comforting smells and what we'd consider rank would, to a cat, be soothing.

(I'm also pretty much the polar opposite of a germophobe, so the dust mites or whatever crawling in the blanket wouldn't bother me, as long a they weren't fleas. I assume that cats are walking around in their own poop in the litterbox, and there's not a hell of a lot that's worse than that. They can handle an unwashed blanket.)

I don't think they make Sun-In any more, but you can always use... (wait, wait for it)... lemon juice!

Just don't try rubbing your hair with a poison tree frog.

Regarding cat blankets (and aren't all blankets cat blankets?), the mantra in our house is "Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be washable or believe to be impervious."

Megs -- thank you :) Hang in there. It gets better, which I myself did not believe when I was puddled in a corner with a pound of cheetos but it does indeed.

Sam -- Usually when I get comments where someone is taking my inventory, so to speak, I just try to keep my mouth shut and assume they meant to say something helpful. I have learned that it's just a part of letting people comment on something like a diary. Plus people are almost always awesome and I learn so much from ya'll! I'm re-thinking my borax toilet cleaning strategy and may go straight to the ecover toilet cleaner since so many raved about it!!

But on this one comment I thought it was important to address it directly because my goal is to let go of the idea that perfection exists and just do the best I can in small ways. I think a lot of women are like me and get exhausted by trying to live up to any idea of "perfect" and frankly, perfect doesn't exist!

I'm trying to remind myself that doing your best really is good enough. Just do the best with what you have at this time and that is really going to be just fine.

So I wanted to address it in case all my talk about cleaning had made someone else feel less-than, as well. I'm not perfect (I believe we all know that, see "pound of cheetos") but I am trying to make small improvements and let go of the idea I'll ever get it all right.

Re: kitty bed washing. My cats may be odd, but they seem to prefer a thick layer of fur on their blankets and avoid them when clean. I wash when the layer of fur grosses me out. (At least it's matted down and not floating!) Conversely, they love clean sheets and blankets on the human bed. Those, I wash MUCH more often!

I have multiple longer hair cats and a beagle with 50/50 carpet and tile. The California Department of Fish & Game has designated my home as a Wild Dust Bunny Refuge.

I have hardwood floors and a gigantic long-haired cat, and yes, those pesky tumbleweeds will be all over the place. I am not a clean-freak, and will find any reason I can to NOT have to do any kind of housework, I've found that when I open my front and back door at the same time, it creates a wind tunnel and those tumbleweeds roll right out the back door.

I think many of us worry that we are not fixing all our wrongs, and instead, we should be happy to change whatever we change. It is sortof like a diet. If you give up everything but raw carrots, you are going to fall off the diet pretty darn soon. But if you trade out one cupcake for carrot sticks this week, and then make another change next week, it might stick. I too detest washing dishes, and I never use paper napkins, just cloth ones or even small towels, but I do use paper plates. I know they are not good. But I probably don't use a whole roll of paper towels in a year, so it is a trade off I can live with!

I'm in Failed Housekeeper Jail as we speak. DH and sons are slobs and I can't keep up with the housework, work full-time, and crochet, too! We have an indoor dog and cat, so the fur is everywhere. You are an inspiration to me. Those who are criticizing your technique or philosophy can go to hell!

Oh the ravenging Dust Bunnies that breed from the gobs of cat and dog hair on my "oh it'll be so much less dusty etc" wood floors!!! They'd be less dusty if I cleaned them more.
Even the vac doesn't get it all as I found out yesterday under the dining room table central support that is an inch above floor level. There they were, hiding from the sunlight pouring in through the handprinted patio door windows!
My sink/tub scrub of choice is a blend of salt, baking soda, Borax, with essential oils thrown in (Lavender, eucalyptus, and tea tree) for their germ killing properties and clean/medicinal scent. Works as good as Ajax or Comet and rinses much faster. Countertops, windows, mirrors, floors, and toilet areas (everywhere else in the house actually) get a mix of Hertel biodegradable cleaner concentrate, water, vinegar, and essential oils for germ killing in a spray bottle for quick clean ups. Fast, easy, less toxic, and cheap.
Borax goes into every (HE washer) wash load to boost cleaning power of the detergent and deodorise. I usually rinse clothes with vinegar rather than fabric softener because of the toxicity of softeners and that they make clothes so much more flammable. Do use the occassional dryer sheet though because its a hard habit to shake ( and smells SO GOOD!)No, vinegar smell does not stay on clothes and it really cuts the soap residues down for those with sensitive skins and acts as a natural fabric softener. Clothes just come out of the dryer smelling clean and unscented. Especially good for pet blankets since pets have extremely sensitive noses, non?
Wood floors get Murphy's or vinegar and water with essential oils for scent ( at christmas try fir tree oil hee hee hee) and sometimes some lemon oil afterward. I "dust" with vinegar and water and a clean "t-shirt" rag.
Whew...I'm exhausted just typing about all this..... Sorry to go on so long. I super admire your mad de-cluttering skillz and commitment to greener living.

laurie...yesterday i was in walmart looking for some hair spray and caught the sun-in bottles out of the corner of my eye. right there, on the bottom shelf. i'm just sayin' is all. you know, in case.

I have rectangles of fleecy fabric (cut from inexpensive yardage purchased at the fabric store) strategically placed to catch the maximum amount of shed cat and dog fur. I wash them once each week, and that seems a gracious plenty. The dog has been trained to lay ONLY on a fleece piece (so she stays off the rest of the furniture). The cat, however, doesn't give a damn.

Your cat sleeps on his blankie? I'm so impressed. My cat sleeps everywhere -- and,yes, sometimes it does seem as though he's everywhere at once.

Yep, cat hair tumbleweeds are to be expected with wood floor. They're shedding the same amount, but now it drifts across the floor (instead of getting stuck in carpeting) and collects in tumbleweeds. Also known as dust bunnies.

I'd be there with you in Failed Housekeeper Jail, but they'll probably relegate me to maximum security due to the severity of my crimes. *sigh*

We call those collections of cat hair that seem to appear out of nowhere baby wookies at our house (like chewbacca from starwars). The one that comes out of the vaccume canister is a grown up wookie.

If you want to make Al's heart race with living for you - give this little carbon footprint thingy a try. http://www.nativeenergy.com/individuals.html
I got it at Sweetneys.

I'll give an AMEN to your opinion that changing everything is not the point...it's changing for the better a bit at a time. It's like being vegetarian because you like animals and having to deal with folks who want to know where all your clothes come from or why you ate a bit of your mom's famous jello salad (she would've been crushed if I'd declined a bit).

I'd also like to join you in Housekeeper Jail. It sounds like fun and I know most of my family would be there.

We call those collections of cat hair that seem to appear out of nowhere baby wookies at our house (like chewbacca from starwars). The one that comes out of the vaccume canister is a grown up wookie.

If you want to make Al's heart race with living for you - give this little carbon footprint thingy a try. http://www.nativeenergy.com/individuals.html
I got it at Sweetneys.

You asked: "Another question from yours truly here, is it normal to get cat hair tumbleweeds in the corners of the living room now that I have these wood floors?"

Completely normal. I have all wood floors, two cats, one dog, one teenage son still at home, and fur tumbleweeds everywhere. The nice thing is, you can save them up over a week or so and knit yourself a whole 'nother animal.

I am kidding.

Sort of.

Laurie, et. al,

The "Queen of Clean" recommends dustcloths and dry mops from ACT Natural.

http://www.actnatural.net/

I bought the mop handle and swivel head, fuzzy dry mop for cat hair, damp mop, and a dry cleaning cloth and though expensive they work great! (They're on sale now!) It's really gross how much cat (and human) hair this fuzzy thing picks up! And the damp mop you use with just a few spritzes of water. I use these on my hardwood floors and bathroom tile and they're great! And...it's flat enought to get under the couch and swivels to get in tight spots!

Oh, and check out my blog cultofdomesticity.blogspot.com for a pic of the magic frog..he's posted on September 5th. I'll admit though, I didn't use him on the shower--he was too cute to harm with the fierce soap scum on my ugly pink tile!

Re hallucinogenic frogs: You MUST listen to my favorite local band Whiskey Chimp perform their hilarious original tune "Frog Licker" at McCabe's in L.A. last fall. The lyrics crack me up; a guy finds a frog, licks it and finds that it "turns an average day into a sci-fi".
I just scoop up the tumblin' tumbleweeds of cat hair as I walk by them. My cat Muffin stubbornly refuses to learn to sweep or vacuum. The lazy beggar.
And hey, I got mentioned by CAP in the reply to comments posts! How cool is that? Cheap and cheerful, lovey!

Hi Laurie! About the cat blanket - my babies don't like it when I wash their blankies. Last time I washed them they wouldn't sleep in their beds for 2 months! I put them through an extra rinse cycle to make sure there wasn't any soap residue, but I think the problem was that it removed their personal scents. So I vacuum them to get most of the hair off and wash only they get really disgusting.

For dusting - get yourself some microfiber dust cloths. All you have to do is spritz it with water then dust away. I use them for windows and glass table tops too, and they remove all the cat footprints and smudges. Mine are the Don Aslett cloths from QVC - they are nice & thick and last forever. And they are machine washable.

Cat hair tumbleweeds on hardwood are a fact of life. But you can reduce the number of them with the FURminator - the world's most expensive cat brush. Google it and watch the video - it really does work like that! Worth every penny, and the cats love it.

One more tip: I keep a spray bottle of white vinegar and another of hydrogen peroxide under the sink. You spray one, then the other to disenfect countertops, sinks, produce, etc. Kills as many germs as those antibacterial cleaners but safe, safe, safe.

Laurie, we get major tumbleweeds around here. Both dogs and cats shed boatloads daily, and we've finally succumb to the fact that even if we wanted to try to keep up with the hair we can't. So we vacuum once a week and that's good enough for us.

Secondly, do you mind my asking which vacuum you use? We have a Dirt Devil bag-less which works fine, but it's a bit bulky sometimes and the hose isn't long enough. I'd love to know what you (or any of the commenters, for that matter) use to suck up the dustballs o' doom.

I'm pretty bad about washing the cat blankets - I do it when I think of it, or when the layer of hair is totally obscuring the blanket below, which works out to once every 3-4 months. If you do it more often (which I probably should, but, hey, living alone with three cats) then more power to you.

Also the tumbleweeds are totally normal. I think it's because with carpet the cat hairs sort of get "stuck" to the carpet fiber (like they get stuck to your couch) and are held steady and prevented from congregating. With hardwood floors, they are free to slide around and get together. I have tons of them - I'll pick them up and toss them as I see them in between sweepings. Warning: you also have 12,000 of them under things like your couch, TV stand, etc (unless you're regularly sweeping or some such under there, which I do not). Be aware of this when you decide to move furniture or turn on a fan for the first time in a few weeks.

Yes, the cat hair tumbleweeds are perfectly normal in multi-cat households with no carpet. For things that make you go "EWWWWWW!", picture those dustbunnies that you never used to see, and then come to the sad, sad realization that it's because they were trapped in the shag. Now aren't you about 100 times happier you got rid of it?

I wash the cat's blanket about once a month, and I take it outside to the balcony to shake heck out of it first so I don't set my house on fire when the fur clogs the lint screen in the dryer. Sure, my neighbours probably hate me, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

http://tinyurl.com/2nss85
Here is the link to hear the Frog Licker song.

Hey girlfriend, we can give each other kitty tats in FH Jail **throws gang sign**

I LOVE my Kenmore canister vac---very long hose and great suction and HEPA filter. I even nicknamed it "Pepper" because the color is called cayenne.

Well I've only got two kitties, but yes, the tumbleweeds develop quickly around my place. What I find interesting is that there are certain corners the tumbleweeds migrate to, and I'm not sure why it is they're in some corners but not others. Air currents I'm guessing, but still, interesting to me. I guess I'm easily amused. :)

And thanks for all your postings on cleaning, you're really helping me to get motivated. After having a baby back in Feb my house has pretty much crumbled (oh the size of the tumbleweeds alone) - so all these posts make me want to grab some green cleaning products and scrub. Now we'll see if it actually happens.

