I use a similar concoction myself but I don't add rubbing alcohol and altho I've never used it on car windows it works well for me for lots of things, as well as house windows. Although truthfully I normally l use a corn starch and water solution for windows, inside and out. Jasdip, I'm wondering how old your wipers are. Whenever our wipers start that annoying sound my husband changes ours and the noise is gone. Another question, was the solution wiped off well? Jenna

I love robot floor cleaners! My floors are always clean :) In our previous home where we has both carpet and engineered hardwood, I had a Roomba (pet model) 562. The key is to schedule them to run every day so that dirt doesn't accumulate and get tracked into carpet. The roomba picked up amazing amounts of cat hair and dirt daily, it docked next tot he cat litter so each evening when I scooped their box I'd empty the Roomba's dirt bin. Unfortunately one downfall of the Roomba was the fact that I have very long hair and shed a lot and due to the brush deck design the hairs would get into the Roomba gears and the brush deck would break. This happened 3 times in the 2 years I owned it, but irobot replaced the part under warranty and it was easy to replace the brush deck and it was running again. That Roomba saved me tons of vacuuming, I only vacuumed about 3 times in 2 years we lived there, and we have 3 cats and I like very clean floors! I also had a Mint for cleaning the engineered wood, which is to be cleaned with a "damp" cloth only. The Mint is a swiffer and microfiber mop. It does a good job at maintenance cleaning, I'd usually run the Roomba on the hardwood level of the condo 1-2 times a week to pick up big debris and to clean the area rugs, and then run the Mint 3 times a week. Then we moved and have a totally different floor plan and all hard floors. I got a Neato XV-14 at Costco. The only drawback of the Neato is that they have come quality issues. I had to send mine back to the manufacturer and geta replacement because the first one had errors out of the box, but the next one works great. The Neato uses a laser map and actually plans a route so it works well in a more traditional home layout with multiple rooms. The Roomba navigates by a random algorithm and it is very thorough in an open floor plan but with many smaller rooms sometimes doesn't get to all rooms. The Neato is very robust and has not had any problems with my long hair or the tons of cat hair and dust that blows in our usually-open windows. It picks up *disturbing* amounts of dirt and hair every single day!! For scrubbing floors, you'd want a Scooba - that's the irobot floor washer. However it comes with lots of maintenance issues involving the tanks etc - imagine a carpet shampooer that drives itself. It also needs to be electronically roped-off from carpet areas. You need to clean the Scooba after each use. Whereas the Mint you just drop the microfiber cloth in the laundry. So I would not buy a scooba, personally, since it's not like the vacuum/sweeper bots that can be left to run unattended. For mopping in this home since we have textured vinyl plank floors I decided to go back to my old favorite tool, the steam mop. I used to have a Bissell original steam mop for over 6 years it served faithfully and I gave it to a neighbor when we moved to the condo with engineered wood because I was told no way could I use it on that wood. So I bought the new version - the Bissell Powerfresh, and I LOVE it. It has all the good things about the original with improvements... including a more square-shaped mop front to fit into corners, and continuous steam with 3 levels of steam rather than the trigger on the old one.

My FL (Frigidaire GLTF2940ES) is being delivered in about 2 weeks. Was going to buy one in a couple of years but my horrible 14yo Admiral TL went kerflooey rather dramatically about a week ago and moved the schedule up a tad! I've been reading and reading and reading and I still have several questions regarding detergents. So I'm seeing two "green" detergents discussed here, Bi-O-Kleen and Seventh Generation. Any others recommended? I have chemical sensitivities - let's not even TALK about stuff like Tide Free, ugh! - and admit to a big ole hippie streak as a result. :-) We've been using Seventh Generation products off and on for years, in fact the jug of 7G detergent in my laundry room now is the Free & Clear HE because they didn't have the non-HE in the giant jugs that were on sale, so I'll surely start with that just to use it up but I note reports of "meh" cleaning. Has anyone used BioPac? Their website says their "Ultra" products are HE-OK, and I've had no reaction to their detergent in the past - I know home FLs and commercial ones are different animals, but it worked very well in the laundromat FLs. Is the Bi-O-Kleen Free & Clear as effective as the Premium Plus, which seems to have the most fans? We'll be using mostly cool and warm washes just because we own virtually nothing that should be washed in hot - our sheets and towels are colored and we have purchased very little white clothing for years because of high iron content in the water - although I did see the info about biofilm and will take that under advisement. (I am not at all comfortable with leaving the washer door open lest our adorable but not very bright cat climb in to explore, since she cannot be closed out of the laundry area. We have always kept the top loader closed due to inquisitive cat and never got mold/mildew in that, is this a pretty good indicator that we may be fairly OK with the FL?) Do some natural detergents work better in these lower temperatures than others? Should I stick with liquids for the cooler washes for complete dissolution? How about dealing with vegetable oils - my DH does massage and often gets jojoba or grapeseed oil on his dark blue jersey sheets. Hot water sets the oil and the eventual oil-funk, we ruined I don't know how many sheets while he was in massage school! We've always used a very small dollop of CitraSolv or other degreaser in the TL but that's a no go with the FL, right? Any massage therapists (or fry cooks ;-)) out there combatting grease spots? Do any of the "specialty" detergent companies send out samples, or can they be obtained in very small packages to try out? (I can get BioPac by the ounce at my local health food store, but that's the only one I know of.) Buying these machines in the first place has kicked our budgetary buns, the notion of buying $10+ packages of detergent that may well sit on the shelf gives me the shakes! Most of our friends don't even have their own washing machines, much less fancy-pants FLs, so moochingsharing ;-) with them won't work.

I've had a Leslie's Pool Dolphin Deluxe 3 for six months now and love it. I think the Deluxe 3 is the Leslie's Pool name for the Dolphin Moby (made by Maytronics). The Deluxe 3 does not climb more than 1' of the walls but the 4 and 5 climb all the way to the tile line. I drop the cleaner in once a weak and it does a great job of keeping my pool spotless. The best part is that I no longer have to clean my filter every couple months as I had to do with my suction side cleaner. Also, no more hoses in the pool getting in the way of swimming. From my personal experience so far I would definitely recommend the Dolphin.