Coke in the Toilet

I like my toilets to be clean. (I think everyone does.) In fact, even though I don't use a lot of chemicals to clean my house, the toilets are a place that I'm not afraid to use bleach. I want to know that they are REALLY clean. You know what I mean?

With three little kids, it is extra important to keep the germs away. 

When we bought our house, the whole place was nasty. The first thing I did was scrub the bathrooms. I mean, I REALLY scrubbed them. With bleach. 

All of the main bathrooms got clean, but there was one stubborn toilet in the basement that just didn't want to cooperate. I knew it was disinfected, but it just wasn't clean. It's not a bathroom we use often (it's in a room that is being renovated), so I wasn't that worried about it. But over the past few months it has started to bug me. No matter how much I scrubbed, it still looked dirty! I knew there must be a way to get rid of the rust and hard water stains (without spending a lot of money or using crazy harsh chemicals).

While looking for recipes for homemade bathroom cleaners, I came across this post HERE. Coke in your toilet? What?!?

Of course I HAD to give it a try. I mean, what did I have to lose? I didn't have any Coke, but I did have some Diet Dr Pepper. I've seen what Diet Dr Pepper can do with a Mentos....... and to a penny..... so I was confident that it would work as well as a Coke. 

Here is the before picture. I cleaned this toilet. I swear. That discoloration is from the rust stains. Eww.

I dumped a can of Dr Pepper in the bowl, and then dumped another one in just to be sure there was enough soda to do the work. (The website linked above used a 2-liter, so I probably should have used more, but this is all I had.)

Toilet looks even nastier with the soda in it. Bleh.

I let the soda sit for 30 minutes and then gave it a quick scrub with a toilet brush. One flush later and WOW!

Ok, now THAT is clean. Yay! (There is still one tiny ring of rust around the top of the water line, but overall I would consider this a success. I might try again with a 2-liter of actual Coke, just to see.)

Kinda makes you wonder what soda does to your insides.......