Speaking of being green and protecting our pets, we do all know that we do not buy pet foods from China, including treats? I am horrified that the stuff is killing our pets. All we can do is stop buying it. There are many receipies on the web for good and nutritious pet foods and treats. I love the whole theme of buying less...of everything. Now I make my furry baby's food and freeze it.

Love your blog and lookin forward to seeing you in Nashville!

"Is it normal to get cat hair tumbleweeds in the corners of the living room now that I have these wood floors?"

Oh hell yes. I have six cats, in a house 90% non-carpeted floors, and the cat hair tumbleweeds are EVERYWHERE. This is where the Roomba really can become your very bestest friend ever.

Alternatively, it is nice to have large pieces of furniture under (or behind) which you can hastily corral the worst of the tumbleweeds should guests be on their way over. Hypothetically, of course.

We don't have any pets, and we still get tumbleweeds, thanks to a certain (rather hairy) Italian flatmate of mine. Who also never vacuums. They seem to gather in the corners of the toilet room. Gross.

I meant to mention yesterday that I use these great cleaning cloths designed for use with just water. I got them at my supermarket here in London, I'm sure you can find a similar product in LA. You can get general purpose cloths, glass cloths, and a mop kit. I have the general purpose and glass. How I clean my shower is I usually go at it with a shower sponge (the kind with the scourer on one side) to loosen up the limescale (veeeery hard water here), then the general purpose cloth, then the glass cloth. Works pretty well, especially the glass cloth!

Laurie: I just have to share a re-purposing tip with you. I have 2 cats and a ferret who thinks she's a cat. I buy kitty litter in 28-gallon buckets. I use a couple of the buckets for dry cat food (the lids snap shut) which I buy in bulk. I use another as a "diaper pail" to keep the bags of used litter from stinking up thejoint--er--polluting the air. I use a third as a bucket for washing the car. They are so useful and come free with my kitty litter! (I love re-purposing.)

I have to agree with everyone - I don't wash my cats' blankets. I take a lint roller to them every couple of weeks to get the hair off when I can't tell what color they are anymore (or just flip them over :D ), but unless they've had an accident, I leave them be.

To answer Betsy's question - I have a Dyson Animal. Best investment *EVER* - I had killed 4 vacuums in 6 years *before* I got my cats, and since I got the Dyson 2 years ago, I vacuum MORE and my carpet looks better, even with my 2 cats. If I have gone too long between vacuumings, I may have to empty the canister before I'm done to get the full benefit, but it still kicks butt! (pardon my language). Keeps my allergies under control too. Product endorsement over.

Pet hair tumbleweeds - yep, totally normal.

I have no patience with people who leave snarky comments on other people's blogs. I love reading how people are doing things, ways they find to do something better, etc etc and I'd hate to have someone not post because the snarksters might come out. (yes i made up that word)

I have a couple of kittie blankets that get washed about once a month, or whenever they get gross-looking. Every weekend, I go over them with one of those big red pet-hair-mitts that you can get from pet stores. It takes the yucky-looking cat-hair-felt off the blanket.

I also use the mitt on my couch & loveseat and it works a lot faster than the expensive cyclone vaccuum ever did (sorry, Dyson!).

Cuts down on the water I use and keeps my cats happier. (They don't like freshly washed blankets as much as grubby ones.)

Huh? We're supposed to wash the cat beds? I waited so long to wash the last cat bed (purchased commercially) that the fabric fell apart during washing. Now I wash the one handmade one when we move which is every 1-3 years. The tumbleweeds seem happy to live behind the doors and under the couches so we have an uneasy truce of they leave us alone and we leave them alone. Of course if they come together to make a third cat, something will have to be done!

Do you think these BBC shows will be on DVD anytime for those of us without cable?

failed homemaker jail...hahahaha

as for the kitty tumbleweeds...I find that in my house the hair gets caught in the crack between the carpet and the wall, I am ALWAYS cleaning cat hair out of there. It doesn't have the chance to tumbleweed. However, at the parents house you could ride those things by the end of the day. Seriously. They have 2 dogs and 2 cats and it is like the wild west on their floors.

you asked, "is it normal to get cat hair tumbleweeds in the corners of the living room now that I have these wood floors?"

yep. yep, it sure is. i have 3 cats (and 2 dogs) and there are always cat (and dog) hair tumbleweeds somewhere in my house. (i also have wood floors).

i've found that if i just start collecting them in a bag, it doesn't take too long to have collected enough hair to make a whole new cat. i haven't actually tried this yet, but in theory, it should work.

if you decide to try this, let me know how it goes.

cheers!
lisa

"I think I ended up wearing some horrible butt-creeping panties of doom. Alas."

This might be better than what happened to me the last time I neglected my laundry a little too long. I pulled out the boy shorts. I was walking out of Starbucks when I told my mom and I needed to go back in and visit the ladies room because my undies were falling off. The top elastic band that should be on your tummy area was at the top of my thighs. My butt was completely uncovered. If I had been wearing a skirt they would have fallen to the ground. I think my stomach has grown so much that the elastic just gave up. It didn't have a chance really.

Just a thought, if you didn't have wood floors, those cat tumbleweeds would be embedded into your rug! Like another comment, I found enough dog hair to build another corgi under the bed. Shudder.

I only have one cat, hardwood floors, and an old, drafty apartment. It often looks like the Wild West, with the tumble weed/ cat hair billowing on the breeze. That's when I know I really, really need to break out the vacuum cleaner.

That one cat has a blankie bed he uses pretty much only in cold months. Its placed closed to the radiator, and from about October till March he plants himself there, sucking up heat. I pry him out every couple of weeks and flap it outside to knock off the worst of the hair. I'll stand on the edges and vacuum the bed while I'm doing the floors. The newly knitted felted portion of the cat bed has not yet been washed (what happens when you wash something that has been felted? Will it continue to felt?) but the blankie portion gets a wash every 6- 8 months. Sooner if he's done anything disgusting that I notice.

well you know by now that cat tumbleweeds with non-carpeted floors are a fact of life. mine are further accented by my own hair. yeah, i know. gross. (well not to me as it is my own hair). but i get a small thrill watching the vacuum slurp them right up.

the cat bed thingies gets washed when i think of it. certainly no more than once a month or so.

as for folks giving you a hard time for using a plastic bucket i say that they'd better be posting comments to you from an all natural, biodegradable computer powered by the sun.

People would actually steal the clothes off your clothesline? I am speechless.

About the cat blanket washing...during the winter when the cat is in his Kitty Pi a lot, I wash once a month. He hasn't slept in the Pi all summer so it got washed probably in May. I wash the dog bed every 2 weeks because our bedroom starts to smelly a little doggy if I don't wash it regularly.

I have hardwood floors and the fur tumbleweeds seem to go along with it. Its gross to find fur balled up in the corners but I tell myself its better than being embedded in the carpet fibers. Our carpet was only five years old when we tore it up but it was disgusting underneath.

Oh yeah, the cat tumbleweeds are entirely normal. My herb likes to deposit them under everything I own that has any gap at all between itself and the floor. I frequently vacuum cat sized tumbleweeds out from under my bed, which is amazing, considering the bedroom has been a Cat Free Zone for more than 2 years. We refer fondly to our tumbleweeds as "Fluffy" and treat them like a fifth cat.

And by "herb" I mean "herd."

Tumbleweed a-plenty here. I find the most effective way to deal with them is....uh.....to ignore them. Think I'll be joining you in the Jail. Occasionally I wander around and pick up the largest ones - usually when my mum's about to come round and say 'Oh....do you want some help cleaning up?' just as I'm thinking 'Man, my flat is tidy today....'! Cat bed thingies get washed oooh about twice-yearly. Lucky I have very phlegmatic cats.....

Tumbleweeds? You'd think that I lived in the apex of the Dust Bowl in my house! Anytime a door opens or closes, the AC or heat comes on, the refrigerator door opens or someone breathes in this house the tumbleweeds start rolling. I could vaccuum or sweep for 24 hours straight every single day and there would still be enough hair to create more tumbleweeds than you could ever imagine.

I consider the hair in my house to be part of the fiber in our diet. It's gross, I know but there's no need for laxatives in here!!

Have a great weekend, Laurie!

I have three dogs and a cat. I've found with my wooden floors I no longer have dust bunnies but dust buffalo. Every now and again I round them all up. The cat gets mad because I've taken away his playmates but in a few days they're back again, sigh.

I'll be in that cell with you. My mom used to say "If you don't clean up your room you'll never get a husband." Well HAH! I've had THREE of 'em, neener neener. (Not that I'm proud of that; at least I got it right finally.) But this whole cleaning thing - I guess I'm "casual". I DO have dust (two long-haired people, two short-haired cats). And I guess I do have clutter ("It's not messy, Mommy - it's BUSY!")(I love my daughter.) but you've inspired me to work on that. As for dusting - well, I'm about half-green, but I love me my swiffer-duster thingies. and I use them for a long time, because they work for a long time. I love the quote I heard while growing up - and it applies more now than it did in the 1930s: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!"

Can we bring our knitting to the failed homemaker jail?

Cat hair tumbleweeds are definitely a product of wood/linoleum floors! We have all kinds of tumbleweeds going on! I usually attack them with the sweeper. Just be sure to keep them away from your return air vent (the one that sucks air in) to the central heat/air, if you have central heat/air. The tumbleweeds can clog up a filter fast if you let them run amok!!

Poor Denise. I bet she really didn't mean to sound so negative and judgemental. And I bet we all suprise ourselves from time to time with how negative and judgemental we can sound too. OK, bleah, didn't mean to get all Mary Poppins on you.

I'll be there with you in failed homemaker jail! I will bring wine AND chocolate.
I have two cats and wood floors. I fantasize about the day when my wood floors look anywhere as near nice as yours, good job there! mine are 40 yo parquet and the glue holding all those itty-bitty-teenie-weenie pieces of wood has given up. so my wood floors are more like a loose puzzle. beware the barefoot person whose sticky foot encounters all those loose tiles! someday my floors will be done.
where was I?
oh, right. even though my wood floors are atrociously dilapadated, I DO get cat-hair tumbleweeds. and dust-rhinos, yo! When vacuuming those dangerous critters up, I have to be veeewey cawfewl (say that with the Elmer Fudd voice) not to also vacuum up the floor tiles!
and both cats do have beds. two each, at least that's how many I am aware of. I am just a peon serving the nobility, they don't have to tell me these things, right? the thing is, with my queen and princess, when I wash their little day-beds, they won't start using them again until I get my scent on them. (or if they get their own scent on them but that is a tricky business if they won't start without it) So my trick is to wash one set at a time (usually only every 6 months or so as they seem to leave more shedding in my habitats than theirs), and if I time it with a really cold night then I can get them to reclaim the beds quicker. The only reason I would change this up on them is if they started to show signs of fleas, since the flea poop (eww! deep breaths!) gets too gross too fast.
I can't wait to see you in Seattle! Be sure to let me know if you need a kindred soul to stand by with a glass of wine and some cat royalty therapy.

Madeleine, I know I do it too ... but I recently bought myself a magnet for the fridge that says, "Spend so much time trying to improve your own life that you have no time left to critique others." So you know. I work on it, too.

And I wasn't trying to excoriate her, just wanted to answer her comment. She did after all comment to me, thought it was decent of me to reply. ;)

"Another question from yours truly here, is it normal to get cat hair tumbleweeds in the corners of the living room now that I have these wood floors? Is it just more noticeable now since the carpet is gone or do ya'll think the cats are having a party every day while I'm at work, inviting the neighborhood wild animals over to shed all over the floors? Because they are really not fooling around with the tumbleweeds."

It's totally normal, or at least if it isn't then we're abby normal here Chez Cat Hair too! I moved into a place with wood floors last year, and I love them, but the tumbleweeds, my goodness! I had No Idea. And I only have two fur machines, though I could surely build an emergency back-up cat with what they leave lying around.

I wash the cat blankets about once a month, but I belong in FH Jail. I just tell myself that cat hair is "natural." (No, honestly, I wash it when I think about it, which is very infrequently.)

And about the tumbleweeds, check out The Furminator. It's expensive, but it changed my life. MUCH MUCH less cat hair, and they really like it! (PS, the video is MESMERIZING.)

http://www.furminator.com

To help with the cat tumbleweeds (and cat hairballs regurgitated from cat tummies) get The Furminator brush. It is amazing! You will throw all your other cat brushes away. You can froogle it online and find best price for a small furminator brush.

