Things with additional, unintended uses.

henetha

My air vent thing in the kitchen only works if I hit it hard with a wooden spoon.

I find the same thing with DP funnily enough.The mere fact of seeing a waved wooden spoon gets him moving.🤭

oreo, one of my walkin kitchen cupboards has been taken over by my O H, it's full of coffee jars with nails of different lengths screws and nuts and bolts, tools that he can't use now as he has alzheimers...

Elowen the overnight bit maybe an urban myth but it doesn't take very long.

One of my daughters used to clean her bike with Coca Cola back in the day. She said it was good for removing rust. I can’t stand the stuff but my Dad loved it and he said during the war it used to have cocaine in it. Would have been interesting.

Left over hair dye is brilliant for cleaning my chrome bathroom fittings. Comes up gleaming. A walking stick turns off the fire alarm. An old washing machine glass door/window used for an outside plant saucer.

I use my nutcrackers to open bottles etc. works especially well on bleach bottles where you have to press in and turn. I use a ladle to close the window over the kitchen sink, a child’s loo step to reach higher shelves and spice jars to keep paper clips etc in my desk.

Elowen33

Allira

There's no spare Coca Cola in this house because I refuse to buy it.

I do remember a teacher getting the children to take a baby tooth in each and watch it dissolve in Coca Cola 😯

Any food and drink with high acidity or sugar will effect teeth without sufficient dental hygiene.

Dissolving teeth in Coke over night is an urban myth.

Not overnight! I didn't say that.

No, it wasn't an urban myth.
Coke contains an acids (citric and phosphoric acids) which erode tooth enamel over time.
Anything which discourages children from drinking it is fine by me!

My late mum used to use a snooker cue to press the buttons on her tv, to change channels. Saved her getting up and down.

(Not sure why she didn’t have a remote? Maybe before they were a ‘thing’).

I use an old fashioned nutcracker to get twist lids off bottles and draining spoons are good for reaching up to top litchen cupoard shelves to pull thing sforward so that they are reachable.

I couldn't reach the top of the stairwell in the hall to remove the last bit of wallpaper so decided to sit in the garden with a coffee having a rest. Then a brainwave moment came. I used the garden hoe to reach those high parts of the wall. Worked a treat and no teetering on ladders as just had to lean over the upstairs bannister.

Great solution ClicketyClick

I use a crystal file on my fingernails, but will never get rid of my old metal file...the rounded tip doubles as a screwdriver, even on Phillips screws, and the pointy end cleans out all the grot from the plastic grips on my father-in-law's specs!

Re the high-u little kitchen window, I use my potatoe masher. And to get the little bottles of wine down from the shelf in the cupboard under the stairs, I use the pallette knife from the same set of kitchen utensils a wedding present 55 years ago!

Eyebrow tweezers to remove hair from bath plug.
Dad's old-fashioned walking stick to close kitchen windows.
A couple of sugar cubes in a vase of flowers to help them last.

Some little puddings come in small glass containers with foil lids and a Pringle or gravy powder plastic top fits then perfectly and they make nice little containers for jam or butter etc

When I change my toothbrush (always choose a different colour to be safe) I use the one I am discarding to clean round the taps and awkward bits of overflow thing as well. Put some disinfectant or cleaner on it and away you go.

I use a long inner cardboard tube from turkey foil to reach down a new kitchen roll from a high shelf. The foil tube is narrower than the kitchen roll so fits inside!

I put a piece of tape about 10” through the hole on the handle of my long reach grabber and tied it to form a loop, then I can pull my kitchen window in with that. Loving the suggestions here today.

Snap, Madeleine. Useful thing, old toothbrushes 💐

My mother taught me to crochet with very fine thread and tiny hooks. I still have her hooks and the smallest one is in my sewing box now as I use it to pull the end (or rather beginning) of the thread through that tiny fiddly hole in the sewing machine bobbins.

gransruleok

I put a piece of tape about 10” through the hole on the handle of my long reach grabber and tied it to form a loop, then I can pull my kitchen window in with that. Loving the suggestions here today.

I use a soup ladle for that- it fits nicely over the window handle.

The geyser trip switch was so high up that we could never reach it to re-set it so mum used the broom handle to reach and flip the switch in the up position.

Now that I come to think of it, I use a broom handle to knock (unbreakable) things off the top pantry shelf that I can't reach!

I use my ostrich feather duster that has a long handle to rescue beees and butterflies caught in my skylight. It seems to do them no harm at all. Not so kind to wasps or flies!