I've had good luck with regular, "plain" blue Dawn (no bleach, enzymes, etc.) but it does require that it sit a while (30 minutes+) to work. I've also had luck getting oil-on-cotton (just vegetable oil, though) stains out with the spray Tide pre-treater and with Persil Color Gel, both of which seem to work a bit quicker than Dawn. I would be interested to see your results with the Tide pre-treater in particular.

A 6.1 pH in a soil that fizzes (free calcium/Magnesium carbonate). No anomaly that would produce that comes to mind. Don't bother with a AA test. It's not going to be beneficial this year. We'll assume that all the soil is 8.4 pH and you can retest next year with AA. I don't like making recommendations at the 3-6" level for turf but here goes: Everything in your soil is not only above minimum levels, but decently into sufficient and some even at optimal levels EXCEPT Phosphorous which is detrimentally deficient ( your turf probably did well the first couple of years because sod farms pound their turf with P and you used up the residual that was present). In fact. P is well below critical. Potassium (K) and Boron are also a bit low. but we only need to keep an eye on B and kick K up. It's Phosphorous though, big time. The clay is going to be a real PITA. Edited: Before we go forward: Are you willing/can you afford to aerate twice this year? Can you find/want to pay for Triple fertilizer (10-10-10, 12-12-12, etc) ? Can you find/want to pay for Triplesuper Phosphate ? Can you find/want to pay for Sulfate of Potash/Potassium Sulfate/Sop? Can you find/want to pay for Milorganite (5-4-0) ?

Tricky? Not really. Place one or two squares of nylon window screening in the bottom of the inverted top. I use such in regular pots without issue. For stability, rocks can be placed in the bottom section. Furthermore, if this is just to test the media, the weighted bottle could sit in a terra cotta pot or a shallow hole in the ground, or braced with bricks, or any number of other cheap, down and dirty solutions.

Thanks Stax - I may not have explicitly responded to this chain with my plan, but I was actually able to get a small sample of the popcorn ceiling itself and am working on having it tested for asbestos. If it comes back negative I'm all good. If it comes back positive I'll have to see what my options are from there. Hoping the odds are with me since the house was built in 1982 after asbestos was banned - and I actually suspect that it was applied even later than that actually to cover up some defects in the ceiling (but could be wrong).