"Excoriate"...that's a great word. Thanks for reminding me of it! Also, we have dust-buffalos roaming the vast hardwood plains of our house, compliments of Daisy, Pip and Gus. And my slackness.

Wow, I'm famous!!! I'm glad you aren't "maybe using heroin or picking up men at streetlights or hitting up the sun-in" *snort* Heroin and sun-in being equivalent of course...

Hey, wait, are you saying I shouldn't be picking up men at streetlights?

Lynda the Guppy's thesis on the Sex Life of the Common Household Furball made me snort diet soda out my nose! And I'm jealous of Saisquoi's Tumble Tiger.

I too am in a major clean-up phase due to the long period (I shudder to think how long) of non-cleaning that happened at my place. Despite my cleaning addict personality, the last years are definitely enough to land me in Jail for Failed Homemakers.

Party! I'll bring the hallucinogenic shower-cleaning tree frogs... here, froggy...

That caddy is an awesome idea. I usually have to go through every room in the apartment before I can even FIND the spray bottle with the cleaning stuff in it (I use this stuff: http://tightwad-tips.livejournal.com/4831.html). And oh the tumbleweeds. I miss them. I had to leave my kitties (four shorthairs, one longhair) when I split up from my ex and by default moved across the earth, but one day I will wake up with both kitties and tumbleweeds in my house, I'm sure.

I wash my cat blankets every week (read: every other week because I'm lazy like that). It's also perfectly natural to get cat tumbleweeds with any type of floor that is not carpet.. the carpet kind of "traps" the fur your pet sheds. Gross huh?

I would like you share with you a product plug for the Method OMop at Target. This mop is freaking awesome! It's like a swiffer (both wet and dry) but is made out of natural stuffs. The pads for the dry mop are made out of corn that are compostable. And the wet mop pad is microfiber and washable. How fun is that? And who doesn't want floors that smell like lemon ginger? They also made one for wood floors that comes with an almond cleaner.

Maybe this would fit in with your Greener Cleaner Arsonal?

I get the cat tumbleweeds in the corners of my (wood floor) staircase. Considering that my 2 cats only go up and down the stairs a couple of times a day, I'm not sure how hair could accumulate on the steps at such a rate, but apparently it does.

And they have (or had) a bunch of borax mines in the sorthern Sierra Nevadas - near Death Valley (and the town of Boron, CA). They had 20-mule trains to haul the loads of borax out of the mine and to the railroad, hence the brand name of that lovely product. Just a little tidbit of information for your Friday!

Laurie,
Do you know when your chat with Brenda of Cast-On will be on her podcast?? I just love her and never miss a show. Doesn't she have the most relaxing voice ever??

Madeleine, I love me a good 25 cent word now and then ;)

I really debated on whether or not to respond to that one comment because I think by now some of ya'll have discovered that I'm trying really hard to change my own life by not adding to negative stuff and all that, Lord it can be a struggle to be selfhelpy I tell you what. But I went ahead and posted it because I think the underlying intention is good -- my intention was really just to say that small changes (even if they aren't perfect) really do matter and that doing our best is really good enough. Just in case I had freaked anyone out with all this cleaning talk.

Thanks for the great answers :) I'll have to try that :)

Liz R-- Brenda is SO COOL. I fell in love with her ... we must have chatted for two hours! I was really nervous because I'm not used to being the interviewee, and there's often no telling what will come out my mouth. I was so nervous but she put me right at ease!

She actually sent me an email this a.m., sounds like she's feeling under the weather so I think that podcast will come out next week :)

No one should have "horrible butt-creeping panties of doom" laying about. The moment they creep, they should be tossed into the trash.

Hairball tumbleweeds are inevitable with hardwood. As much as a hate the waste generated by the Swiffer (all those throwaway cloths), it is the only efficient way I've found to deal with the problem.

As for kitty-blanket washing, whenever it gets so bad I can't stand it. Some get used more than others.

Re: kitty towels/bedding - I bought a pretty full sized sheet set: the flat sheet goes over the top of our bed to cut down the amount of cat hair on our bedding (especially helpful during those hot months when IT STICK TO PARTS OF YOUR BODY BETTER LEFT UNFURRED!)I use the fitted sheet to cover the futon (our upstairs couch - the one in my "knitting spot" gallery you had a while back). Once a week, I change them out and toss the dirty ones in the wash. If company comes over, it's just a quick pull-em-off and we have a cathair free zone.

And I swear by "Sun and Earth" dish detergent - it's a light NATURAL citrus smell and it doesn't perfume your Tupperware/Rubbermaid/travel mugs. And it's organic/natural/non-chemical-ly.

I saw another comment referencing a mop by Method, by I want to recommend their entire line of products. They are easily obtained at Target, and are very well priced.

http://www.methodhome.com/

Kudos for making small changes. If more people made small do-able changes, the environment would be much better for it. Too many people get so hung up on doing everything 'right' that they don't do anything at all because it's just too damned inconvenient. We can't all be freakin' Ed Begley (although he was lookin' pretty good on Live Earth). I change what I can, when I can and do the best with what I've got to work with (money, time, 2 boys, 1 husband, 2 cats, and a 100-lb dog).

And I, for one, would love to see 'Big Al' ditch that damn music-censoring Tipper (I still haven't forgiven her for the 1980s) for you. You go girl!

Where is a good place to get essential oils, online or in a brick-and-mortar store?

Pet hair tumbleweeds on hardwood floors are completely normal, in my experience. Around our house, we call the "Puppy's Minions" as they seem to gather and join ranks to plot our eventual downfall. They must be wrangled on a regular basis. We vacuum twice a week or so, and use a fabulous dust mop thingie everyday we don't vacuum. It works wonders!

If you want to read more about our pet-hair challenges (doggy-style), check out this post from my blog: http://seattleyogini.typepad.com/seattle_yogini/2007/01/dust_puppies.html

OH!! And about the "You are what you eat" show ... I don't actually take any of the doctor's advice LOL. But I *love* seeing what other people eat, and of course I like seeing how good folks look in the "after" shots.

Lucia... yes. If I put clothes on a line to dry I would have to stand outside and watch that they didn't disappear. Los Angeles is a lovely city, wanna come visit???

For those who live near a Trader Joe's, they have some awesome green cleaning products that are not more expensive than the regular stuff. I particularly like their Ecos laundry detergent, whihc also contains fabric softener. And they have lavender dryer bags that make your sheets smell wonderful.

-- Back in the early days of TeeVee, there was a Western called "Death Valley Days" that was sponsored by 20-Mule Team Borax. The host was Ronald Reagan.

-- For MandyU, I think the same company that manufactures Caldrea manufactures Method for Target.

-- Being Ed Begley IS Ed Begley's Day Job, so he's got more time than the rest of us. Good for him and all, but the rest of us need a little slack.

Dora, I bought mine at Whole Foods in their Health & Beauty aisle. I got lemon oil for about $4 I think, the tea tree oil was more expensive... maybe $6 (but it lasts a loooong time because it's very concentrated.)

The eucalyptus oil I had from a long-since-gone fragrant oil burner experiment. I think I got that one at a candle shop but I can't remember.

More than 10 years ago, I worked with a woman who came to work covered in dog hair every day. She had two huskies who would "blow coat" seasonally. For her birthday, I bought her a book I just happened to spot titled, "Knitting with Dog Hair."

I thought it was a joke book. Turns out they were serious. You can spin and knit that stuff.

So... maybe you could re-purpose those cat hair dustbunnies?

Since this is a knitting blog...You can find a knitting pattern on Craftster for a "fry-up".

I think you're doing great with your going green!

Love reading about your organizing and cleaning escapades...wish my efforts were so successful...keep up the good work! I'm actually feeling the urge to go clean something...um...maybe not.

Anywho, as for cat hair in the corners...totally normal. When I lived in a rental house with hardwood floors, I put my super duper high velocity fan at one end of the place and blew it all to the other where I sucked it up all quick like into the vacuum.

Much easier than vacuuming the carpet all the time like I do now (white cat, dark brown carpet). Although now, I have one of the bagless cyclone ones...love to see everything swirling about.

I don't think a porn addiction is terrible... I mean... it's not like I... well.. just sayin' is all...

Cat blankets. We wash 'em when they just start looking like we've added a 4th cat to the line up. So that would be about once a month.

Kitten tumbleweeds (which I am TICKLED that someone else calls them the same thing) are inevitable, carpeting or not. I think the wood floors allow them to travel a little more fluidly than on carpet and, therefore, catch your eye because of the movement.

I use a dry floor mop with a slight mist of water (straight up) and it really does a great job of grabbing all those pesky tumbleweeds. It's also excellent for a general floor dusting. (Who needs all that waste from the swiffer?) Plus the mop we have has a detatchable head (it looks like a fuzzy sponge) that we can pop into the washer when it gets too nasty. We got it at Whole Foods a few years back and it's one of my FAVORITE cleaning tools.

Check this out---a knitted swiffer cover....I think this might just be the perfect answer to your tumbleweeds!!!

http://greenmountainmama.blogspot.com/2006/05/whiplash-color.html

I refer to the tumbleweeds of cat hair as "dust kitties". When you have to name them and start feeding them, you know it's time to clean. :)

Here's another pic of that woman's knitted swiffer cover:

http://greenmountainmama.blogspot.com/2006/05/swiffer-cozy-in-use.html

hmm...I think I have a perma-bench in that Jail for Failed Homemakers. BTW, my dog makes those tumbleweeds on the wood floors...which gives me the shivers as to what is smirshed into the rug areas. Yick! I'm lovin' the green info, I'm slowing creeping there myself. The dog blankets (he has three!) get washed about every two weeks and vacummed about every week, or when I can't stand it depending on the 'shedding season'. I LOVE this column!

I have wooden floors, 8 cats, and ginormous cat hair tumbleweeds. The longhair leaves her own brand on the carpet under the bed and my dresser (it looks like some mutant shag carpeting under there, and isn't easily vacuumed).

As for the blankies, they get washed only if someone pukes on them. I vacuum the cat beds periodically. They don't seem to like the blankies after washing. However, they don't stop sleeping on the bed just b/c I washed the sheets/comforter/pillowcases. (Which might be nice, if only for a little while, to decrease the amount of cat hair we inhale in our sleep!)

C'mon, Auntie. We've seen your clothes. I think you'll be safe hanging them on a line!

(I JOKE!! Sheeesh!!!)

However, given the brown layer of "air" I'm seeing from the 33rd floor, I doubt there will be much fresh clean scent.

I'm with you on the "we take what steps we can" thing. I'm trying to buy food produced locally (which I think Al would completely approve of), but at the same time we are NOT giving up bread, bananas, chocolate, tea and coffee.

Yay for you Laurie, for being greener. Personally, the nasty chemicals in most products scare me way more than germs. Go ahead and use borax for toilet cleaning - I did for quite a while, then switched to baking soda when I ran out of borax. It works just as well! I'm sure Ecover is lovely stuff too, but I love the ease of using only baking soda, vinegar and a bit of soap for cleaning.

Oh, and re: tumbleweeds? I have really long hair and was horrified to find them in corners behind furniture when I had only hardwood floors in my Uni days. I didn't even have a cat!

I'm really confused - 4th grade science taught me that the combination of baking soda and vinegar created a volcanic like effect. How do you clean with that?
As you can tell, I probably belong in the Jail for Failed Homemakers.

You go with your plastic bucket! That's what recycled plastic makes - MORE plastic. That's the point - to make new plastic items out of old. Somebody's gotta buy 'em.

I have 4 cats, only one of which sleeps on her own blankets. I wash them when she won't sleep on them any longer. Her subtle way of saying "THESE ARE GROSS. PLEASE WASH!"

Oh, and I have a Japanese craft magazine that has a pattern to make shoes with dust mops sewed to the bottom. How stylish! You can dust your floors while you boogie.

Baking soda in a paste for the bathroom, a diluted vinegar spray for others (windows, countertops) and soap if anything needs a bit extra. Together, yes they would be useless!

When I lived abroad I would hand wash & line dry all of my laundry. I quickly learned to hang my chonies to dry in my shower - somebody started to steal them!

Tracy

Dunno, maybe that volcano would be like the Scrubbing Bubbles.

