How to Do Housework
Clever Housework Tips for Lazy People
Wise Wanda and Helpful Harry with their housework tips.

Wise Wanda and Helpful Harry have original tips for how to do housework better, quicker and easier. You get two experts for the price of one, each with a different point of view about housework. In Part I, we offer invaluable how-to-do housework tips for cooking, cleaning the kitchen, storing food, baking, headaches and leftovers.

Part II on this page has more invaluable housework how-to-do tips to make your housework chores easier. How-to-do-housework tips include: how to reseal an envelope, store cords, de-ice the steps, crayon marks, stained counters, scouring pads, blood stains, washing windows, room fragrance, candles, clean artificial flowers, how to relieve mosquito bites, get rid of ants, clean mirrors, remove splinters.


Wise Wanda Says: Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips.
Helpful Harry Says: Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for Pete's sake, you are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it anyway.


Wise Wanda Says: Use a meat baster to "squeeze" your pancake batter onto the hot griddle and you'll get perfectly shaped pancakes every time.
Helpful Harry Says: Buy the precooked kind you nuke in the microwave for 30 seconds. The hard part is getting them out of the plastic bag.


Wise Wanda Says: To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.
Helpful Harry Says: Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix and keep it in the pantry for up to a year.


Wise Wanda Says: To prevent egg shells from cracking, add a pinch of salt to the water before hard boiling.
Helpful Harry Says: Who cares if they crack, aren't you going to take the shells off anyway?


Wise Wanda Says: To get the most juice out of fresh lemons, bring them to room temperature and roll them under your palm against the kitchen counter before squeezing.
Helpful Harry Says: Sleep with the lemons in between the mattress and box springs.


Wise Wanda Says: To easily remove burnt-on food from your skillet, simply add a drop or two of dish soap and enough water to cover bottom of pan, and bring to a boil on stovetop.
Helpful Harry Says: Eat out every night and avoid cooking.


Wise Wanda Says: Spray your Tupperware with nonstick cooking spray before pouring in leftover tomato based sauces and there won't be any stains.
Helpful Harry Says: Feed your garbage disposal and there won't be any leftovers.


Wise Wanda Says: When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.
Helpful Harry Says: Go to the bakery. They'll even decorate it for you.


Wise Wanda Says: If you accidentally oversalt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant "fix me up".
Helpful Harry Says: If you oversalt a dish while you are cooking, that's too darn bad. My motto: I made it and you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes.


Wise Wanda Says: Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks.
Helpful Harry Says: Celery? What's celery?


Wise Wanda Says: Brush some beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish.
Helpful Harry Says: The Mrs. Smith frozen pie directions do not include brushing egg whites over the crust and so I don't do it.


Wise Wanda Says: Place a slice of apple in hardened brown sugar to soften it.
Helpful Harry Says: Brown sugar is supposed to be soft?


Wise Wanda Says: When boiling corn on the cob, add a pinch of sugar to help bring out the corn's natural sweetness.
Helpful Harry Says: The only kind of corn I buy comes in a can.


Wise Wanda Says: To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh, but if it rises to the surface, throw it away.
Helpful Harry Says: Eat, cook, or use the egg anyway. If you feel bad later, you will know it wasn't fresh.


Wise Wanda Says: Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.
Helpful Harry Says: Wanda, dear, the only reason this works is because you can't rub a lime on your forehead without getting lime juice in your eye, and then the problem isn't the headache anymore, it is because you are now blind.


Wise Wanda Says: Don't throw out all that left-over wine. Freeze it into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
Helpful Harry Says: Left-over wine?


Wise Wanda Says: If you have a problem opening jars: Try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy.
Helpful Harry Says: Me strong man. I can open every jar. It's closing them that's my problem. If you need help opening jars, go ask the very cute neighbor to do it.


Wise Wanda Says: Potatoes will take food stains off your fingers. Just slice and rub raw potato on the stains and rinse with water.
Helpful Harry Says: Mashed potatoes will now be replacing the anti-bacterial soap in the handy dispenser next to my sink.


