Household Tips for the Single Home

Dear Suzy,

I bought a pair of jeans a couple of months ago, and while I have washed them plenty, They still get blue on my hands, and also on my shirts.  I’ve even noticed that my driver’s side seat in my car has absorbed some of blue!  I’m not sure how to get them to stop with all the transfer.  Also, how do I get the blue out of my white shirts that it has stained?   

Blue,

Violet Boregard

Dear Violet,

I'm actually going to combine your answer with the answers to a few similar "household tips" sort of questions I've received, and make today's post all about making your home and possessions work for you! 

First, to answer your question, I'm guessing that when you're washing the jeans, you're using cold water, and possibly a color-locking detergent (if you're like me, you grab the "detergent for bright colors!" bottle thinking well yes, my clothes mostly have color... and don't think about what it's formulated to do to colored fabrics. First, soak the jeans in hot water, and then wash them either by themselves, or with other DARK clothes in HOT WATER! This could possibly fade the other darks, though. Look for normal detergent, you can even just buy a little, 4oz box at most laundermats if you don't have reason to buy a lot. The reason we normally wash darks and colors in cold water is to prevent fading, but if your jeans are holding in too much dye, this should help get rid of it. Depending on how dark the fabric is, it may take a couple of washes to work.

Also, to get the dye out of your white shirts- during my time as a pastry chef, and particularly in culinary school, we were required to have glowing, pristine white uniform jackets, we only had 5 to choose from, and we had to do our own laundry. I found the perfect combination that got rid of ANY stain- we're talking blood, chocolate, tomato, food coloring, you name it: use bleach, and add oxy-clean, and wash as normal.

Additional tips:

1. BUGS!!!!! -- Now, I live alone, and I have an exceptionally immature reaction to bug sightings in my apartment. I don't want to touch them, even to kill them, and I don't want to deal with the carcasses. But the unfortunate fact is, I live alone, and I do have the occasional wood-roach scuttle across my threshold, and usually not at a convenient time for me to be calling and bribing my male neighbor to come dispose of the beast. So I bought a pair of TONGS. Just a cheap, $2 pair of red-handled tongs, that I keep hanging on a hanger in my closet so that when I encounter a bug any larger than an ant, I can stay a safe 18 inches from it's remains while disposing of them. This brilliant idea came to me after stepping carefully around the carcass of my first kill for about 4 days to avoid coming into closer contact with it. ----Additionally, in order to keep my apartment cleansed of extraneous colonies, despite the possibility of filthy neighbors, I keep my apartment clean- Not necessarily tidy, mind you, but clean of food particles and open containers of food, I vacuum after eating on the floor or couch, and if I DO find ants or bugs making their way into my pantry, I dispose of open containers of food, remove all the contents of the pantry, and clean every surface of the pantry and kitchen with common, diluted vinegar. It smells for just a little while, but the acid will kill any eggs left behind by the critters.
2. Now, I know that not all of us are clean- I've seen some of your houses myself! I know that while it's a nice idea to wash your dishes as soon as you're finished with them, and take out the trash every night, it's NOT REALISTIC for many of you. For you, here are some special tips for keeping your untidy homes un-infested and smelling nice. if you put dirty dishes in the sink, and you tend to leave them for a while, soak them with water, but take care not to simply fill them with water- you need to submerge the dishes in water that has dish washing detergent in it. The detergent keeps bugs from being interested in eating and procreating in the remains of tuesday's yogurt (trust me on this, I have found maggots in my friend's sink before!) as well as fending off mold. 
3. Use trash bags, and make sure you buy big enough ones that you can tie it off WELL, and change it out before you fill it so full you can't tie it. This way, even if you forget to take out the trash, (I understand, it's an inconvenient walk for some apartment dwellers) your trash is sealed from critters and leaks. 
4. Hire one of your broke friends to clean your apartment FOR you every few months if you can't be bothered to do it yourself- they'll probably do it for a reasonable price, and you may have more motivation to keep it tidier after the embarrassment of their seeing how you live.
5. ALWAYS, if you live alone, keep an extra package of cheap backup toilet paper on hand, so that when you run out of the good stuff, and you have to pull it out, you know you need to buy more.
6. After throwing out most of a package of cheese and about 3 quarts of spoiled milk on separate occasions, I started a little co-op with someone in my building, we share dairy products. This is useful because he is single, too, and had the same problem of having his more perishable groceries going bad before he had come close to finishing them. You can also do this with produce- if you buy a tomato for a salad or tacos and have half left over, think ahead about whether you'll use it and if you're not sure you will, text a neighbor and ask if they could use it!
7. Don't force yourself to eat leftovers or risk waste- If you live by yourself, don't make enough food on one night to feed you for 5 unless you are certain you won't hate yourself on day 4 for forcing yourself to eat the same thing every flipping day. It is better to split a pizza with your neighbor than risk hating pizza after eating it for 5 straight meals.
8. As you may have picked up from the above tips, I am a HUGE advocate of good neighborly relations. Get to know your neighbors when you move in- bake cookies, or buy them, and bring them to the surrounding neighbors soon after you move in as an ice-breaker to introduce yourself. The advantages of doing this are countless, but I'll name a few:

• You meet and identify any sketchy characters you might want to keep your eye on.
• You meet and identify any attractive neighbors you definitely want to keep your eye on (if you know what I mean!).
• It lays a foundation so that if you ever have an issue with their being too loud, or if they have an issue with you being too loud, you can speak to each other about it before involving the landlord or police.
• You can feel a little safer walking in, especially if, like me, you live in a little bit sketchy area.
• The neighbors are better able and more inclined to get involved or at least notify you in the case of a fire, flooding, burglary, etc. happening in your home
• If the neighbors are nefarious characters, they're less likely to mess with you because you know their name and have seen their face, and vice versa.
• If the neighbors are nefarious characters, they're less likely to mess with you when given a choice because you're that nice person who brought them cookies and chats with them on the way inside, and they actually think you're pretty cool.

That's all I've got for today, folks! Sorry I posted a little later in the day than usual, I was in class... Tune in Wednesday for my next bit of wisdom; and please continue sending in your questions to asksuzyadvice@gmail.com or click on the "email us" link on the right-hand side of the page. Also, I'm really hoping to broaden my audience, so if you find anything you read here new, interesting, useful, or all three, please share it on your Facebook page, help a sister out!