Hey, even if your clothes would still be on the line at the end of the day, would they still be clean? (City living is great, but it does have its drawbacks.)

And cat/dog hair tumbleweeds are really wonderful on hardwood floors when you have a ceiling fan running. Mine are like those old Wild West movies where you see the tumbleweeds rolling down the main street of town.

1 - I don't know why I assumed everyone meant using the baking soda & vinegar together.
2 - like scrubbing bubbles? I may have to conduct an experiment in my bathtub soon.

Not quite up to the frog hallucinogenic fumes cleaner - but what products does Kelly use to care for her beagle who is 50%carepet & 50% tile? Honestly I was laughing out loud!

What I love about Laurie:

1. She responds to the questions and comments we leave.
2. She put my name in her blog today. I feel so loved! ;-)

we have a border collie and 800 sq feet of hardwood. WE HAVE DUST BUNNIES ENOUGH TO MAKE A SMALL POODLE EVERYDAY.

or we did until we found the 'furminator'. OH MY GOD.

we went to the pet store the other day to get the fancy organic dog food that mooknee eats and there was a video playing. a video where people brush their dogs and cats and create piles of hair. we picked one up and looked at it- it looks like a normal metal comb/brush with really fine teeth (REALLY FINE). we noticed the price tag- 79.95 (cdn)! WHat the heck?! 80$ for a brush not likely! So the lady at the store asks us if we want to try it. I laugh because I know mooknee hates to be brushed (her unruly ear and elbow hair dreads really easily). So i say fine, whatever. They take it out and brush her three strokes. Mooknee is wagging and wiggling happily. There is a large guinea pigs sized pile of hair in the clerks hand. now, i'm not one to be swayed by advertising. BUT THIS THING WORKS!!

FIND A FURMINATOR NEAR YOU!!!

Sangeeta's tips for dusting: reuse the "used" fabric softener sheets by using them as dustcloths. they almost work as well as a swiffer cloth by collecting the dust. Also, instead of throwing away your single socks and holy socks. just put them right over your hand and pick up your small objects and rub them--collects dust from all the little nooks and crannies.

Oh yeah, I do get the tumbleweeds, and I've only got one cat (short hair). I suspect it's because the hairs get caught in carpet and don't look TOO bad until quite a pile has built up, but on wood floors the hairs only cling to themselves.

I wash the cat blanket about once a month. I probably should do it once a week. Perhaps that blanket is sticky or something, but washing doesn't do much to pull out all the hair. The vacuum's more effective at that, so I do both and figure the wash gets the dust and grime and the vacuum gets the hair.

The cat tumbleweeds bothered me until we got the dog. now there is so much dog hair rolling aorund, that i don't even notice the cat tumbleweeds!

My cats like their blankets clean and don't sleep on their blankets when they get dirty. That's usually how I know when to wash the blankets.

And, yes, fur tumbleweeds on the hardwood floors is normal. When I'm in a hurry (lots) I just suck up the tumbleweeds with the nozzle and don't vacuum the middle of the room.

Cat blankets get washed every couple months or so in the summer, once a month in the winter. I fold them over to reveal a cat hair free side. The pad in the kitty bed- once in a blue moon. She seems to like it on the 'fragrant' side. After being washed, it has to gas out the laundry soap fumes for a few days before she'll use it.

I don't have wood floors, but I do get fur tumbleweeds on the vinyl- under the bookcase, the desk- tons of it. Under the bed too, even tho it's carpeted- she spends a lot of time there. I have a futon with a dark cover on a slatted wood frame. The underside is striped with white cat hair

I remember reading once in like 7th grade Social Studies that the American South gets its penchant for fried food from the South of England, which would explain the similarity with proper English fry-up.

Now, I could support this statement by referencing more recent research if I really wanted to, but I prefer to refer to the annals of my middle school education for things like "history" and "facts". Also, I'm supposed to be "working". :)

As many others have mentioned, tumbleweeds are plentiful on my hardwood floors (with 4 cats). I'm nowhere near the Queen of Clean - more like the court jester or someone who samples the wine for poisons. A sweep here and there to pick up the offensive furby gremlins, and an all-over clean with the Oreck canister vac, which - while wonderful - kind of slings over your shoulder and makes me feel like I'm a Ghostbuster, wandering through the house sucking up hair from wood and tile. Also use it on the furniture. The trouble is the bags are small.

I don't typically wash the cat blankets until they're nasty with something other than hair. I have one cat with a sinus problem - he blows some decent snot-rockets on occasion. That's usually a good sign for me to wash the blankets. It's so comforting when guests see a gigantic booger on the cat bed when they walk in the house.

Thanks for inspiring me to plan (if not actually execute yet - baby steps...) some better ways to declutter my life and my home.

Here are a couple more sites where you'll find knitted Swiffer covers that can just be tossed in the washer...

OOOOps..........Here are a couple more sites where you'll find knitted Swiffer covers that can just be tossed in the washer...

http://skullcharms.blogspot.com/2007/05/free-pattern-ballband-dishcloth.html

http://www.sheepofadifferentcolor.com/swiffercoverknitted.htm

Cats + Wood floors = cat fur tumbleweeds ad nauseum. So they either get swooped up in a tissue that's headed for the trash, or vacuumed, whichever comes first.

Cat blankets + cats = only vacuum when there's enough fur on them to create a smaller version of live cats. Or sooner if having cat-affected company over. No use sending someone to the emergency room. Then no one would come over.

Basically, my cleaning motto is "maintenance for me" and "deep cleaning for company".

Ladies!

Loved the comments today! You people are funny!!

Cat

I can assure you that, yes, wood floors are cat hair tumbleweed producers. I had no idea of this fact until we moved into our current house (in Toluca Lake, go valley!) that has zero carpet. We have one less cat than you and still the accumulation of tumbleweeds is unbelievable. It takes less than 24 hours for new ones to grow after a good vacuuming. I know that all of that hair was still out there when we had carpet but it was just so well hidden! I think this is the only thing I dislike about hardwood floors.

I love your blog! A natural cleanser I've found to be a lifesaver is "bac out" by biokleen. It gets kitty pee smell off of EVERYTHING. My little one pees on the floor like it's her job... It's pricey at $8/bottle, but so worth it to not smell like that crazy cat lady.

Cat hair tumbleweeds on wood floors is just the way it is. At least they are easier to clean up!

Laurie, I am just in awe of your cleaning binge, and so wish I could haul my butt up to do even half of what you are accomplishing!

As to the animal hair/hardwood floor question, it is COMPLETELY normal to have clumps of hair in the corners most of the time - I can go up my hardwood stairs and pluck hair from the corners almost daily (two dogs) - I am looking at area rugs if only to absorb some of the hair... and dust... if you can't see it, it's not there, right?

I have never commented on your blog before -- oh, except to enter your Cat Sweater Sweepstakes, if that counts -- because, well, you know, you are such a celebrity and always have hundreds of comments that you probably never have time to look at and all. But I guess you read at least a few comments since you included some in your post today, so I will finally bow at the feet of Your Funniness and tell you how much I have enjoyed reading your blog ever since I first found it by Googling for a simple knit hat pattern last fall. Love you!

Hi Laurie,
Yes, tumbleweeds occur, and at a vastly higher rate when you have no carpet. My suggestion? Invest in a Dustbuster. That way you can suck it all up at the touch of a button without dragging out the whole vacuum cleaner. I've got four cats and tile throughout my 6 room apartment (too much space!!) and I seriously have no idea how I lived without on before.
hugs!
christine

So many tales of the cat fur tumble-weeds! We should all conglomerate our pet hair tumble-weeds and have it all spun into an afghan and then we could contact the Guiness Book of World Records and try for the record for "largest item crafted out of cat\dog hair". I gave my best friend a book on spinning and knitting with dog hair since she has tile and doggies. I have a cat (who thinks she's a dog) and a dog (who likes to think he's a cat even if he is way dumber than a cat... he's still cuter though).

I'm a vet so I thought I'd make just a quick comment from a vet/medical perspective on the cat bed washing/tumbleweed issue... I think everyone agrees that it's normal to have tumbleweeds galore when there's no carpet to catch the hair and dirt and lint. I myself infinitely prefer it that way since now I can see and remove all that crud rather than have it trapped on my floor to be removed only in thirty years by some hardworking gal who cringes in horror at my filth! Plus, it's much healthier... the dust mites in carpets and bedding and ulpholstery are HORRENDOUS AND DISGUSTING AND ICKY AND HORRIBLE. Did I mention ICKY? At least vacuuming once a week will help remove some of them. I have slipcovers on all my furniture so I can throw them in the wash when they invariably get nastied up despite vacuuming. Anyway, as far as pet bedding, I reccommend vacuuming and then washing (in hot water with a little bit of bleach... not much, but it's antibacterial and anti-dust-mite) pet bedding once weekly (I know they don't like it as much, but especially for my asthmatic and allergic dog and cat patients it can be literally a lifesaver.) I always buy beds with covers that I can just throw in the wash. If you wash them once a week they never get that smelly and I find that the cats and dogs don't resent it as much when they're clean. Sometimes if I am being lazy and I know I won't be able to wash beds that week (I have an asthmatic cat so I have to be anal about it) I will put towels on them so I can just pick up the towels and wash them instead. Just my $0.02.

My cat got very sick after chewing on a (used)dryer sheet after which my vet told me that they are poisonous to cats (as if everybody already knew that, so I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who didn't).

Hey Doc Dav! Thanks so much for the post! I have a question, though -- is there anything *other* than bleach I can use in the wash? Two of my pet blankets are dark-colored and I don't want them to get greyed out. Would hot water and adding vinegar kill the dust mites just as well? Or something like that?

I love the term tumbleweeds, we just been calling them fur balls. I'm a terrible housekeeper so the way I clean them is to wait until they get large enough and then just walk around the house and pick them up. I've wondered if I could card and spin it all into yarn?

My oldest kitty sleeps in the bill basket, so as bills come and and get paid her "blanket" gets refreshed.

Oh -- and Michelle-- I read all the comments every day :)

I tend to wash my kitties blanket/towel when I notice it gets really hairy. It was about once a week or once every two weeks before I lost one of my kitties, but it's not so often now. And yes, cat fur tumbleweeds are normal with wooden floors. Dust/hair tumbleweeds seem to be the norm with bare floors regardless of the pet population.

Oh the kittie/dog tumbleweeds I have. I have a 170 #
Saint Bernard, a lab mix, 3 short hair cats, and 1 very long haired cat. My front hallway is always an art gallery with the swirling tumbleweeds. My fave method of cleaning is our centra vac. I can sweep a lot of pet tumbleweeds up before hubby has to empty it.

Are you supposed to wash cat beds? My cats don't sleep in them enough for them to get dirty. I have two adorable brass beds for them and they just look at them and then go sleep on the dogs beds. I put the dog beds out on the deck to air out and then have hubby shake them.
Judy

you know you're in trouble when you have tumbleweeds and carpet. Which on occasion I get. See you in homemaker jail!

Embarrassing cat tumbleweed story. I once found one so big and dense drifting in the kitchen that I thought it was a mouse. I was up on my counter for a good 10 seconds before I realized it was yet another reminder of my failed housekeeping.

I have a couple answers to your cat related questions, but they are coming from my dog owner perspective. My dogs are small-ish and they are inside all the time like cats... Anyway, I wash their pet bed at least once a month or more if it looks like it needs it more. The dogs themselves I try to bathe at least once a week or every other week. I'm not always good about remembering to do this though and as a result they really stink right now. The hair tumbleweeds things is very normal. We just moved last weekend and the dogs have been there since Sunday and I already had to do a vacuum, sweep and mop (with my green friendly O-mop) last night because the tumbleweeds were out of control.

Yes, Sun-in is still around. My husband's cousin used it in high school 30 years ago (the only blonde in the family - imagine that!) And he is still using it now. His mother, bless her little heart, thought that his hair was not graying like his brothers. We girls, for some reason, keep our color as we age.

