A.J.
20 de abril de 2025
Deep clean or hand wash your laundry quickly
This has been a total game changer in how quickly and how well I'm able to keep my linens, appliances, & overall house clean.I bought this item to make it easier to pre-wash VERY dirty items before putting them in my washing machine. And to occassionally deep clean some otherwise "clean" linens (i.e., laundry stripping). I'm not the homesteading type, and I actually own a great washing machine & dryer. I just like to properly maintain my machines to ensure they can continue effectively cleaning the majority of our household linens. I find it a lot easier to pre-clean heavily soiled laundry as needed than having to frequently clear out all the nooks, crannies, filters, & hoses of my appliances. I also just enjoy having really clean clothes and linens.I mainly got this item to find an easier way to pre-wash my aging dogs' bedding & towels before running them thru my washer & dryer. (I use this tool to clean a bunch of other stuff, too, though.)I have 3 dogs. As they've gotten older, they shed a lot more. And their coats now get very greasy despite regular bathing. They also require fluffier and warmer bedding at their age. And to top it all off, we now live in an area where they constantly track in dirt & mud. So their bedding gets very furry & dirty quickly.My dogs have a lot of bedding. Mostly machine-washable mats, mattress encasements, sheets, & blankets. All ranging from infant/toddler sized items or smaller to very thick throw-size blankets. If I don't keep up with a regular cleaning routine, their stuff gets very smelly. And fur starts to tranfer all around the house.I used to pre-wash my dogs' bedding (and other stuff) in my bathtub. But I've gotten older, too. Stooping over a tub takes a toll on my already bad back. I also have a permanently damaged wrist. Plus, the whole process is just messy in general. It started taking me half a day to pre-wash all their stuff, then clean my bathroom when finished. It got to the point I was needing to do this *at least* every other week - sometimes weekly. I'd feel sore for at least 2 days afterwards.I tried the toilet plunger & bucket trick for a while. It was a lot easier & quicker than having to use just my hands. But it was only slightly more effective at actually cleaning *if* I went at it long enough. For some items, using my hands seemed more effective. I even added holes to the plunger to help move water thru the fabrics better. But then the plunger would gradually weaken until it needed to be replaced. It just wasn't working out as well as I hoped. At the rate that I was replacing the plunger, it would've been just a bit pricier (and a whole lot easier) to replace my dogs' increasingly grimey bedding with items from a thrift store every so often. But I couldn't bring myself to be so wasteful.Then I discovered this laundry tool!I was very skeptical to purchase it at first. I think I spent a whole week looking into it & debating whether it was worth it. (I really do hate being wasteful. Even if it means buying low quality items that I know will end up in landfill after minor use. I also hate feeling like I wasted money that could've gone towards something much better.) This item seemed quite pricey considering how simple it looked. I was bothered by the reviews complaining that the item was cheap & flimsy. (There was an identical looking item also listed on Amazon. I chose this one bc the other one had more complaints about the bar being flimsy or wearing down quickly. Apparently small parts of the bar are made with different materials. This item seemed to be made with more durable parts according to all the little details I was able to gather.) I was also skeptical that this item wouldn't clean any better than the plunger method. After all, they both essentially seemed to do the same thing.Luckily, I was wrong. This item is far superior. It does seem to be made with cheap materials that don't warrant such a high price tag. But the item has held up after several months of weekly sessions of washing dog bedding, towels, and a lot of other stuff. The plastic parts are pretty thick, so they're not easy to break if used as intended. Mine has survived many short drops on hard indoor flooring. I'm sure I could bend the metal pole if I put in the effort. (But why would I do that?) So far, it hasn't bent, broke, or started to feel loose with normal & proper use. The bar feels thicker, stronger, & sturdier than the bar of a Swiffer stick. It's about the quality of my heavy duty household mop (not commercial quality). It's just a lot more narrow.It turns out the overall design and firmness of the plastic head make this item way more effective at cleaning laundry than a thick rubber cup-style plunger with holes drilled into it. The pole length and handle make it way easier to use. VERY back & wrist friendly. (I just had some minor back procedures that made it difficult to bend & twist for several wks. I was still able to use this thing during that time. I just needed a little help putting items into a bucket & getting them out for a short period. This thing seriously reduces the amount of work & effort you have to put in when trying to thoroughly wash any items larger than socks & underwear.)This laundry tool saves a ton of time since you don't need to agitate the clothes as much or as forcefully as you do when using a plunger. I don't even break a sweat while using it. I no longer have to shower after handwashing a ton of items bc I got all sweaty or otherwise messy during the process.I found it best to use this tool to wash very small loads in either a 5 or 7 gallon bucket, inside of my bathtub. The bucket seems to improve the agitation process and save on the amount of water I use. I can better separate items I don't want to mix in one giant load (i.e., the dogs' blankets with work uniforms or cleaning rags, etc.). I can