How to Clean Toilets

How to Clean a Toilet: 3 Ways

The primary thing to keep in mind when you’re cleaning a toilet is that you’re not merely trying to make it look nice, as you might when dusting a lamp. You’re cleaning it for health reasons, and that takes more effort than dusting a lamp.

There are three approaches:

1. The “Germs? There are more of them around my washing machine, and I don’t sterilize that thing” approach. (Easy.)
2. The “Hey, wait a minute! Would you really want to sit on that seat?” approach. (Harder.)
3. The “By the time I’m done, this thing will stand military inspection” approach. (Hardest.)

1: The Easy Way to Clean a Toilet

Tools:

• Toilet Brush
• Scrub brush or wash cloth.
• Disinfectant Sprays
• Toilet Cleaner
• Rubber Gloves

Instructions:

1. Open the windows and door and turn on the fan – you’re ventilating your bathroom so you don’t choke on the fumes from your cleaners.
2. Flush the toilet to wet the sides of the bowl.
3. Squirt some liquid toilet cleaner up under the rim, all the way around the bowl and let it start running down the sides.
4. Swab the interior of the bowl with the toilet brush, getting up under the rim and putting a little more elbow grease into cleaning the area at the water line.
5. Flush the toilet. As the incoming water rinses the bowl, swirl the toilet brush to rinse it.
6. Use another brush or a wash cloth to wash the underside of the seat, the top of the seat, and the exterior of the toilet.
7. Allow the whole thing to drip dry.

Now, how about putting one of those continual cleaner devices in the tank? Not such a terrific idea. All you’ll get with them is cleaner water that may be colored blue, and that does not, on its own, clean toilet bowls. Moreover, if one of your pets should drink out of the toilet, that tank tablet could prove poisonous.

2: A Proper Toilet Cleaning

Tools:

• Goggles or glasses to protect your eyes from chemicals and splatters.
• Stiff bristle brush with a storage container to put it in when you’re done. Brush and bristles should be all-plastic; twisted wire brushes can scratch your toilet and permanently damage it.
• Rubber gloves.
• Paper towels for cleaning the exterior of the toilet. Never use a sponge. A sponge can end up anywhere in the house, and you never know whether it’s been used on the toilet.
• Non-abrasive cleanser. A powdered cleanser provides enough abrasion for scrubbing but not enough to scratch.
• Spray cleaner.
• Pumice stone.
• Bleach spray. Bleach is a major pollutant, so use it for sterilizing only when there is a communicable illness in the household that may involve diarrhea or vomiting.

Instructions:

1. Open the windows and door and turn on the fan – you’re ventilating your bathroom so you don’t choke on the fumes from your cleaners.
2. Remove all items on the tank, remove lid covers, mats around the base of the toilet, and anything else nearby.
3. Put the lid down, then flush.
4. Sprinkle cleanser all around the bowl, as close to the rim as possible.
5. With your eye protection on, grab your brush and begin brushing the bowl from the top down. Scrub under the rim first, then the bowl, and, finally, the trap or hole at the bottom of the commode.
6. Where there are stubborn stains, use the pumice stone to rub them out; make sure the stone is wet to avoid scratching.
7. Swish the brush around to rinse it.
8. Put the lid down, but with the brush under it to drain off excess water, and flush. Never let powdered cleansers sit in the bowl; they can accumulate at the bottom.
9. Spray the exterior of the toilet with your cleaning spray starting at the top and working down.
10. Using several sheets of paper towels, wipe down the tank, starting at the top, being sure to get the handle, and then wipe the outside of the lid.
11. Wipe down the entire bowl area – sides, front, and where the toilet meets the floor.
12. Raise the seat, remove your brush, and put it away.
13. Spray the seat, inside lid, and rim with cleaner and then wipe clean with paper towels, starting at the lid, then the seat, and ending with the rim. If you see urine stains, degreaser products like Greased Lightening will bring them to the surface for cleaning.
14. Make sure you hit the area behind the hinges next to the tank. This area gets particularly filthy.
15. Toss out the used paper towels. You’re done.

3: For That Deep Down Clean Toilet Feeling

Tools:

• Rubber or vinyl work gloves
• Eye Protection
• Disinfectant/detergent/cleaner (any chemical that calls itself a disinfectant and has an E.P.A. number on the label to back up the claim of being a disinfectant)
• Disposable toweling or launderable cloth
• Bowl Swab (12" long plastic handle with "bunny tail" material at the end approximately 4" in diameter)
• Acid (if you have hard water deposits)
• Bucket
• White vinegar
• Plunger
• Small mirror
• Black light

Instructions:

1. Open the windows and door and turn on the fan – you’re ventilating your bathroom so you don’t choke on the fumes from your cleaners.
2. Put on your gloves and safety glasses.
3. Using a disinfectant/detergent cleaner, mixed either in a spray bottle or in a bucket (according to label instructions), spray or wipe down all hard surfaces outside the bowl, particularly high touch areas like the seat and flush handle.
4. To disinfect the surfaces, they must remain wet for ten minutes, unless the label instructions state otherwise; this completely kills bacteria, fungi, and viruses.
5. Flush the toilet, and rinse its outer surfaces.
6. Lower the water line in the toilet; there are at least 4 different ways to accomplish this:
   • Push the bowl swab in and out of the hole at the bottom of the toilet quickly until the water level drops into the trap.
   • Quickly pour about 1.5 gallons of water from a bucket into the toilet.
   • Turn the water to the toilet off and flush the toilet.
   • Use a toilet plunger to force the water down and out of the trap.
7. Spray the inside surfaces of the toilet bowl to totally disinfect the toilet; the surface must remain wet for ten minutes unless stated otherwise on the label.
8. Apply a disinfectant or detergent cleaner or bowl cleaner to a toilet bowl swab.
9. Starting under the rim and working down, clean the bowl.
10. If there are tough stains on the bowl, apply a small amount of bowl cleaner to the stain or apply bowl cleaner to the swab and rest it on top of the stain. Hard, stubborn stains can be removed with a pumice stick.
11. A small mirror can be used to look under the rim to detect any stubborn stains you have missed that may also be contributing to malodors.
12. To clean toilets where hard water has left mineral deposits, use a pumice stone.
13. If the going is too slow going using just the pumice stone and water, add one of the following cleaning solutions:
    • Citric acid is okay for mild deposits because, while it’s the slowest of any of the solutions to remove minerals, it’s safest to use.
    • Phosphoric acid is good on heavier deposits and not as caustic as muriatic acid or hydrochloric acid.
    • Where hard water conditions are extreme and the toilet has not been cleaned often enough, you will probably have to apply hydrochloric or muriatic acid; this stuff is highly caustic, so make sure you’re protected, that you don’t spill it, and that the room is well ventilated. Also keep it away from chrome fixtures, which it defaces.
14. After the appropriate time, flush the toilet.
15. Wipe dry the outside surfaces, including the toilet seat and handle, with a cloth or a paper towel.
16. If you notice that mold or mildew has formed on the grout around the base of the commode, pour on white vinegar and clean it with a stiff brush.
17. If you want to get really serious – and you have one or more males in the household with bad aim – a fluorescent-type black light will show, after the room lights have been turned off, urine salts and spots missed cleaning in and around toilets. Urine fluorescess a dull yellow under the light.