Apparently I have strange kitties because they love to have their blankies washed. I get fleece throws on sale at Big Lots and use those for the pets. They are super easy to wash and very quick to dry. My old girl Stumpy loves her clean fluffy throw right out of the dryer! Kneeding and drooling all over it. I can always tell when it has to be washed as she refuses to have her 30 hour power-nap on it! The rest of the cats have towels and slipcovers which get washed once a week. Every morning I am greeted by the cat hair tumbleweeds in the corners of the living room. I just swiffer everyday....I have also found that drinking beer while housecleaning to be very very helpful;)
Big steps or little steps, what's important is you keep moving in the right direction

Oh, on the Furminator front. I take my Saint to the groomers once a month for the full treatment, a bath with the special shampoo and then blow dried. It helps a lot with the amount of hair but not entirely. They also do it to cats but I have never had mine done.
My Saint has to go to the grooers because both of my bathtubs are upstairs and because of bull headedness, age, and bad hips she will no longer go up stairs. She is 8 now. In all ways but going up stairs she acts and looks like a young dog.

I had a "fry-up" traditional Irish breakfast in Ireland a couple of years ago. The sausage, eggs (kinda like poached), potatoes, and even a tomato were all deep fried and arranged nicely on a plate. I could hear my arteries hardening after 12 days of these breakfasts. Then on the very last morning I sat to eat yet another wonderful "I'm on vacation: calories don't count" meals when I bit into the toast... and almost fell off my chair.

They had deep fried the toast! My D.H. asked if everything was OK and, well, OMG it was so good! Crispy, hot, and marvelous.

You're a southerner: deep fry some toast!

Hey Laurie! I remember that I wanted to comment yesterday and then for got...have you ever seen the Queen of Clean? she had a show on DIY, I don't know if it's still on, anyway I have a couple of her books and she has great tips, ideas, and easy "recipes" for cleaning supplies! borax and white vineagar are 2 of her favorite things!!

Oh and I rarely wash my cats beds, the get pissed when I do!

i am so in Failed Homemaker Jail. my relative slovenliness as compared to, uh, my Southern grandmother, leaves them with such a low opinion of me, that i fear i will be disinherited any day now. i claim it's all part of being touched. my grandmother used to hand me her copies of martha stewart living in the hopes that it might take. (it didn't.)

I like that you buy new cleaning products as motivation to clean! I used to do the same with running shoes and cute shorts so I could be motivated to exercise. of course, now I've got a whole lot of exercise gear and I think the only exercise I get is running to answer the phone, which I don't really need shoes or shorts for. and if I did, I wouldn't have time to change before it stopped ringing. anyway, I need those buckets.

LAURIE!!!! i skipped over one of your blog posts. i just didn't see it! it wasn't there the last time i looked!!! anyway, it's the one on the 12th. about coming to the MALL OF AMERICA!!! i wish the MOA (as us locals call it!) wasn't actually three hours away, onthe other side of the state! (which happens to be where i live!) you can stop by if you want!!!! :)

Well it's Spring where I am, so all this cleaning is really motivating me!

But truly, there is nothing to be done about tumbleweeds but vacuum vacuum vacuum (and if you're shortsighted, don't wear your glasses around the house - I always have a freak out at all the dust and dander if I accidentally wear my glasses in the family room)!

Oh for the love of furred creatures! I'll never EVER have carpet again!

Since you shop at Whole Foods another brand you should try is their store brand, 365. The cleaning products are great and less expensive as well. Also, Target carries Method...another great brand. As for your cat hair tumbleweeds? You've always had them, they just couldn't roll far because of the carpet. Now they are unfettered and can move about at will!

Thank you for all the housekeeping tips. I actually showed them to my fiance in the hope that he gets the hint (we don't live together and we've already decided that I'll do all the deep cleaning as long as I never have to do any yardwork or vacuuming in the future).

Anyway... I used to live in a studio apartment in Dallas with cement floors. It was built as a long box with a front door and a patio door. I'd open both doors and watch the cross ventilation sweep the fur tumbleweeds out onto the balcony. I always wondered what the people below thought of that...

My cats and I compromise on the blankets / bedding. I vacuum their bedding and blankets to remove the layer of fur. I really don't want that stuff clogging up my washer.

Pray for me - I'm bringing my cat to the groomers tomorrow. He's gotten such bad knots that he's starting to look Rastafarian. I'll be sleeping with one eye open for a while.

Tumbleweeds? Yes. They get vacuumed up every two to three weeks. Or picked up and thrown out when I see them.

Washing of cat blankets? Unfortunately, typically only when picky company is coming over or when I'm taking the cats to the vet. Their blankets are inside their car carriers which we leave out in order to make them more friendly places.

I amazes me that some out there prefer to leave yucky comments when someone takes on a positive turn in their lives. I think the Nay Sayers need Kim and Agie to come on over and sniff their carpets! Oh Agie!

Anyhoot - Pet hair tumbleweeds. A word for you there... Swifter! And also, knitting covers for your Swifter, so much nicer than the (pricey!) disposables, and also color coordinated, and also just spray some Murphys on it and oh-how your wood floors will thank you!

Also, check out Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares also on BBC America. He's not a real p-r-i-c-k like on the Hell's Kitchen show, and I love seeing all those British restaurants. And, hello, they show guys in kilts when they go to Scotland! KILTS!

Not only is the fur normal, in our house we have a special name for it...tumblefur.

We get them constantly and my dogs are practically bare nekkid so I don't know where it could come from (yes I do, I know I saw one that was clearly made up of my hair once. Gross!)

Personally, I need a small plastic caddy in each bathroom too because if I have to go to the other room to get cleaning supplies, I get distracted and forget what I set out for.

Trouble sleeps on a full bed, which he graciously agrees to share with me as long as I don't disturb him. None of that cat bed crap for him. He refuses to believe that he's a cat. He's a short, hairy, lazy person, and only real furniture will do. His favorite place to sleep is in a pile of clean laundry. Preferably white laundry. (He's a black cat.)

I get cat hair tumbleweeds behind the toilet. Yuck!

Ah yes.... tumblefurs we call them here. They roll around hardwood, and ceramic floors too. ;O) We have three cats and three dogs so tumblefurs R us! Vacuuming takes care of them. And cat bed blankets? We have blankets on our family room chairs where the cats sleep during the day. I wash them furry blankies whenever I can't stand the sight of them! OR when company might go down there. Sigh I turn them, though, so the furrrs are inside and a clean side is out. I can do that a few times before I have to wash them! samm

Hey' Are you going to the LA Library tomorrow to see the Harlot? You didn't mention it and suddenly it occurred to me you may not know!?!

Love your blog and just wanted to say thanks for your green cleaning post. I am a bleach addict. After reading your post, I put myself to the challenge of cleaning the house without all the harsh chemical cleaners I usually use and it worked! I felt better afterward too which was a definite bonus.

Now, if I could only give up the meat...

OMG the cat hair tumbleweed. Rolling across the desert that is my dining room. Yeah. Welcome to the club. It makes me do a really bad imitation of Western movie music. And chase it down with the Dustbuster.

Ah, the tumbleweeds - we have dark wood floors and a yellow lab - this equals enough glowing tumbleweeds that we have decided that they could constitute another entire dog and have therefore named her Charlotte. As in, "Charlotte's getting a little out of hand, should we vacuum?". In the carpet the hairs disperse and hide, but on the wood floors - scary.

You have a problem with our tumbleweeds! But we make them so lovingly for you while you are at work!!

Do you know how much energy it takes for us to use our inbuilt "release" feature? Oh, you didn't know that we have a release feature? Well have you ever noticed that when you take us to the vet or somewhere else frightening, we seem to lose an extraordinary amount of fur? That's because we squint our eyes and say 'RELEASE!!' sending out a cloud of our lovely fur to let you know you have made us unhappy.

But we also use the release feature while you are at work and then try to collect all of the fur together and place it carefully in the corners of the house and under the couch so that you won't have to clean up random bits of fur here & there all the time.

Oh, and we like our blankies washed once a week, please.

Luv, The Cat
=^..^=

Finally delurking... I didn't read all the comments so forgive me if someone's already said this, but have you thought of collecting all those cathair tumbleweeds and spinning them and knitting something out of it? And before someone goes "ewwww!" just think about where your wool and stuff comes from... I confess, this isn't entirely my idea; I used to work at Wolf Park and the director used to do exactly that with the soft winter hairs the wolves shed each spring, and his mother made the most incredible sweaters from it.

As for washing cat blankets, when I can see more cat hair than blanket, it goes in the washer. Sometimes sooner, but usually not :)

CAP,

I haven't read all the comments (I'm at work!) but I think I may have the "odd cat out". He loves to have his blanket washed. I wash it once a week, at least. He has two blankets that are rotated in his bed every other day or so and refolded for a fresh spot. (I know. I do. Really.) He also loves freshly washed laundry. It's his favorite. Especially if I have used the dryer - which I do only because sometimes kitty just needs a stack of warm towels to wallow in. (Don't be a hater - we all have our little luxuries!)

I'm pretty sure if my cat Harry could march his blanket down to the washer daily and start it up, he would. But even though I brush him daily and wash his blanket at least weekly, I still have to wash/dry it alone because enough hair is in the lint catcher to make a pillow, I swanee!

Oh, and my cat doesn't catch mice, birds, or bugs neither. I once had a mouse in the house and someone said, won't your cat get it? I replied, the only way that cat is going to eat a mouse is if I bake it in a lemon and dill sauce with a side of parsley!

One thing I can recommend for hardwood floors/cat hair is the Roomba. Go to amazon and type in roomba and get yourself one. sucks those babies right up! And cat litter! I love it so much I bought a dirt dog too for the garage! Now my garage floor is cleaner than it has EVER been! (you need one. you do.)

Answer:

To be honest, I don't really wash my covers very often. They get very hairy, but I just usually pick off any hair that has clumped. If it gets really *dirty* then I will wash it. But usually picking off the hair and/or using a ghetto duct-tape hair remover strip does just fine. I'm not anal about my cat baskets being clean as they're all tucked away in the cats' favorite corners and aren't easily inspected.

I seem to remember one of the uses for Lysol (the liquid in the brown bottle) is laundry disinfection. But tiny tiny amount or your cat beds will smell like a hospital. I don't know, I've never used it in the laundry. Read the label maybe?

Oh, and about the cat hair in corners. We call them kitty tumbleweeds too. It's very very normal. My house has all wood and tile floors, so we get hair... accumulations. It disturbs me to see these big, dusty balls of fur ebbing and flowing in the draft, but the Dyson eats them. Besides, think of how much of that hair would remain trapped in carpet. ick.

Bucket question: What other type of bucket would one buy? Glass, wooden? metal? Maybe. I think a plastic bucket is pretty much the only type around, now days.

I actually use sun in. I know. Weird. I must be the only over 15 year old (WAY over 15) to use it. I think it really is okay for my hair.

If you move the cat bed out of your line of vision the dirty blanket will not bother you until you get a good look at it. About every 2 or 3 months.

WHEW!! You're wearing me out with all this cleaning stuff. Good for you though :-)

I usually go for a month or more without washing the cats blankets unless they're truly icky. But, I use this kick-arse sponge to take away all the fur. It's amazing the gobs of fur you can get with it.

Here's some linkage:

http://www.doctordog.com/store/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=B-209954

Phooey....forgot to mention.

You can cut waaaaaaaay down on the shedding with this brush.

http://www.furminator.com/

I have 3 (white) cats myself and have found it makes a huge difference not only with the tumbleweeding furballs, but also, you're pant legs will be MUCH less hairy.

Good luck!

I have two cats and wood floors and yes, I do get the cat hair tumbleweeds -- and what a perfect name for them. I always thought of them not as dustbunnnies, but as dust dinosaurs (or some other very large animal), as mine get really REALLY big before I end up doing something about them, (usually under threat of houseguests).

(And what's up with these people giving you grief over how you clean? People just can't leave well enough alone...).

Know what's so great about the CAP blog? Sometimes the commenters are almost as funny as the author (almost, I said almost!!).
Lynda the Guppy gets my vote for best tumbleweed explanation.
And I'm so amused to see how many people refer to the creation of a new pet from the collected tumbleweeds: my Mom always used to say she could sweep up enough hair to knit us a new dog weekly! Now I enjoy telling hubby that there's enough hair in the cat blankie to knit us up another kitty. I guess that means I'm not washing that enough, huh? I'm so nervous about clogging up my newish front-loader that I take that blankie to a laundromat! Thanks to Heather for the damp towel suggestion, and Jess for the pet-hair-mitt one. Those sound like good ways to minimize those laudromat trips (does anyone else hate the laundromat the way I do? it's almost pathologic).
And finally, thanks to Laurie and everyone else who mentioned that perfection (especially in house-keeping!) is pretty much impossible- it's good to be reminded of that from time to time. Happy weekend everyone!