Wise Wanda Says: Now look what you can do with Alka Seltzer:

• Clean a toilet. Drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets, wait twenty minutes, brush and flush. The citric acid and effervescent action clean vitreous china.
• Clean a vase. To remove a stain from the bottom of a glass vase or cruet, fill with water and drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets.
• Polish jewelry. Drop two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and immerse the jewelry for two minutes.
• Clean a thermos bottle. Fill the bottle with water, drop in four Alka-Seltzer tablets, and let soak for an hour (or longer, if necessary).
• Unclog a drain. Clear the sink drain by dropping three Alka Seltzer Tablets down the drain followed by a cup of Heinz White Vinegar. Wait a few minutes, then run the hot water.

Helpful Harry Says: Put your jewelry, vases, and thermos in the toilet. Add some Alka-Seltzer and you have solved a whole bunch of problems at once.

More How to Do Housework Tips

Here are more invaluable how-to-do housework tips to make your housework chores easier. You'll find out how to reseal an envelope, store cords, de-ice the steps, clean crayon marks, clean stained counters, save scouring pads, remove blood stains, wash windows, make room fragrance, save candles and clean artificial flowers. Plus, we have how-to-do-housework tips to relieve mosquito bites, get rid of ants, clean mirrors and remove splinters.

• Sealed envelope - Put in the freezer for a few hours, then slide a knife under the flap. The envelope can then be resealed. (hmmmmmm...)
• Use Empty an toilet paper roll to store appliance cords. It keeps them neat and you can write on the roll what appliance it belongs to.
• For icy door steps in freezing temperatures: get warm water and put Dawn dishwashing liquid in it. Pour it all over the steps. They won't refreeze. (wish I had known this for the last 40 years!)
• Crayon marks on walls? This worked wonderfully! A damp rag, dipped in baking soda. Comes off with little effort (elbow grease that is!).
• Permanent marker on appliances/counter tops (like store receipt BLUE!) rubbing alcohol on paper towel.
• Whenever I purchase a box of S.O.S Pads, I immediately take a pair of scissors and cut each pad into halves. After years of having to throw away rusted and unused and smelly pads, I finally decided that this would be more economical. And now a box of S.O.S pads last me indefinitely! In fact, I have noticed that the scissors get sharpened this way!
• Blood stains on clothes? Not to worry! Just pour a little hydrogen peroxide on a cloth and proceed to wipe off every drop of blood. Works every time! Now, where to put the body?
• Use vertical strokes when washing windows outside and horizontal for inside windows. This way you can tell which side has the streaks.Straight vinegar will get outside windows really clean. Don't wash windows on a sunny day. They will dry too quickly and will probably streak.
• Spray a bit of perfume on the lightbulb in any room to create a lovely light scent in each room when the light is turned on.
• Place fabric softener sheets in dresser drawers and your clothes will smell freshly washed for weeks to come. You can also do this with towels and linen.
• Candles will last a lot longer if placed in the freezer for at least 3 hours prior to burning.
• To clean artificial flowers, pour some salt into a paper bag and add the flowers. Shake vigorously as the salt will absorb all the dust and dirt and leave your artificial flowers looking like new! Works like a charm!
• To get rid of itch from mosquito bites, try applying soap on the area And you will experience instant relief.
• Ants, ants, ants everywhere .. Well, they are said to never cross a chalk line. So get your chalk out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march. See for yourself.
• Use air-freshener to clean mirrors. It does a good job and better still, leaves a lovely smell to the shine.
• Our final tip from the how-to-do-housework page is about splinters. When you get a splinter, reach for the scotch tape before resorting to tweezers or a needle. Simply put the scotch tape over the splinter, then pull it off. Scotch tape removes most splinters painlessly and easily.


I hope life brings you much success.
I wish you a very happy day.

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