Changing the sheets

jenna8984

Lolo- kinda off topic but I thought I knew everything about cold weather living...until I met friends from North Dakota who taught me about plugging their car engines into block heaters!!

huskypuppy14

When you say furnace filter, do you mean the air filter for forced air. It's not a filter on your actual furnace, is it? 

All I know is the air filter in our house was disgusting (central air) when we moved in. That was one of the first purchases at Lowes. 

If there is another filter I should be changing, I'll guess I'll look into that.

luckya23

huskypuppy14 said:

When you say furnace filter, do you mean the air filter for forced air. It's not a filter on your actual furnace, is it? 

All I know is the air filter in our house was disgusting (central air) when we moved in. That was one of the first purchases at Lowes. 

If there is another filter I should be changing, I'll guess I'll look into that.

I took it to mean the air filter, but I am also supposed to have my oil filter cleaned or replaced, I think.

theartistformerlyknownas

huskypuppy14 said:

When you say furnace filter, do you mean the air filter for forced air. It's not a filter on your actual furnace, is it? 

All I know is the air filter in our house was disgusting (central air) when we moved in. That was one of the first purchases at Lowes. 

If there is another filter I should be changing, I'll guess I'll look into that.

Um. I don't know. It's an air filter but it resides within my forced air furnace. It's big and wide, like a giant picture frame full of blue fluffy bits.

Is there an AC filter I'm supposed to change, too?!

We need to get our air ducts cleaned out too, cuz I know they're full of dog hair. I SERIOUSLY need that maid money, guys.

huskypuppy14

lolo883 said:

huskypuppy14 said:

When you say furnace filter, do you mean the air filter for forced air. It's not a filter on your actual furnace, is it? 

All I know is the air filter in our house was disgusting (central air) when we moved in. That was one of the first purchases at Lowes. 

If there is another filter I should be changing, I'll guess I'll look into that.

Um. I don't know. It's an air filter but it resides within my forced air furnace. It's big and wide, like a giant picture frame full of blue fluffy bits.

Is there an AC filter I'm supposed to change, too?!

We need to get our air ducts cleaned out too, cuz I know they're full of dog hair. I SERIOUSLY need that maid money, guys.

If you have central air, the air intake should have a filter. Ours is just right in our hallway. It was so nasty from the previous owners, I wonder if they ever changed it. 

I'll have to see about the furnace filter (we have gas). If they didn't change the air filter in the hallway, it's doubtful they changed it in the utility closet.

Blergbot

jenna8984 said:

Lolo- kinda off topic but I thought I knew everything about cold weather living...until I met friends from North Dakota who taught me about plugging their car engines into block heaters!!

We used to do this with our car in our garage in Minnesota. When I moved into an apartment with street parking in Minneapolis I had no such luxury. You just made damn sure you gave yourself an extra 10-15 minutes in the morning for your car to warm up and to de-ice. Or...you were late to work a lot, like me.

beethery

lolo883 said:

huskypuppy14 said:

When you say furnace filter, do you mean the air filter for forced air. It's not a filter on your actual furnace, is it? 

All I know is the air filter in our house was disgusting (central air) when we moved in. That was one of the first purchases at Lowes. 

If there is another filter I should be changing, I'll guess I'll look into that.

Um. I don't know. It's an air filter but it resides within my forced air furnace. It's big and wide, like a giant picture frame full of blue fluffy bits.

Is there an AC filter I'm supposed to change, too?!

We need to get our air ducts cleaned out too, cuz I know they're full of dog hair. I SERIOUSLY need that maid money, guys.

I got really nervous reading all the furnace filter stuff until I saw you guys talking about forced hot air. We don't have that. Freak-out averted.

amelisha

I'll be

Blergbot said:

jenna8984 said:

Lolo- kinda off topic but I thought I knew everything about cold weather living...until I met friends from North Dakota who taught me about plugging their car engines into block heaters!!