Oh, and as far as how often to clean the cat blanket? I'm not the model person to ask, but I probably clean them about once a month at most. They clearly need washing more often than that, but that doesn't happen here....

Kitty bed: probably once a month. Although the inimitable Cat for Scale has started sleeping under the covers again, making his bed my bed and assuring the kitty bed will be washed weekly.

Tumblecatweeds are totally normal for wood floors. I think the fur just doesn't stick in bits to the carpet anymore... all it has to stick to is itself, and apparently cat hair always wants to stick to something.

Last, if you like "Myth Busters," check out BBCA's "Top Gear." While it isn't the same philosophy, it's the same attitude and it never fails to crack me up. Besides, sometimes Ewan McGregor drops by. Yum.

Purly, honey - don't feel like you have to do it once. When I was at one of those "stages" and it seemed like my whole life was one huge wad of hairball, I, too, felt as though a complete reordering of life priorities was in order - and that was WAY too big an order for me to handle in my then-pretty-precarious state of mind.

It was pointed out to me that the best way to make major changes in your life is to make minor changes that you can control. Think of it as if your life is a ship waaaaaay out in the ocean and it's headed for some giant whirlpool of hell featuring the most ginormous sea monster in all creation (at least that's what My Life felt like at that point!) If you make a small course correction right at that moment, your ship will end up in Cabo San Lucas instead of, say, Duluth - or that whirlpool.

So even going a pale sage green in your cleaning habits is great. If every person who reads you does the same, even to a tiny extent, the impact increases. And the more you learn and adapt, the greater the impact. Al would be sure to at least give you a great hug, even if you couldn't snag a date!

Small course corrections, made while traveling, change your destination - and make the trip more interesting too!

And the kitty-fur tumbleweeds? Definitely a wood floor thing. Even with just one elderly Maine Coon girl, I could still knit a couple of extra kittens every week with what she puts out. And if anyone can explain to me why a cat who spends 23 hours a day asleep in one spot can spread enough loose fur around to all four rooms of my itty-bitty house, have at it!

Oops, forgot to mention - I call them dust rhinos (as opposed to the much more benign "dust bunnies" some people have.)

Ecover: Also available at Costco. Very large house sizes, but there nonetheless.

Cat hair tumbleweeds? Well here at wood floor central, when they get large enough, I name them. They're actually perfect second (third, fourth...) cats. No extra poop to scoop, set good example for furniture destroying/plant terrorizing feline dictator/life-rulers (although he prefers to call himself "life coach to human-cat-slave", much more pc), never run out of food but still manage to grow, grow, grow.

Additional benefit: Entertains guests who like my cooking but lack cat experience...

Hey, I forgot to comment yesterday that I've used Borax to rid our carpet of fleas when we bought our house. Just spread the borax over the carpet and let it set (we had a couple of days since we hadn't moved in). Then vacuum over the carpet really well--voila! The fleas never came back!

You are such an inspiration! I've been trying to go green too but to me nothing smells clean unless it reeks of bleach.

For now, I'm just going to be proud of my reusable grocery sacks and continue to enjoy the smell of bleach:) At least until I can find some of those tree frogs...

You would think they brought in all the nieghborhood animals for a party. I have dog tumbleweeds and they create a forest daily. I should sweep every day, you would think I should sweep every day, but I don't.

Seems to be everyone's in agreement on the issue of "dust kitties"! I'd especially agree with the folks who said be grateful the fur is loose and not matted to your carpet! I am also one of those people who brushes their cats - they love it, and it really helps keep the loose hair in check. Which is not only an issue for shedding on the floor and other areas, but for preventing big, nasty HAIRBALLS! (And oh yes, for a long-haired kitty in the summer, it's all hairballs, all the time).

For washing the cat bedding - well, Thing One is a princess and sleeps with me, so her "bedding" gets washed when mine does! Her daytime napping spots all seem to be hard surfaces - shelves, window sills, etc - no clue why. Thing Two is outdoors, and has her own little house outside with a bed box - the liner on that gets changed out every other week or so.

Kudos on the cleaning - but please keep us posted on any updates concerning availability of tree frogs!

yes, tumbelweeds. I have one cat and one (very very large) dog and I vacuum daily. Love to vacuum. In fact, I asked my mom for a brand new hand vac for my bday this year. I was as happy as if she had given me pearls!

As per your question on cat hair cover blankets and such...

I have a black kitty and this beautiful cream colored microfleece blankie that she has decided is hers. As you can guess, that blanket gets covered in black cat hair in about 3 seconds flat.

I am lazy in washing it...I will do this origamy type thing where I fold and refold the blanket until I find a spot that is cat hair free. When all those spots are gone and it resembles a nasty hair mess, then I will wash it, which is like whenever I remember.

She also has a small cat bed she lays in from time to time. That one I vacuum out once a week. I could probably wash that one as well, but like you said in your post, vacuuming is so great and picks up EVERYTHING.

You have so inspired me with your decluttering and cleaning that I'm doing the same thing to my house. Here's hoping it goes as well!

I found the corner wads when I put in bamboo floors. Three cats, two dogs, and me are terrible shedders.
My secret.....a box fan. Stick in one corner of the room, turn it on high, leave the room for an hour or more, come back and vacuum the dust buffaloes out of the opposite corner. Any way to do less housework is tops in my book. Take it from a fellow southerner.

the one thing about the new bucket & caddy? most household plastics now a days have their recycling codes marked on them, and if you break them, wear them out, what have you, you can RECYCLE THEM. sheesh.

my pet peeve is that my city only recyles 1 & 2. most pudding cups/yougurt cups/etc are6's. i have teenage boys who can't wait for pudding to set, and i'm a busy mom, so i buy the pudding cups. annoying!

Laurie!
You really must try the Baggus! I love them!
http://www.baggubag.com/
Thanks for all you do!

Tumbleweeds? Tumbleweeds?! Yesterday I Dyson-ed the two upstairs rooms, moved furniture, etc and had to empty the canister 3 TIMES! One cat and one dog. They should be bald by now, but (sigh) sadly they are not.

When I was in school fulltime- I got a housekeeper just so my 3 kids would continue to have clean laundry. She used a lovely combination of vinegar and water to clean my shower and it sparkled.

First you start with spring cleaning the house and then it turns into stash management. Good bye synthetics! You know deep down (perhaps way deep down) you know you have some god forsaken fun fur!

While you are detoxifying your house, how about mining it for energy savings?

Read the very entertaining guide, "What Every Westerner Should Know About Energy Efficiency and Conservation" at the Center of the American West website. See http://www.centerwest.org/projects/energy/index.php

While you are detoxifying your house, how about mining it for energy savings?

Read the very entertaining guide, "What Every Westerner Should Know About Energy Efficiency and Conservation" at the Center of the American West website. See http://www.centerwest.org/projects/energy/index.php

I live in LA, too. We have never lost anything from our clothesline in 10 years. We did, however, gain a beach towel when our next door neighbor tossed his towel a little bit further than he intended. Usually, he hangs it on the fence to dry.

http://badmomgoodmom.blogspot.com/2006/05/shibori-slideshow.html

If you are still worried, you could use a clothesrack inside. I know someone who hung a clothesline inside her house.

I totally support your greening and am trying to do the same thing since I found out i was pregnant (times 3)..... switched to a lot of the Method products in particular. BUT then you go and say you use Wal-Mart lemon juice! WAL-MART is the DEVIL! Don't undo all your good by giving them even a penny of your money. I know Al Gore hates Wal-Mart, I can feel it. :)

A fellow cat lover who obsesses when they clean the toilet that the cat will accidentally drink bleach and die -

First time commenting - Hi All! I use essential oils for just about everything and wanted to share some info I had with y'all.

This first website has some great information about different essential oils and what they can be used for. In particular, I would read the "Hazardous Essential Oil List" to make sure you know which oils you don't want to leave down where the kids (with or without fur) might get to.

http://www.aromaweb.com/essentialoils/default.asp

Lots and lots of great info here :)

There are a lot of advertisers on Aroma Web for selling essential oil. A lot of places seem to gouge you though. Ok, certain oils will cost a lot, because it's difficult to process whatever part of the plant is needed to obtain the oil. Myrrh for example, or Rose. If you find one of these for cheap, then it likely isn't an essential oil...just a fragrance. Or it has been diluted with a carrier oil already. A pure essential oil will work best for cleaning. One cut with a carrier oil already would work great for personal use (as long as you aren't sensitive to it that is...sucks to buy a bottle of something only to find out it makes you break out).

This is a place online where you can buy straight essential oils (and fragrance if you want) for a decent price. You can maybe go in on a larger bottle, or one of the more expensive oils with a friend.

http://www.fragranceandflavors.com/default.aspx

If you purchase in the large bottles and split it, make sure you put it in dark glass bottles for everyone...this will keep the oils strong and healthy and happy longer :)

Er...that's about it. Except, this is my favoritest book in the UNIVERSE about Essential Oils. The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy by Valerie Ann Worwood

Alrighty then! Essential Oil Geek Girl Over and Out!

Washing the cat blankets! I wonder about this with my non-shedding but sand-magnet dog, too...if I wash his bed MORE often, will it smell less comforting to him? If I wash it LESS often, will my mother fly across the country and scold me for my slatternly housekeeping? One thing, with shedders: lint-roll the blanket before it goes in the wash...all that hair can clog your washer/dryer.

Also, you've inspired me to get a big bottle of lemon juice.

I want to thank you for the tip on lemon juice for the showerhead. Forgive me but I thought that would never work. Low and behold I tried it and it was amazing! You are my cleaning guru! About the cat blankies- my cat just sleeps on my exercise bike (it's a recumbent), but I only wash my dog bed every 3 months. Is that gross? They don't smell, and my dog has every allergy known to man, so I don't want to irritate his skin anymore than I have to. If you find a good cat/dog bed cleaner, let a fellow Texan know!

Yes! It is normal to get huge tubbleweeds of cat hair when you have wood floors. I have found that having a dry Swiffer works really great for sweeping up cat hair every day (insted of pulling out the loud vacume that scares the cat)

I get the tumbleweeds of pet hair on my wood floors too, and my theory is this:

When pet hair doesn't have a carpet to tangle into, it likes to form into balls of varying size. Theoretically, it has more power that way.

Tumbleweeds? Oh, honey, I have actual boneless, skinless CATS rolling in the corners - I mean, 4 cats (and a dog who sheds if you look at him funny...and even if you don't) create such a ton of fur that, unless I swept every day (HA!) I'd never stay ahead of it all! I just figure I'm waiting till there's enough fur to glue together a new cat, the MookieBelleRavenGroucho monstercat! The only thing stopping the tumblefurs from taking over are all the brightly colored plastic toys (AKA toddler crap) stopping them!

Hey ladies,
I realise I'm WAY down here in the comments, but just wanted to chime in on the tumbleweed/dust issue.
Do you guys over there have rubber brooms? Like a normal broom, but they have little stubby bristles made of rubber - sounds bizarre, but they are brilliant on hard floors (wood and tiles). You can use them wet or dry, with or without detergent, indoors or out - highly recommended. And no, promise I don't work for them. I'm just a lazy housewife slattern who likes to keep her free time for the wine :)
have a look here: http://www.jmldirect.com/product.asp?pf_id=R1099&dc_id=wonderbroom|870421264&gclid=CNqRmvirxY4CFRcGEgodFyKzxA
Good weekend all!

Hey,
haven't ya'll ever heard of Shaklee? They make the best green cleaning products! All natural and time tested, they've been making them for years. Now, don't mind the price, you get a big container of that clean everything stuff and it will last you forever! I also love Young Living Essential Oils for cleaning- you can clean everthing in the house with them and they are totally non-toxic and they smell good too! When my army of cats (2) is getting a little wild, I break out the Peace and Calming oil, swish it around and we are all happy. The only chemical cleaner I still use is an occasional shake of the comet container, for the kitchen sink.
Oh, and the tumbleweeds are normal- try collecting and spinning into some type of knitting yarn!

