Monday, January 19, 2009

TV and Tiles

By Sam Weyland

The advent of the TV was flanked by the new medium by which various producers have used to peddle their wares. In particular, household problems like grout-cleaning have received special attention. Many products appeared, aiming at housewives who did not want to spend too much time on such a difficult but unspectacular chore.

Many things have changed since then. For one thing, advertisements are now as prevalent in the internet as they are on TV. More and more wives also have jobs now, removing the need to target them specifically with ads about what housewives "usually do". The advertisements of today instead focus on the house in general, with an unspecified persona (or a housekeeper) acting as the cleaner of the house.

And yet, it has so far remained constant: Grout has and for the foreseeable future will remain as a problem for many homes. The tiles surrounding them may be easy to clean, but the grout's very composition absorbs minute grime and dirt into them. Cleaning with a mop, one will quickly realize, simply won't do. It's all good if you can just ignore them; unfortunately, uncleaned grout can be a breeding ground for bacteria or worse. Damp grout has been known to breed black mold.

So, naturally, grout cleaning continues to be an endeavor worth taking. And because of this nature, the cleaning industry continues to release products of all kinds to assist the household in this regard. I advise you to choose amongst these carefully.

There are a lot of grout-cleaning formulae out there, from crude, homemade ones to the most aggressively branded concoctions. My experience with these is to go with the simpler ones. they are cheaper, and can be much more effective. Also, as both sides of the spectrum have formulas that simply don't work, it seems trivial to do trial and error on the cheaper ones. But do some research to find the right brand, in any case.

Another option is to go for one of the heavy equipments available on the market. However, I am not particularly fond of this one, as professional experience is still required to handle these things easily. So, my alternative is to just hire a professional grout-cleaner: They know how to handle the heavy-duty machinery best. - 16492

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