We used to do this with our car in our garage in Minnesota. When I moved into an apartment with street parking in Minneapolis I had no such luxury. You just made damn sure you gave yourself an extra 10-15 minutes in the morning for your car to warm up and to de-ice. Or...you were late to work a lot, like me.

Cars don't even start up here if you don't plug them in in winter...I have had to abandon my car in many a parking lot because it was frozen solid. We have underground now, thank god. And we live in a high rise, so no filters to change or any kind of maintenance like that either.

PrettyGirlLost

Don't get too grossed out by what's supposedly living in your mattress just yet. . .http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2545/does-a-mattress-double-its-weight-due-to-dust-mites-and-their-debris

It's a good idea to use the protective pads, but your mattress likely isn't as gross as was originally claimed by the Wall Street Journal.

And from an empirical standpoint I can tell you my old mattress that I bought in 2003 asn't doubled in weight. If it did I wouldn't be able to rotate it. I dunno if rotating a mattress is nonsense too, but I've been doing it for years.

ETA: whoops, I bought my mattress in 2003, not 2013.

PrettyGirlLost

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q

This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

ChristinaS85

mschristie123 said:

Uhhhhhhhhh.... not as often as I should. Let's just leave it that.

Now I feel super gross and am DEFINITELY washing sheets/towels tomorrow.

Same here!

raissyrais

Not sure about furnace filters, but FI and I had to re-pressurize the water boiler the other day. Yep, that's England for you.

lovesclimbing

Not very often. Maybe once a month? I also never wash our quilts. They shouldn't need it, that's what sheets are for. Also, I don't want them to get ruined from frequent washing.

I used to wash sheets ... way less often when I was a kid and in college. They didn't get dirty, I didn't think.

ETA: We keep toilet paper by the bed and a trashcan for when we have sex. Works pretty well. We do have a waterproof mattress cover also.

Fan blades - I realized just how dirty they get when H and I had to clean before moving out of our last place. He lived there for 2 years and me for 1.5 and I know they didn't get cleaned that whole time!

cupcait927

And now I want to go home and clean the entire house, check our furnace and get our air ducts cleaned. Sigh.

amelisha

I keep getting tagged in the quoted string and so I come back and look and it's making me crazier. You have no idea how much Lysol I went through yesterday just thinking about some of this. Fiance threatened to take away my iPad.

I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodley appendages) every day that we found an apartment with in-suite laundry and don't pay for utilities. I think I would bankrupt us if we had coin laundry or had to pay for all the hot water I use. Although my dried out, scaly hands would probably appreciate it if I stopped soaking them in so much scalding, chemically enhanced water all the time to clean.

theartistformerlyknownas

amelisha said:

I keep getting tagged in the quoted string and so I come back and look and it's making me crazier. You have no idea how much Lysol I went through yesterday just thinking about some of this. Fiance threatened to take away my iPad.

I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodley appendages) every day that we found an apartment with in-suite laundry and don't pay for utilities. I think I would bankrupt us if we had coin laundry or had to pay for all the hot water I use. Although my dried out, scaly hands would probably appreciate it if I stopped soaking them in so much scalding, chemically enhanced water all the time to clean.

LOL whoops, sorry!

princessleia22

PrettyGirlLost said:

Don't get too grossed out by what's supposedly living in your mattress just yet. . .http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2545/does-a-mattress-double-its-weight-due-to-dust-mites-and-their-debris It's a good idea to use the protective pads, but your mattress likely isn't as gross as was originally claimed by the Wall Street Journal. And from an empirical standpoint I can tell you my old mattress that I bought in 2003 asn't doubled in weight. If it did I wouldn't be able to rotate it. I dunno if rotating a mattress is nonsense too, but I've been doing it for years. ETA: whoops, I bought my mattress in 2003, not 2013.

I have a Sleep Number bed (best purchase EVER... I LOVE my bed), so there aren't as many places for dust mites and junk to live in it. They can live on the mattress cover, but inside is pretty safe since it's just a plastic air mattress. We do have a mattress pad on it also, so nothing gets into and lives in the cover of the mattress either and I wash the mattress pad somewhat regularly (every 2-3 months). You can't go wrong with a bed that has a 25 year warranty, right?

amelisha

lolo883 said:

amelisha said:

I keep getting tagged in the quoted string and so I come back and look and it's making me crazier. You have no idea how much Lysol I went through yesterday just thinking about some of this. Fiance threatened to take away my iPad.

I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodley appendages) every day that we found an apartment with in-suite laundry and don't pay for utilities. I think I would bankrupt us if we had coin laundry or had to pay for all the hot water I use. Although my dried out, scaly hands would probably appreciate it if I stopped soaking them in so much scalding, chemically enhanced water all the time to clean.

LOL whoops, sorry!

I think I might only be able to blame myself on that one, lol.

hellosweetie1015

PrettyGirlLost said:

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

THIS IS WHY I CALL THE WATER HEATER CLOSET THE MONSTER CLOSET. I will be bookmarking that video for future reference on EVERY ONE OF MY DEVICES to prove to people my terror is justified.

I probably wash my sheets once a month or so, whenever the fancy strikes me. I am also generally not a clean person; I don't mind leaving rinsed-out dishes in the sink until we get the dishwasher unloaded, and my fans are a disaster because rather than clean them, I just turn them back on so I can't see the ick. (That pillowcase trick is a lifesaver, by the way. I just have an old mismatched case I use specifically for that.)

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

princessleia22

hellosweetie1015 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

THIS IS WHY I CALL THE WATER HEATER CLOSET THE MONSTER CLOSET. I will be bookmarking that video for future reference on EVERY ONE OF MY DEVICES to prove to people my terror is justified.

I probably wash my sheets once a month or so, whenever the fancy strikes me. I am also generally not a clean person; I don't mind leaving rinsed-out dishes in the sink until we get the dishwasher unloaded, and my fans are a disaster because rather than clean them, I just turn them back on so I can't see the ick. (That pillowcase trick is a lifesaver, by the way. I just have an old mismatched case I use specifically for that.)

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

B-12 can do that to you... that's the same stuff they put in energy shots, but getting shots is even better.  I have B-12 deficiency so I get shots somewhat regularly and take B-12 supplements (there are pretty yummy dissolving ones) daily just to keep myself awake. But, I feel wonderful and full of energy right after getting a shot.

amelisha

hellosweetie1015 said:

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

princessleia22 said:

hellosweetie1015 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

THIS IS WHY I CALL THE WATER HEATER CLOSET THE MONSTER CLOSET. I will be bookmarking that video for future reference on EVERY ONE OF MY DEVICES to prove to people my terror is justified.

I probably wash my sheets once a month or so, whenever the fancy strikes me. I am also generally not a clean person; I don't mind leaving rinsed-out dishes in the sink until we get the dishwasher unloaded, and my fans are a disaster because rather than clean them, I just turn them back on so I can't see the ick. (That pillowcase trick is a lifesaver, by the way. I just have an old mismatched case I use specifically for that.)

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

B-12 can do that to you... that's the same stuff they put in energy shots, but getting shots is even better.  I have B-12 deficiency so I get shots somewhat regularly and take B-12 supplements (there are pretty yummy dissolving ones) daily just to keep myself awake. But, I feel wonderful and full of energy right after getting a shot.

I take a ton of B complex because I eat mostly vegan - what I'm reading is that I now have a very convenient excuse for my behaviour.

PrettyGirlLost

amelisha said:

I keep getting tagged in the quoted string and so I come back and look and it's making me crazier. You have no idea how much Lysol I went through yesterday just thinking about some of this. Fiance threatened to take away my iPad.

I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodley appendages) every day that we found an apartment with in-suite laundry and don't pay for utilities. I think I would bankrupt us if we had coin laundry or had to pay for all the hot water I use. Although my dried out, scaly hands would probably appreciate it if I stopped soaking them in so much scalding, chemically enhanced water all the time to clean.

