No, not that kind of ‘white lightning’. We’re talking about something more wholesome and less expensive: Plain white household vinegar.

It’s not just for salad dressing and cleaning windows, anymore!

In an age when we are bombarded mercilessly with television and magazine ads for ‘new’, ‘miracle’ cleaners, good old vinegar still shines as a multi-purpose household hygiene problem solver.

For details, we gladly defer to do-it-yourself icon This Old House, on whose Web site you can find a handy list of ten ways you may not have thought of to use vinegar,  including:

• Peeling off old wallpaper
• Softening old paint brushes
• Checking your garden soil’s pH
• Unclogging shower heads
• Whitening tile grout

The This Old House site, as a whole, is a great resource on household and construction technologies of all kinds, new and old. It features great navigation and search features to help you find exactly what you want quickly in its vast store of useful information.

If you’re the kind of person who only calls a repair service as a last resort, bookmark this site!