TULIP HOUSEHOLD 101: MYSTERIOUS WD40

If your husband has the old-car-syndrome, chances are that he spends an awful amount of time in the hood of his bonnet. With all the sticky, rusty, jammed parts found in old cars, he's definitely got WD40 nearby, or he should. WD40 is by far the most versatile solvent I have ever come across. It tackles stuff pretty much the same way salt seasons food. It will bust jammed joints quicker than you can say Open sesame! So I have it in my cleaning box. Dr. Melly has it, and so should you. Here's why:


Screeeeeech Silencer
What do you do when at 4am in the morning, you have to go to the bathroom, but you don't want to wake up the baby with the screeching door hinges? (a) You hold it till morning since it's only two hours away, and just pray you don't do it in the bush in your dreams; (b) You cough, sneeze or fart aloud as you open the door, since baby sometimes ignores your everyday sounds and so may not hear the screeching hinges; (c) You just go ahead and open the screeching door and be ready to stay up till morning sleepily entertaining the baby. All great options, I think. After taking option (b) and (c) countless number of times, hubby finally decided to spray the hinges with WD40, silencing the screeches once and for all. Now we get a good night sleep and the air is a little more fresh.

Removing Chewing Gum from the Carpet
My eleven year old daughter loves chewing gum. So we usually buy sugar-free, minty ones to spare her teeth. She's a responsible chewer so when she wants to save it, she'll put it in a cup and into the fridge. (She tries to go for the record, for the longest chewed gum). I know an adult in my house who sticks it on the piano or bedpost! When chewed gum ends up in hair or clothes it's not funny. So here's what to do. To remove gum from clothes, you can rub ice on it till it hardens, then scrape off with a butter knife or spatula. To remove from hair, you can use something oily like peanut butter or olive oil (which is also good for hair). Use your fingers or fine brush to remove. Chewing gum on your carpet can be removed by using WD40. Spray generously and remove with your fingers or fine brush. Spray the spot with diluted carpet shampoo and give it a little rub with a cloth to remove any remaining bits.

Permanent Marker Remover

Image: wd40.com

You may have come across this situation at work, when the office guy brought permanent marker instead of whiteboard marker. And everybody is oblivious until it's time to clean the board...a week later. In a previous post, I have mentioned how you can remove permanent marker stains from your walls. Let's go farther. You can remove permanent marker from a white board using WD40. Spray directly onto the writing. Give it some dwell time. But if you're in a hurry, just go ahead and rub rub rub with a cloth until it gets off. This also works on hardwood floors, but be careful as hardwoods here are often finished with petroleum waxes, which could be stripped if overdone.

Crayon Markings from Laptop Screen
The screen on my husband's HP laptop is very different from my Mac. I can't get crayon markings on my screen unless you really press the crayon. So I suppose this may work for certain laptop screens and not others. Good for me, I don't have to worry about these marks for now, but he does. In the event that our baby's artistic genes send her scribbling on his laptop screen as she's already done on our walls, I have discovered that WD40 removes it in an instant. Safely. Spray it on a cloth and wipe the screen (do not spray directly onto the screen).

Unwanted Scratch Marks
While driving home one evening I came face to face with an angry mob just before the Kangemi flyover. As I manoeuvred the car around to head back to Westlands (against the flow of traffic), a rioter managed to throw and hit my car with a stone. Luckily, it didn't dent the body but it scraped off the paint a little. I wasn't going to do a paint job yet so I used WD40 to make the scratch less obvious. So now you won't see the scratch but you can definitely feel it with your fingers. This same treatment can be made to scratches on the floor from dragging heavy furniture.

I know I have not even covered an iota of the wonders of WD40. How do you use it? Please share. I depend on it in my day to day household duties and in my cleaning service as a stain remover and carpet spot cleaner. Please note that WD40 is a highly volatile solvent and so it should be used away from fires. Some have used it as a fire starter, but that is definitely not what it was meant for. And if you're going to use it as a lubricant to slip your hands off a pair of hand-cuffs, who am I to judge you?