What in the?!  Do you have pics?

princessleia22 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Don't get too grossed out by what's supposedly living in your mattress just yet. . .http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2545/does-a-mattress-double-its-weight-due-to-dust-mites-and-their-debris It's a good idea to use the protective pads, but your mattress likely isn't as gross as was originally claimed by the Wall Street Journal. And from an empirical standpoint I can tell you my old mattress that I bought in 2003 asn't doubled in weight. If it did I wouldn't be able to rotate it. I dunno if rotating a mattress is nonsense too, but I've been doing it for years. ETA: whoops, I bought my mattress in 2003, not 2013.

I have a Sleep Number bed (best purchase EVER... I LOVE my bed), so there aren't as many places for dust mites and junk to live in it. They can live on the mattress cover, but inside is pretty safe since it's just a plastic air mattress. We do have a mattress pad on it also, so nothing gets into and lives in the cover of the mattress either and I wash the mattress pad somewhat regularly (every 2-3 months). You can't go wrong with a bed that has a 25 year warranty, right?

I would kill someone for a Tempurpedic. . .

hellosweetie1015 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

THIS IS WHY I CALL THE WATER HEATER CLOSET THE MONSTER CLOSET. I will be bookmarking that video for future reference on EVERY ONE OF MY DEVICES to prove to people my terror is justified.

I probably wash my sheets once a month or so, whenever the fancy strikes me. I am also generally not a clean person; I don't mind leaving rinsed-out dishes in the sink until we get the dishwasher unloaded, and my fans are a disaster because rather than clean them, I just turn them back on so I can't see the ick. (That pillowcase trick is a lifesaver, by the way. I just have an old mismatched case I use specifically for that.)

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

See if you can find the entire episode, it's awesome!  They actually built a scale house to code to test this myth.  And when it explodes out of the roof their reactions are priceless because they were not expecting it.

amelisha

Click to learn more about the FSM...hahahaha.

ChemFanatic25

Just found this thread and regretting it. I'm going home and washing all of my sheets. Also going on amazon to order a mattress protector. I just bought my mattress a couple of months ago so hopefully it is salvageable. Also, since we are on the discussion of bed sheets I have a question. I absolutely love the bed sheets from bed bath and beyond (the striped ones I think) and they are durable but so darn expensive. My boyfriend has them and I want to buy something similar but not break the bank. Should I just buy those sheets or does anyone have any recommendations?

theartistformerlyknownas

ChemFanatic25 said:

Just found this thread and regretting it. I'm going home and washing all of my sheets. Also going on amazon to order a mattress protector. I just bought my mattress a couple of months ago so hopefully it is salvageable. Also, since we are on the discussion of bed sheets I have a question. I absolutely love the bed sheets from bed bath and beyond (the striped ones I think) and they are durable but so darn expensive. My boyfriend has them and I want to buy something similar but not break the bank. Should I just buy those sheets or does anyone have any recommendations?

The organic cotton sheets from Target are fantastic! http://www.target.com/p/threshold-325-thread-count-organic-cotton-sheet-set/-/A-14246770

princessleia22

PrettyGirlLost said:

amelisha said:

I keep getting tagged in the quoted string and so I come back and look and it's making me crazier. You have no idea how much Lysol I went through yesterday just thinking about some of this. Fiance threatened to take away my iPad.

I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodley appendages) every day that we found an apartment with in-suite laundry and don't pay for utilities. I think I would bankrupt us if we had coin laundry or had to pay for all the hot water I use. Although my dried out, scaly hands would probably appreciate it if I stopped soaking them in so much scalding, chemically enhanced water all the time to clean.

What in the?!  Do you have pics?

princessleia22 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Don't get too grossed out by what's supposedly living in your mattress just yet. . .http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2545/does-a-mattress-double-its-weight-due-to-dust-mites-and-their-debris It's a good idea to use the protective pads, but your mattress likely isn't as gross as was originally claimed by the Wall Street Journal. And from an empirical standpoint I can tell you my old mattress that I bought in 2003 asn't doubled in weight. If it did I wouldn't be able to rotate it. I dunno if rotating a mattress is nonsense too, but I've been doing it for years. ETA: whoops, I bought my mattress in 2003, not 2013.

I have a Sleep Number bed (best purchase EVER... I LOVE my bed), so there aren't as many places for dust mites and junk to live in it. They can live on the mattress cover, but inside is pretty safe since it's just a plastic air mattress. We do have a mattress pad on it also, so nothing gets into and lives in the cover of the mattress either and I wash the mattress pad somewhat regularly (every 2-3 months). You can't go wrong with a bed that has a 25 year warranty, right?

I would kill someone for a Tempurpedic. . .

hellosweetie1015 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

THIS IS WHY I CALL THE WATER HEATER CLOSET THE MONSTER CLOSET. I will be bookmarking that video for future reference on EVERY ONE OF MY DEVICES to prove to people my terror is justified.

I probably wash my sheets once a month or so, whenever the fancy strikes me. I am also generally not a clean person; I don't mind leaving rinsed-out dishes in the sink until we get the dishwasher unloaded, and my fans are a disaster because rather than clean them, I just turn them back on so I can't see the ick. (That pillowcase trick is a lifesaver, by the way. I just have an old mismatched case I use specifically for that.)

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

See if you can find the entire episode, it's awesome!  They actually built a scale house to code to test this myth.  And when it explodes out of the roof their reactions are priceless because they were not expecting it.

I have some major back problems and get a lot of stiffness at night, so type of mattress is very important to me.  I used to really want a Tempurpedic also.  I previously had a high quality memory foam, but it wasn't actually a Tempurpedic.  I liked the memory foam at first, but I was still stiff in the morning.  Then I got to a point where I was waking up in pain every morning and couldn't sleep through the night. I'm not sure if getting a true Tempurpedic would have been any better for me, but we actually looked at them and debated buying one. When mattress shopping I was concerned that it may feel good in the store, but I won't know how my back would react until I slept on it for a while. I was worried that I'd spend a lot of money on a mattress that just didn't work for me, but there was no way to know until after I bought it.  Even if they had return policy, I didn't want to deal with that mess of having to return it and shop for new bed or risk not having a bed at all for a few nights.  And I'd seen varying theories on what type of firmness works best for back problems, so I just didn't know what would be best.  So, I figured that a bed where I could adjust the firmness may be a good route to go with, so I could adjust it until I got a setting that worked best for me. I found that my bed needs to be a lot firmer than I would have thought and never would have bought one that firm.  I've had it for about 2 years and have never slept better or more pain free in my life. And DH found that he sleeps better on a very soft mattress, so this bed allows us to both adjust our sides separately to what suits us so we both sleep better.  He would never be able to sleep on a bed as firm as my side and I'd be in extreme pain if I slept on one as soft as his. And yes, it's just a glorified air mattress and can be expensive (especially depending on model), but it really is the best sleep I've ever had and I love that its versatile and adjustable. And especially knowing now that DH and I need very different firmness, I don't think we would every go back to a regular mattress.

But, I will say that we just added the Sleep IQ tracker to our bed, and the software on that sucks at this point. It's very inconsistent and often incorrect.  Some nights it seems to be fairly accurate and some nights it fails to record anything at all.  The salesperson did warn us that it's new and there have been some software issues, but it will automatically receive any updates, so it should get better as they improve the software. 

ShesSoCold

PrettyGirlLost said:

amelisha said:

I keep getting tagged in the quoted string and so I come back and look and it's making me crazier. You have no idea how much Lysol I went through yesterday just thinking about some of this. Fiance threatened to take away my iPad.

I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodley appendages) every day that we found an apartment with in-suite laundry and don't pay for utilities. I think I would bankrupt us if we had coin laundry or had to pay for all the hot water I use. Although my dried out, scaly hands would probably appreciate it if I stopped soaking them in so much scalding, chemically enhanced water all the time to clean.

