I hurt my wrist but it was worth it

When we first looked at the house, I noticed the bathtub in the master bath was dirty. I figured it wasn't anything a good scrubbing couldn't take care of.

I was wrong.

It wasn't just dirty. There is a section in the bottom of the tub and another on one of the ledges where water settles in a pool and it has formed stains over the years. I tried everything. Bleach, apple cider vinegar, bar keeper's friend, magic eraser, soft scrub, magic bubbles, anything and everything, nothing worked. It was a serious issue for me. I googled and searched, tried different things mentioned on pinterest, but nothing helped.

Pinterest had helped me get candle wax out of my pants (that was an unfortunate incident that speaks to my clumsiness), helped me remove difficult laundry stains, but in this, it failed me. I made sure my shower curtain was always closed and I just resigned myself to a stained tub. I wondered how it would go over if we ever put the house on the market.

Well, I mentioned in my last blog that last Saturday I went to Abby's apartment to help her clean. Her husband's mother came over to help, and I was told she cleans houses for a living. I asked her what could be done for really stubborn bathtub stains. I had about a 15% hope that she could help, but I figured, eh, may as well just ask.

She told me she had a secret. My hope jumped to 75%. She showed me a stainless steel scrubber. My hope plummeted down to 3%. A stainless steel scrubber would scratch up my tub.

She went into the kitchen, where I had already scrubbed the laminate countertop with a regular lysol cleaner. She put some soft scrub down and started scrubbing with her stainless steel ball. She pulled up rust stains, and I was amazed. When she washed off the cleaner, I ran my hand over the laminate, expecting it to be torn up, but it was fine. My hope went up to 85%. I asked her where I could get a stainless steel scrubber.

She said she got them from Amway. You can't get them at a store, you have to special order them. Dangit.

Joseph and I had to go to Fry's later that day to buy food. I stopped in the cleaning aisle. And found...

Stainless steel scrubbers that looked exactly like what David's mom showed me. I was skeptical - it says for pots and pans! - would it ruin my tub? Eh, my tub is already gross, let's just try it.

I used some soft scrub I already had (it had failed me by itself) but combined with the stainless steel, I started to see an improvement. I scrubbed. And I scrubbed. And I scrubbed. I could only do about 5-10 minutes before my hand felt like it would fall off, so I did it over a course of six days. My stainless steel ball took a beating.

AND IT WORKED!!

This corner was seriously disgusting. Once I got the first brown layer off, there was an additional layer of crust I had to scrub off.

You can still kind of see the bottom stain. That is still a work in progress - it's a bit harder since we have that non-slip stuff on the bottom. But it looks 100 times better than it did.

I'm so bummed I didn't take before pictures. But my bathtub was nasty. Who would have thought to take a picture of that? I did find a photo on the internet....

My tub wasn't that bad. But it was that brownish color that I just could not get rid of.

I had to wear a brace to work because my wrist was killing me by Thursday night. But it was worth it. Now my clean tub matches my gorgeous bathrooms.

I can't believe it didn't scratch my tub to pieces. I'm so glad it worked. Now I can actually feel like I'm clean after my bath. Sometimes when I go into my bathroom, I just stare at the tub and grin like a fool. Because I can leave the curtain open now.