I think you're doing great! I tried the lemon juice on my shower head (my before made your before look CLEAN), dude, I was amazed!
Now... when are you going to be 'nicer' to yourself and go 'No Poo Hair'? Clean with baking soda, rinse really really well, then rinse with a bit of lemon juice in water, rinse well. Wonderfully shiney hair, no tangles.

Borax is awesome for getting rid of fleas in your carpets too. Just sprinkle it on the carpet and let it sit for however long you can stand (20 minutes, an hour, or however long the cats can stand being locked up in the bathroom while you're doing this) and vacuum it up. Works like a charm.

Move over on that Failed Homemakers' bench, there, cellmates!

On the cat blankie question: I always have to use one of those velcro-ish lint brushes on the cat beds before throwing them in the wash, and many times I discover that after I've used the lint brush, the bed doesn't need to be washed after all. (I amaze myself.)

On the hardwood floor/cat hair question: I have found that one of those funny-looking rubber brooms with the zillion little rubbery "bristles" does a fantastic job of getting not only cat and dog hair but also DUST off the floor, without letting any of it get away. Didn't even realize there were escapees being blown right back under the furniture until I tried the rubber broom, which I had bought for my deck. Now I use it for the house and don't sweep the deck at all. Whoops.

Where do you get the grapefruit essential oil? Is that from Whole Food$ also? I love the smell of grapefruit and maybe it would encourage me to actually, you know, clean the counters.

As I always say, do things your way and to hell with everyone else. To quote Ben Folds Five, there's always someone cooler than you or in this case, there's always someone who thinks they know better than you. Whatev!

Good on you to be making small changes. Those are the best ways to do things. :)

You can also use Borax to make flubber (http://www.omsi.edu/visit/playground/activities.cfm). It's amazing. Really.
And yes, pet hair tumbleweeds are normal. Yucky, but normal.

I decided to try the lemon juice on my shower head. It was too gross for pictures. I had it on for about 2 hours, checked it and it was perfect! When I turned on the faucet to rinse it out, the water came out green and then flushed out. Rock on with your bad self Ms. Clean Green!

Re: cats, tumbleweeds, wood floors, and corners. Yes, perfectly normal, all that cat hair was caught by the carpet before. However, you ain't seen nothin' until you add a couple of large shaggy dogs, one with an Arctic coat, into the household. Tumbleweeds the size of Connecticut. Or Orange County.

since cats clean themselves, I sorta figured they cleaned their own bedding, too. crap.

From an animal shelter manager ... because you have a stable population of the same cats all the time, you are not having to deal with new pathogens coming in along with the day's new feline arrivals, so daily breakdown and decontamination of pet bedding is overkill, unless a pet beomes ill with a communicable disease OR you have a flea infestation OR an asthmatic pet.

Borax is great to use in laundry but do not use it in liquid solution -- on floors in particular, or on any surface your cats may walk on and later lick their paws. The body doesn't get rid of borax very quickly, and it can cause serious kidney damage. Likewise, don't let it make contact with your eyes, nose or mouth while handling it, for the same reasons. Use the same sensible precautions you use with bleach.

Another vote for the rubber broom here -- LOVE mine and it really, really works. Also have one with a short handle to use like a whisk broom. Available at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Folks, never use Lysol around pets. Bleach or hydrogen peroxide is far better for sanitizing surfaces. Lysol contains phenols. Toxic, toxic, especially if your pets walk on damp floors and lick their feet.

Laurie, don't let unpleasant comments get you down. If you purchase a plastic durable item it means you are NOT using X number of disposables, and also, regarding buckets? Bleach can react with metals. it does not react with plastic. Plastic is sometimes better for certain things. If we can all just minimize our use of plastic DISPOSABLES, ahhhh ... that's the BIG green step.

Cats and dogs generally like their blankies to smell somewhat like themselves, so unless they actually become soiled, you should only wash and sanitize pet blankies about once a week. Two weeks, tops. If hair accumulation displeases your eye, you can pop the item in the dryer for a couple of minutes to dislodge the hair. Another option is to lay a towel or an old T-shirt over the pet bed to catch the hair and dander. Old pillow cases work, too.

Pet dishes, on the other hand, should be washed daily, just like people dishes, but I have no doubt you already do that. I like to have two sets of bowls -- one drying in the sink and one on the floor in use.

Yup, if you have pets and wood floors you will have tumbleweeds. At our house we call them "Tribbles." Either redecorate with a Western theme or get a swiffer -- unless you really, really love that vaccuum!

Ask your veterinarian to order you a gallon of Nolvasan (chlorhexadine diacetate). About $35-40 a gallon, but you mix one ounce to a quart of water and use in a spray bottle to sanitize surfaces. Safe to use around pets, just follow precuations on the label, and it does not have the strong odor of bleach. It's a good idea to rotate the sanitizers used in your home, it makes it more difficult for bacteria to develop a resistance.

I wanted to weigh in on the cat hair situation. I know you love to vacuum, so you might like this one: I vacuum my cat's pillow (which used to be mine but was highjacked early on) about once a week and wash it about once an month.

Also, I have two dogs, one cat, a husband, a four-year-old and another baby on the way. I try to stay on top of the housecleaning, and have discovered that unless I vacuum every day or two I do get those pet-hair tumbleweeds in the corners of my living room and hallway. Our hardwood floors are new and it's taken a bit of getting used to. I just pick them up & throw them out whenever one jumps out or growls at me. And, I keep a Swiffer handy so I can put my preschooler to work swiping them up between my vacuuming.

Thanks for the info about the less toxic housekeeping tricks. I'm always looking for ways to make our home healthier for my family!

I was given an amount of some swedish microfiber thingies by an aunt of mine. She used to own a house cleaning company and took those rags to clean all hard surfaces- without any chemicals. Just soak them in clear, warm to hot water, wring out till nearly dry, and wipe. There are rough ones to clean, and very smooth ones to polish, and even the dirtiest windows or nicotine-stained mirrors are clean in a minute. Chrome plated faucets are no problem, too. And for toilets and showerheads: lemon juice, as you do.
For hard floors, there´s a kind of dry mop which works by static charge. You can easily wash it and dry it in the tumbler. It´s attached to a kind of broomstick with a strip of velcro. You just throw it on the floor, put the broomstick on it and off you go- it works fast, makes no noise and may be used often before it needs washing. My four cats shed as if being paid for it, and dust bunnies are no problem with this pad. There´s a pad for "wet work", too. This needs to be washed at 95° C from time to time to regain it´s full power. And you should not use fabric softener, it won´t work properly when rinsed.
For dusting I have an ostrich feather duster. Takes cat hair off my books easily, and the cats love it, too- I think I have to buy them one, too.
As I have four red and white cats and a dark blue sofa, there are always blankets on the sofa, in cat-matching colours. They are usually washed once a week- but if anyone threatens to come over, I have to do it more often, for you cannot see the cat hair on these blankets- unless you sit down with your nicely washed and pressed black jeans and t-shirt. That´s not only jail, that means hell and damnation. Forever.

My granny used to call the tumbleweeds "slut's wool." Nice! Maybe instead of thinking the tumbleweeds are bad, we should call them Nature's Freerange Fiber and embrace their presence in the house.

But damn, do you get a lot of comments! Anyway, about clotheslines...it's too bad you can't have one in the best friggin' place in the country to dry clothes outside. I live in Wisconsin, so our outdoor clothesline is of no use about 6 months of the year. We do have a dryer we use sometimes, but in the winter we hang laundry on wooden drying racks next to the washing machine. It takes a day or so for everything to dry (I bet it wouldn't take that long in L.A., given the climate), but it saves some energy and clothes don't wear out as fast. Just sayin'

Anyway, kudos to you for all the changes in cleaning products. We need to do more of that ourselves! (My husband is the designated bathroom cleaner, for which I am forever grateful, but he does love those toxic products to clean the john.)

My mother got one of those little steam cleaners (there's a bunch here: http://www.target.com/gp/browse.html/ref=in_br_display-ladders/601-8986391-0015339?ie=UTF8&node=368152011 , the ones that look like mutated watering cans). We get mold around our window frames in the winter (which I'm allergic to) and can't use bleach (another thing I'm allergic to), and the steam kills it dead and pushes it right out of those teeny crevices. Works for soap scum on shower doors, too.

Yeah, I have wood floors, three dogs, 4 cats and 4 birds... so my tumbleweeds include feathers!

In regards to bleach, I think "toxic" is not really the correct word, perhaps powerful is better? Here is a partial quote from the chlorox site

"is proven to be versatile as a disinfectant and a powerful cleaner in your home. In fact, it's so powerful that it is often perceived that bleach is harmful for the environment. But the fact is that bleach starts as salt and water and ends as salt and water."

First, I have to tell you that your blog posts lately have totally motivated me to do some reducing and serious cleaning, too. Today alone, I have actually hung pictures on my walls. They've only been sitting in a box for a year and a half now. I made a nice, manageable list of tasks, and page one is totally crossed off.

Secondly, I don't have cats, but I do have hairy rabbits, and I wash their towels/rugs/blankets once a week. During their heavy shedding periods (rabbits have a couple of REALLY heavy sheds a year, like, I wonder where the hell all of the hair is coming from because it's in giant clumps and they don't have bald spots), I replace the stuff once or twice during the week, and wash it all together.

Thirdly, I only have one wood floored area, and one linoleated (I see I just invented that word) room where the rabbits go, and I don't even try to sweep those tumbleweeds. I vacuum them up. But then, like you, I LOVE to vacuum!

And lastly, I fail to see how there could be anything wrong with buying a plastic bucket after getting rid of plastic bags. I don't even see how they're related! I have nearly eliminated plastic bags by buying an embarrassing number of canvas bags that I leave everywhere so I'll never be without one. I do like to have a few of those small bags on hand, though, because they're good to use as liners in small trash bins. Now I just need to calculate the perfect amount of tupperware to have on hand so I can stop using those plastic baggies....

Re: cat hair.

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out how our cats could transform one pound of cat food into one pound of poop PLUS one pound of cat hair. Then it hit me.

Like legumes, cats are capable of fixing nitrogen from the air, as well as carbon dioxide. That's how they are able to synthesize enough protein to grow so much hair, which of course needs to be shed so they don't just expand endlessly.

Cats also often display another legume-like behavior: they spend long periods of time not moving.

I wash his highness' bed coverings once a week - sometimes change it in between if company is coming. Actually, my cats sleep anywhere they choose to so whadda ya do?

Yes, it is normal to get cat hair tumbleweeds on wood floors. Most of my house has wood floors, and with two cats, one of whom is huge and furry and sheds loads year round, I have cat hair tumbleweeds all the time. They do make it a little easier to pick up though!

Hey! I just read your recent posts about green cleaning. Good for you! I'm sure the cats appreciate the lack of fumes. I do most of my cleaning with a hand-held steamer. I find 22oz of distilled water is enough to clean 3-1/2 bathrooms (INCLUDING the mirrors {steam and squeegee}), the hardwood floors on 2/3 of the first floor, and the kitchen sink. And it's sterilized because it's steam! It's like forty-three-gajillion degrees, right? My only limit is the inside of the toilet bowls too. Still love my Lysol for that...

Re: washing the cat bedding, I use white towels and I have a black cat. I can pretty much go by the visuals. I think someone said that the animals avoid it when it's too ripe, and I know that's true too.

Let me also ring endorsements for Murphy's Oil Soap. Wood floors love it.

Yes, the cat hair tumbleweeds on wood floors grow and multiply like rabbits. Very furry rabbits. They also seem to know when the vacuum cleaner is coming, and they roll away from it. As un-eco-friendly as this may be, my best friend when I had all wood-floors in the living/dining room was a swiffer. It's fast, quiet, and actually DOES catch all those hairs. It's also disgusting to see how much dirt was on the floor when you throw out the little swiffer sheet.

I wash my cat's blankets about once every 2 months. I guess I figure the cat hair ain't goin' anywhere, and my cat gets pretty mad when I mess with her stuff. I may be more on the not-yet-tidy side of things, though...