What in the?!  Do you have pics?

princessleia22 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Don't get too grossed out by what's supposedly living in your mattress just yet. . .http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2545/does-a-mattress-double-its-weight-due-to-dust-mites-and-their-debris It's a good idea to use the protective pads, but your mattress likely isn't as gross as was originally claimed by the Wall Street Journal. And from an empirical standpoint I can tell you my old mattress that I bought in 2003 asn't doubled in weight. If it did I wouldn't be able to rotate it. I dunno if rotating a mattress is nonsense too, but I've been doing it for years. ETA: whoops, I bought my mattress in 2003, not 2013.

I have a Sleep Number bed (best purchase EVER... I LOVE my bed), so there aren't as many places for dust mites and junk to live in it. They can live on the mattress cover, but inside is pretty safe since it's just a plastic air mattress. We do have a mattress pad on it also, so nothing gets into and lives in the cover of the mattress either and I wash the mattress pad somewhat regularly (every 2-3 months). You can't go wrong with a bed that has a 25 year warranty, right?

I would kill someone for a Tempurpedic. . .

hellosweetie1015 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

THIS IS WHY I CALL THE WATER HEATER CLOSET THE MONSTER CLOSET. I will be bookmarking that video for future reference on EVERY ONE OF MY DEVICES to prove to people my terror is justified.

I probably wash my sheets once a month or so, whenever the fancy strikes me. I am also generally not a clean person; I don't mind leaving rinsed-out dishes in the sink until we get the dishwasher unloaded, and my fans are a disaster because rather than clean them, I just turn them back on so I can't see the ick. (That pillowcase trick is a lifesaver, by the way. I just have an old mismatched case I use specifically for that.)

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

See if you can find the entire episode, it's awesome!  They actually built a scale house to code to test this myth.  And when it explodes out of the roof their reactions are priceless because they were not expecting it.

I was afraid this was going to happen to me. Last winter I was home alone in our second floor apartmenr (wearing tiny booty shorts - why do emergencies always happen when you're not wearing pants?!) and some valve burst off our water heater. Water was gushing out all over everywhere. The closet door was closed and the water in the carpet was super hot so I didn't open the door since I knew I'd burn the shit out of myself. I put pants on, grabbed the dog and went outside because I'd seen that Mythbusters episode. I called H and he assured me that it wouldn't happen and tried to tell me how to turn off the water. I was too nuts. We looked at the call times on my phone later - it took me nine minutes to work up the courage to go in there and turn off the water. There was SO MUCH water in our apartment and in the apartment below us. Terrifying. 

H and I also do not wash the sheets as often as we should.  

princessleia22

ShesSoCold said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

amelisha said:

I keep getting tagged in the quoted string and so I come back and look and it's making me crazier. You have no idea how much Lysol I went through yesterday just thinking about some of this. Fiance threatened to take away my iPad.

I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodley appendages) every day that we found an apartment with in-suite laundry and don't pay for utilities. I think I would bankrupt us if we had coin laundry or had to pay for all the hot water I use. Although my dried out, scaly hands would probably appreciate it if I stopped soaking them in so much scalding, chemically enhanced water all the time to clean.

What in the?!  Do you have pics?

princessleia22 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Don't get too grossed out by what's supposedly living in your mattress just yet. . .http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2545/does-a-mattress-double-its-weight-due-to-dust-mites-and-their-debris It's a good idea to use the protective pads, but your mattress likely isn't as gross as was originally claimed by the Wall Street Journal. And from an empirical standpoint I can tell you my old mattress that I bought in 2003 asn't doubled in weight. If it did I wouldn't be able to rotate it. I dunno if rotating a mattress is nonsense too, but I've been doing it for years. ETA: whoops, I bought my mattress in 2003, not 2013.

I have a Sleep Number bed (best purchase EVER... I LOVE my bed), so there aren't as many places for dust mites and junk to live in it. They can live on the mattress cover, but inside is pretty safe since it's just a plastic air mattress. We do have a mattress pad on it also, so nothing gets into and lives in the cover of the mattress either and I wash the mattress pad somewhat regularly (every 2-3 months). You can't go wrong with a bed that has a 25 year warranty, right?

