Many people recommend flushing waste-pipes now and then with a strong hot solution of washing soda. The overflow pipes should be included in this performance. Good, new plumbing, however can probably be spared treatment of this sort.
Photograph by Helen W. Cooke
Air, Sun, and Water
Bedrooms are cleaned every week or every fortnight in the same way that other rooms are. They are apt, however, to contain closets and these require some special care.
Closets.—When a room is being prepared for cleaning, the floor and baseboards of the closet should be wiped with a dry mop or cloth—anything which will not make a dust—and the door tightly closed. Once in a while, before the cleaning of the room if there is time, if not, on some other day, the clothing should be removed from the closet, the walls wiped, and everything washed which can be,—hooks, wire hangers, the rods on which these hang, shelves and floor should be washed with water in which has been put a generous quantity of ammonia, borax or boracic acid. These things are not liked by the various small insects which annoy housewives. They also help to prevent mustiness and "close" odours. After the washing, everything should be carefully wiped dry, and as much light and air let into the closet as possible. The contents should not be put in again until this drying and airing is finished. Do not wash closets on a rainy or humid day. If they have a musty or unpleasant odour, a few drops of oil of lavender put on a shelf or on the floor will help to remove it. A little chloride of lime, poured into a saucer and set on the floor of the closet, will also remove odours. Little bags of lavender or rose-geranium leaves laid on closet shelves add much to the daintiness and freshness of the clothes kept there. The shelves should be covered with white paper cut, not folded, to fit the shelf. Folds afford harbourage for insects. Floors should be left without covering of any sort. Ideally, they are of hard wood like the floor of the room.
Clothes get more air, and are less creased and rumpled if they are hung on hangers suspended on a pole or wire, than when they are hung one piece on top of another on hooks fastened into the wall. Even in a wall closet, not more than ten inches deep, one gains space by stretching a strong wire from opposite hooks, and putting hangers on this. Four or five waists or dresses will hang without crushing on such a ten-inch wire. A closet with a shelf in it offers better hanging-space if hooks are put at intervals into the under side of the shelf. A hook like two J's, back to back, is made especially for this purpose.
It is well to give bedrooms a look of peacefulness. Some things which help in this are: perfect cleanliness, few decorations, few colours, a bed which looks like a bed, a regard for the occupant's wishes to have personal possessions one way rather than another, and something else—I have no name for it, but it is there because the housewife has wished, as she made the bed and arranged the room, that the person who sleeps there may have rest and quiet of heart.
She has folded into the sheets perhaps this prayer: