No Scrub Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Long before I had children, my mom and I had a conversation about choosing to be a stay at home mom.  I had asked her if she ever got tired of staying home with us 5 kids and if she had ever wanted a career.

The only thing I remember her saying is "you can find satisfaction and fulfillment in the daily tasks of being a stay at home mom.  Even cleaning a toilet can be an uplifting experience because you know that by cleaning that toilet you are keeping your family healthy and safe from harmful bacteria."

I don't know why that comment has stuck with me all these years, but now that I have a 4 year old boy I have decided that my mom was wrong......very, very, wrong.

When she told me that, I think 1 of 3 things was going on
1) as she was saying this she was thinking "ha ha, this sucker is totally buying it."
2) she has suppressed the memories of having to clean a toilet that is being used by a little boy
3) my brother had good potty manners, unlike my son who likes to see how good his aim is "I wonder if I can make it in the garbage can from here.... nope, maybe the bathtub..."

Sorry mom, cleaning a bathroom is gross and if I could, I would hire someone to do it for me.

Naturally when I saw a Pin about not having to scrub the inside of the toilet bowl, I ran to the kitchen to grab what I needed so I could try it out right then.

It was one of those pins that tells you the pin has been tagged for spam if you click on it, so I can only tell you what the description on the pin was

Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Punch a hole in the top of a bottle of vinegar and sit the bottle in your toilet tank. In doing this you will save water, as the tank wont fill as much, the vinegar will clean your toilet AND tank on each flush, it leaves the bathroom smelling fresh and it doesn't harm any component of your toilet OR the environment when flushed.

The only un-opened bottle of vinegar I had was plastic, and even though it was full of vinegar I wasn't sure if it would stay in one place.  I put it in the tank and sure enough that bottle was trying to make a break for it. It kept floating and bobbing all over the place. 

So instead, I grabbed a mason jar, filled it with the vinegar and by using a hammer and nail I punched a hole in the top. 

There wasn't a lot of room in the toilet tank, so I'm glad my mason jar was smaller. I scrubbed my toilet, put the mason jar in the tank then started to count the days to see how long it kept the bowl clean.

The Verdict: Every time I flushed I would look at the jar to see if I could see the vinegar coming out, but I couldn't ever tell.  The toilet I had put it in usually starts to grow things around the 10th day after cleaning it. On the 14th day after I put the mason jar in the tank I started to see growth in the bowel.

I pulled the jar out and was surprised that it still smelled strongly of vinegar.  Clearly the vinegar wasn't getting out easily. So I decided to try again.

I poked another hole in the jar and this time I put it upside down in the tank.  I was hoping that this would create a better flow system for the vinegar to get out with each flush.

 The Verdict: 3 weeks of a gunk free toilet!  I'll take it!

For a few months I attempted to refill the jar with vinegar before the three week mark so that I could see if I could keep the toilet bowl clean indefinitely, but I kept failing.  1 of 2 things kept happening.  1) I would completely forget, then one day look in the toilet and say "oh yeah, i forgot to change the jar." or 2) my two little ducklings would follow me and insist on helping which would result in me scolding them for getting toilet water on everything, or me cursing when the tank lid is pushed off the toilet and onto my foot. These outcomes would help me to quickly forget why I was in the bathroom in the first place.

Even though I still have to clean the outside of the toilet, and the floor, and the garbage can, and the ceiling, (just kidding) it was really nice to skip that step and not have to clean the inside of the toilet.