I would kill someone for a Tempurpedic. . .

hellosweetie1015 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

THIS IS WHY I CALL THE WATER HEATER CLOSET THE MONSTER CLOSET. I will be bookmarking that video for future reference on EVERY ONE OF MY DEVICES to prove to people my terror is justified.

I probably wash my sheets once a month or so, whenever the fancy strikes me. I am also generally not a clean person; I don't mind leaving rinsed-out dishes in the sink until we get the dishwasher unloaded, and my fans are a disaster because rather than clean them, I just turn them back on so I can't see the ick. (That pillowcase trick is a lifesaver, by the way. I just have an old mismatched case I use specifically for that.)

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

See if you can find the entire episode, it's awesome!  They actually built a scale house to code to test this myth.  And when it explodes out of the roof their reactions are priceless because they were not expecting it.

I was afraid this was going to happen to me. Last winter I was home alone in our second floor apartmenr (wearing tiny booty shorts - why do emergencies always happen when you're not wearing pants?!) and some valve burst off our water heater. Water was gushing out all over everywhere. The closet door was closed and the water in the carpet was super hot so I didn't open the door since I knew I'd burn the shit out of myself. I put pants on, grabbed the dog and went outside because I'd seen that Mythbusters episode. I called H and he assured me that it wouldn't happen and tried to tell me how to turn off the water. I was too nuts. We looked at the call times on my phone later - it took me nine minutes to work up the courage to go in there and turn off the water. There was SO MUCH water in our apartment and in the apartment below us. Terrifying. 

H and I also do not wash the sheets as often as we should.  

Yeah, if the valve broke you don't need to worry about it flying through the room because it is releasing the pressure.  And that's why they have pressure relief valves in the first place. The valves are made to break before pressure builds up enough for it to explode.  Which leaves an awful mess, but that's better than it turning into a pressure bomb.  It is highly unlikely that a modern water heater would explode like that unless someone messed with the relief valves.

A couple years ago we had a water heater leak also.  There was at least an inch or two of water covering most of our apartment and it was leaking into the apartment below us. It was not a fun experience.

Viczaesar

Just FYI, I'm changing my sheets today - primarily because I have a new duvet cover arriving today (supposedly) and want to break it in properly. 

Viczaesar

princessleia22 said:

hellosweetie1015 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Now you do need to make sure your water heater is working properly. . . It can shoot out of your house like a rocket:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q This was one of the coolest episodes of Mythbusters.

THIS IS WHY I CALL THE WATER HEATER CLOSET THE MONSTER CLOSET. I will be bookmarking that video for future reference on EVERY ONE OF MY DEVICES to prove to people my terror is justified.

I probably wash my sheets once a month or so, whenever the fancy strikes me. I am also generally not a clean person; I don't mind leaving rinsed-out dishes in the sink until we get the dishwasher unloaded, and my fans are a disaster because rather than clean them, I just turn them back on so I can't see the ick. (That pillowcase trick is a lifesaver, by the way. I just have an old mismatched case I use specifically for that.)

But YALL. I went on a weight loss program once through my gyno. She put me on B12 shots and Adipex (I think it was???) on Friday and told me that the next day, I'd clean the whole house. I laughed wildly in her face, because I HATE cleaning. .....my roommates came home the next day to me windexing the dog-nose prints off the underside of the glass dining room table. I'd cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I'd even scrubbed all the walls, vacuumed all the furniture, dusted all of our various tables and the knick-knacks upon them, washed all the windows and the blinds, wiped down the appliances and cleaned out the fridge. They thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

B-12 can do that to you... that's the same stuff they put in energy shots, but getting shots is even better.  I have B-12 deficiency so I get shots somewhat regularly and take B-12 supplements (there are pretty yummy dissolving ones) daily just to keep myself awake. But, I feel wonderful and full of energy right after getting a shot.

So I can get B-12 supplements over the counter?  Because I'm serious about getting those cleaning drugs.  Unless it involves going to the doctor.  When I read hellosweetie's post I thought "Hot damn, I have got to get me some of that!"