Hi Laurie!
I applaud your effort to switch to less toxic cleaners! Way to go! :) I have to take part in this conversation about natural vs. artificial/synthetic, though... As a chemist, a pet peeve of mine is people calling certain things "natural". I take issue with Drew calling chlorine natural -yes, chlorine is found in nature as a part of other compounds, such as salt, but free chlorine (Cl2) is rarely found in nature, because it is so reactive (it wouldn't just linger around, but react with other molecules). So if you say that something is natural, because the element is natural, well then every chemical would be natural, because they are made of elements that are all natural. I don't know, if this makes any sense, but my point is that chlorine isn't really very natural (ammonia is much more so), and it does terrible things in our environment, when it ends up in the sewers and air, and eventually everywhere. I myself try not to use chlorine at all, except in dire emergencies, when my own benefit surpasses that of the environment, such as when my favorite white capri pants had a cherry stain in them... I'm sure Al Gore would approve, I mean, they are very cute capris!
And not to make this too negative of a comment, I LOOOOVE your blog, and I'm really going to try and make it to the Mall Of America to come see you in October!

Aunt Purl, when do you have time to sleep, work or socialize??? Between writing the posts (please don't quit!), reading the comments, and replying to some of them, I would think 24 hours in a day wouldn't be enough....

Rock on Sister! Guess what? All those toxic cleaning products are no longer going down your drain and into your water. This goes way beyond your house.

And about the bucket, although I can't speak for that particular bucket, those are often made from--drum roll please--recycled plastic.

I'll take the pledge and start using green cleaning products. I love Seventh Generation laundry detergent!

And Marcal toilet paper is 100% recycled and waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper than the others.

Re your cat questions... (I have 2 cats):

1) Cleaning the blankets: are you serious? this happens MAYBE quarterly at our house. We've given up most "cat blankets" because the hair is just out of control. Our solution instead: 1) We have a window seat and bought a dog (sorry) bed to fit - this gets a major lint brush treatment whenever I clean that room. 2) The other blankets we switched out to old towels. The cats don't seem to mind, and when it gets really really REALLY hairy, we refold to an unhairy part. After all unhairy parts have been haired up, we just throw it out and start with a new old towel. 3)All other "good" blankets remain somewhat hairfree as we attempt to be diligent about putting them away after the humans in the house use them. Bed comforters, etc can't really be helped - I bring them seasonally to the drycleaner where a nice Asian lady gives me a minor, but altogether manageable, guilt trip.

2) Hairball bunnies on hardwood floors: Totally unavoidable. We vacuum the whole place and the next day there is another small cat being borm in every corner of the house. The Swiffer is my friend. So far the worst offending area is anywhere there are wires or similar laying on the floor - the cat hair seems drawn to this mecca and is usually missed with my half-ass swiffer treatment. I'm working on trying to get as much of this type of stuff off the floor so the hairballs will be allows to travel freely, out in the open, where I can get them!

Btw, you are doing a great job! I agree w/the baby steps philosophy, and I've also had success tackling small areas that I come in contact with daily (yay, organized underwear drawer!!), which can be a big pick-me-up. You are inspiring, and I definitely appreciate you keeping off the hookers and smack.

;)

Laura

Thank you Laurie! At last, a place for me to reign as THE Queen...Failed Homemaker Jail, yayyyy!

Laurie: One of the best things I ever purchased: The feather duster from flylady.com. You'll thank me. . . honest you will.

We definitely have dog-hair tumbleweeds - it's like a Clint Eastwood movie at my place before vacuuming day. You can hear the "ooee-ooee-OOOOOOO" sound as I approach them. Sometimes we name them before we do battle. ;)

We have cat hair tumbleweeds moments after I vacuum. I imagine the same quantity of fur is in the carpeted areas of the house, it just sticks in place rather than combining forces and exponentially increasing its volume.

One trick we have with the kitty-fur covered surfaces is to use their wire-bristle brush *on* the upholstery/bedspread/kitty furniture carpet. It's awesomely effective (provided it doesn't destroy the fabric- but you'll know in the first instant if that's going to happen).

As for washing kitty-touched items, well, we washed the hand-me-down kitty bed before using it for the first time...

Tumbleweeds are VERY NORMAL! OMG...I have just one dog and one cat and the tumbleweeds are ENORMOUS!! I should really sweep more than I do...or get the hubby to tag team w/ me. heehee

I'm very curious about your green cleaning...could there maybe be some cleaning supply recipes posted? I'd be more tempted to try it out if I knew more about the exact amounts required. (call me a lazy internet researcher) But I'm impressed with your scientific trials to the Windex replacement.

First time poster.... I've been reading for a while and I figured it was about time I thanked you. I quit blogging a year or two ago. Whenever I miss it.... which is often, I read yours! I laugh when you talk about the strange everyday happenings. I "awe" every kitty photo. Most of all, I applaud your bravery. YES, BRAVERY! I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees themselves in you. They probably appreciate your humor and inspiring optimism as much as I do. Thanks! And don't worry you aren't alone... my hardwood floors are covered in kitty hair tumbleweeds!

Hasn't anyone mentioned wool dusters? I much prefer mine to the feather one, since it actually attracts the dust somehow (lanolin? fuzziness?) and the feather one just moves a lot of it around. I have a set of 3 that I got when I bought my Oreck vacuum (and Purl, if you love vacuuming you have got to check them out - your house smells cleaner afterward even if you don't use their scented dohickies.)

Hurrah for fry-ups! As I just went and stayed in a bed-and-breakfast guest house for a few days whilst graduating, I've had about four in the past week. Watch out, my cholestrol!

On the subject of Kim and Aggie and vacuuming, I remember a very good tip that they once gave me (by way of the TV) about vacuuming small objects like ornaments/photo frames and such like - cover the nozzle of the vaccuum cleaner with the sock/foot bit from an old pair of pantyhose or a stocking, and tie it on tightly with a hair elastic.

That way, you can vacuum really small things through the fabric of the pantyhose but they won't get sucked up into the pit of cat hair and doom inside the vacuum cleaner. Woohoo!

I get far too excited about buying cleaning products.

I have carpet throughout my apartment and every other day, it looks like a cat exploded in my house. We have burned up 2 vaccum cleaners (and counting) with the tumbleweeds. The cat has kicked the dog out of his dog bed, and if I haven't washed it when she thinks I should have, she POOPS in it. I found cat hair floating in the toilet bowl last week. How? Why? Somebody help me...Thanks to whoever mentioned looking under the couch. I think there is another cat full of cat hair lurking under there.

I love reading the comments as much as the blog here. Some funny people you are! I love the idea that many of us have an extra pet: the one(s) that we originally brought home and the extra one slowly manifesting out of fur tumbleweeds - a pet "golem" if you will.

I can picture the introductions - "Well, this here is Flopsy, we got him at the SPCA. This is Mopsy, we got her a few years later. And this is Cottontail (points to tumbleweed golem), he tends to hang out in that corner and not socialize much".

Ooooh girlfriend. I get those cat hair tumbleweeds too since we replaced our carpet with wood floors. I have entire cats forming under the couches, in corners, next to coffee tables, and on my ankles if I stand still too long.

Laurie,

You are an inspiration with your efforts to regain your house and turn it into your home.

After reading your posts back at the beginning about taking over and decluttering your house I was inspired to get started on my own place. I'm in the seventh year in the same apartment and it never felt like home so I didn't attempt to make it so. Well....I got started. Purging and cleaning. Then I got the phonecall that my brother and his family wanted to come up to MA for a visit, annnnnnd my mother was coming too! Needless to say it was time to go totally crazy. I am now on the backside of the wonderful time with family and have a place I'm proud to live in rather than just a place to exist in. I am just about done shedding and shredding the last of the evidence of my divorce and love the results!

Thanks to you sharing all of your "fun", I was able to achieve what I thought was the unattainable.

Carrie

I have hardwood floors and three cats and two dogs and we have so many tumbleweeds that occasionally tiny cowboys break in and have a shootout in the living room. Which doesn't bother me, but MAN that tumbleweed whistling noise gets annoying.

Seriously, tho, I second the vote for the microfiber mop. Microfiber is about my favorite thing for cleaning anything. Fur just sticks to it like a magnet... it's MUCH better than a broom, and it doesn't choke up my poor vacuum cleaner. I swab up a whole cat every time I use it. (And I even furminate regularly - the cats just keep throwing their fur around like confetti.) I did have a problem with the rubber neck part (I got the Real Simple one from Target.) tearing in half, but I fixed it with duct tape. I also bought one spare head for it so that I didn't have to run a load of laundry every time I swept up.

My two dogs and cat throw serious tumbleweeds on my cement floors. My favorite tool for them is the dustbuster. I grab it off the wall and hit the tumbleweeds in the corners every couple of days. It only takes a minute and makes a big difference.

I had hardwood floors growing up and with 2 dogs and 3 cats, someone had to sweep/dust mop the floor every day (or two..) It's crazy how much fur animals lose in one day!

Thanks AngieM! I will defiantly look into the whole essential oil thing! :)

re: is it normal to get cat hair tumbleweeds in the corners of the living room now that I have these wood floors?

My husband and I used to call those dust rhinos. We had a dog and two cats and if we weren't careful the dust rhinos would grow to the width of the door they were hiding behind.

Ah, yes, cat fur dust bunnies. They are extremely common with wood floors, and they crop up with no warning. Leave a pair of shoes in the same place for a couple of days, then pick them up and a lovely wad of lint/cat hair/my hair/other-stuff-I'd-rather-not-think-about will be dangling from the sole. The Roomba does what it can, and the rest...well, the rest are probably tucked so far back in a corner that anyone who finds them probably wouldn't be welcome in my house again...lol.

The book!!! It was at my bookstore yesterday, and I brought it home and read it amongst my cathair tumble-bunnies and around the cat, who wanted to cuddle up and rub noses.
Hurray, CAP, it's touching and fun and informative and wonderful!! Thank you so much for having the ability and cojones to write it all down!!!

I am trying a little bit of the greener cleaning myself. You can't beat how cheap it is. I just bought some Borax. I've also decided that I'm going to be a big lemon juice user instead of vinegar. Hate that smell so much. I used lemon juice on the shower heads this weekend and they sparkle!

Totally unrelated to cleaning--I too got your book today WOOOOOOO!

Also, I notice you are not coming to San Antonio. What if I gave you some tamales?

Cat hair tumbleweeds.

Yes.

Very noticeable on hard wood floors.

It's a good thing you like to vacuum. Feel free to stop by my house any time you get the urge. If only you liked 8 hour road trips to wine country to vacuum.

:-)

Kitty tumbleweeds are natural occurances, especially in dry-ish climates. You can use used dryer sheet to pick them up. I put them on my swiffer and go nuts.

As for kitty quarters, I take mine outside and hose it off, as my washer and drier are allergic to fur balls.

FYI - a cup of white vinegar in the washer is a natural fabric softener without the chemicals, and the smell comes out in the rinse water. I put it in my downy ball.

Kitty blankets? Aren't those the things that cover your bed that actually belong to the four-leggers? BTW-I LOVE my Birkenstocks...just sayin'...

I love Kim and Aggie. I have their book! But be careful with Dr Gillian. We used to have them on one after another in the UK. You know how you start to hear Kim and Aggie in your head while you are cleaning? (Scrub dear, don't tickle!)Well Dr Gillian can do that too and that can really spoil your enjoyment of your post-cleanin bun.

I just picked up a copy of your book!!! I thought I was going to have to wait until next month... am I the last to know, the first to know?

Okay, sorry for being so late to jump on the bandwagon - I see people have left posts about vinegar as a fabric softener - you put it in the rinse cycle, it works great. Also, I think the key to a lot of this stuff, is sometimes you have to let it sit and work before you scrub - it becomes much easier! At least, i"m thinking of your shower doors. If you haven't already, I say take the...green(?) scrubby side of a kitchen sponge (whichever one is milder) and use on your shower door with your cleaner. If you have never read the book "Speed Cleaning", you should check it out - they have some great tips. I read somewhere that vinegar in your toilet disinfects as well as bleach - but I've never had a scaly toilet so I don't know how well it works for that. Maybe the key again is letting it sit - I frustrate myself sometimes with trying to use muscle. But you sound like you have it pretty spotless in there! :) (Now I have to find out when Kim and Aggie are on!)

and oh that was me.