Monday, April 1, 2013

A Maple Syrup Mess!

How do you clean maple syrup off the floor? I recently got to find out the answer to this question when I discovered a Sam's club size syrup bottle completely empty on my pantry floor. I am not talking about real maple syrup, but the high fructose corn syrup stuff that is so much cheaper. Honestly when I first discovered this I think I stood in shock for a few minutes thinking how I would even attempt to clean up such a sticky mess. I don't even know how long it had been there smashed in the back corner of my pantry. I imagined one of my boys stepping on it trying to reach the bag of marshmellows that were now opened and hard. I wondered if they had noticed the top breaking off and syrup pouring from the container and debated in their mind to tell their mother but instead ran quickly away from the evidence of their mischief. Hmmm...I just decided to walk away myself for the moment and went to the internet to find out tips on cleaning up syrup. Some ideas I found were to use wax paper on top then scrape off, flour and then scrape, pouring a can of soda on top, freezing and then chipping away, and some others. Obviously freezing wasn't an option. I decided to try the wax paper first since it seemed to be the least messy. A big fail. The syrup would stick to my scraper and nothing else. Next I tried the flour. It made a huge mess but I was at least able to scrape off the syrup from the floor and into the trash. I won't lie. It was still difficult but workable.


Here is my littlest guy who thought that what I was doing looked like a lot of fun and managed to get through my "barrier" of items.

After scraping for a couple of hours (yes it took that long), there was still of bit of sticky residue left on the concrete floor. I decided to try the soda tip. I took one of my husband's diet sodas (I wasn't about to waste the good stuff) and poured it on top of the residue and let it sit for a little while.



I then took a rag and some hot, soapy water to the floor. It cleaned up nicely despite the paint marks that are still there, but I was really tired of scraping by then. Besides, I had a couple of boys coming home from school soon that I needed to have a little talk with :) and a pair of pants that now needed a good washing. 












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About Me

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Welcome...my name is Angie and I am blessed to be living in a crazy, but always exciting home with 4 young little boys and 1 man who helps bring clarity to my sometimes insane household. I love to create new things, recipes, cards, quilting, or even mud pies with my boys, I am hands on! I hope that you can find some laughter and smiles while you visit.