wash some items multiple times while doing a quick wash on others. The bathtub helps catch any accidental splashes, and it's just a convenient spot for pouring out water and hang drying some items.My dogs' bedding look, feel, & smell cleaner than they have in a very long time. The first couple of times I used this tool to pre-wash their bedding, I ended up going at least 5 full rounds on all items. It removed so much deeply embedded grime that had built up over the years. I spent about half a day just cleaning all of their bedding as much as possible. (I even did this for our bath mats & house slippers. It's crazy how much grime came out & the noticable difference this thing has made.) Now, it usually takes me less than an hour to pre-wash the majority of the dogs' linens and to clean up afterwards. (And that's a lot of heavily soiled linens. Enough to fill my extra large washer twice.)I also use this regulary to deep clean reusable mop pads, mop heads, swiffer pads & covers, cleaning rags, and such. My washing machine doesn't need to be wiped down after use or deep cleaned as often. I don't have to worry about various chemicals lingering in the basin and transferring onto clothes. I've bought more reusable cleaning items and started using them more frequently (and for a lot messier jobs) bc they're so much easier to keep up with now.Best of all, our regular laundry (the items I don't pre-wash by hand) continue to come out very clean & fresh after laundering with minimal effort. I no longer have to deal with hidden build up in the washer.(Side note: If you're interested in buying this item to keep up with pet bedding & ultra dirty items, you still have to vacuum or shake out as much fur & other debri as possible before washing. This thing is awesome, but it's not a miracle worker. It does work very well to lift out a lot of the stuck on pet fur that simpler methods can't remove, though. If you have a great filter on your drain, you'll be amazed at all you've washed off and were able to prevent from getting caught up in your washing machine.)I can't give any opinions on how well this item breaks apart for storage bc I've only taken the plastic bottom part off twice - just to make sure nothing was building up inside that I wasn't aware of. (Nothing was. I just make sure to spray all the crevices down very well with my handheld shower nossle. I have great water pressure, which helps to blast every particle out. Occassionally, I just throw a clean white towel in hot bleach water and use this thing to "wash" it. Then I leave this sitting in the bleach water for 10 min or so before rinsing it off. That's my method for periodically disinfecting. It has been effective so far.)I keep this item sitting in a bucket in my laundry room when not in use. I don't live in a big home, but it hardly takes up much space fully assembled. I use it so often that I see no point in disassembling it. But it's nice to know I can for camping trips and traveling. If you live in a camper/RV or other very tiny dwelling, then this thing will probably seem quite bulky. It takes up a lot more room than a typical toilet plunger. I don't like leaving it my bathroom for this reason.I would buy this item again for the same purposes. I would also buy it to handwash clothes if I didn't have a washing machine. (I'd occasionally want to take my clothes to a laundry mat, though. Maybe that's just bc I'm not used to handwashing everything. And maybe bc I have an unrealistic belief that a washing machine is superior to handwashing.) It's also great for stripping laundry if that's something you like to do.The only other thing to note is that if you don't have a washer or dryer, you'll need to find an easy way to wring out your linens after washing. I just use my hands... but I'm not trying to get everything as dry as possible (just dry enough to ensure they're as clean as I want and to transfer them to my washing machine). I tried laying items along my tub and using this to press the water out. It's not effective for that purpose.As far as energy efficiency goes... it can be. It definitely cuts down on washing machine use, which significantly reduces power usage. It has made me more open to use reusable cleaning items. I've decreased or fully eliminated ny usage of papertowels, cheap sponges, & disposable Swiffer sheets.As for water usage, though, it's hard to say. I guess it all depends on how much laundry you have and how dirty the items are. This laundry tool will work A LOT of dirt & grime out of linens. If you use it in a 5 gallon bucket, there's not enough space to put many items in at one time. The dirty water will need to be swapped out. You likely won't want to reuse the first batch of soapy water. You'll likely want to refill and do at least one more round of cleaning (no additional detergent added). Then you'll need to wring items out before rinsing the bucket & tool, then refill with more water to perform the rinse wash. You'll likely want to do 2 more rinse washes at a minimum to ensure all the soapy water is pushed out of the fabrics before drying. And that's all just for normally soiled clothes.You'll need a 5 gallon bucket at a minimum to avoid splashing water everywhere if you don't have a tub or an ideal outdoor area. The bottom plastic part of this item is pretty wide, so it would be difficult and less effective to use it in a smaller container than that.I feel this tool has greatly improved energy efficiency & water waste for me. Plus other waste. So it's worth the money I paid for it. I did use a ton of water when I first deep cleaned items. But after that, I can use far less. And far less than when I was washing items using only my hands. I can also just run a lot of items thru the quick wash cycle of my machine now. I also don't have to use extra rinse cycles on all of my laundry anymore.Ver másVer menos
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