3 Ways to Remove Bathroom Mold

Content originally published and Shared from http://perfectbath.com

Knowing how to get rid of mold in showers, and keep it from returning, can save you both time and money. Here are 3 simple ways to remove bathroom mold.  Read on!

Image Source: Flickr

Scrub Away
To properly care for your bathroom and remove the mold from tile grout, you will need a good scrub brush and baking soda. To effectively scrub the mold away, treat the grout between tiles and the caulking with a paste made of water and baking soda. Leave on for as long as you need to—for example, very dirty grout can use an hour or two. Spray the tiles with water and use a scrub brush to clean the grout with a brisk back and forth motion. Rinse well and buff dry. Once you have scrubbed the grout, you can prolong your mold-removing efforts so that you do not have to use as much elbow grease next time! If your bathroom is not properly maintained between cleanings, it does not take long for mold to come back. In fact, think of mold prevention like oral care—we have to maintain our teeth to keep plaque away. Source: NaturallySavvy

Vinegar
Put mild white vinegar in a spray bottle without diluting it. Vinegar has a mild acidity, making anywhere you spray it very inhospitable for mold. Do not dilute the vinegar when placing it into the spray bottle; you want to use it at full-strength, not watered-down.
Spray the vinegar onto moldy surfaces and wait for an hour. If possible, let the bathroom air out during this time.
After an hour, wipe the area clean with hot water and dry the surface with a towel. Damp surfaces encourage mold growth, so be sure to wipe the area clean fully. After you have wiped the vinegar away, it should not smell anymore.
Use vinegar to prevent outbreaks of mold before they happen. Vinegar is reported to kill 82% of mold species, making it an exceptionally effective solution for preventing mold from inhabiting your bathroom like it owns the place. Plus, vinegar does not have any toxic fumes (like bleach) and is all-natural.

• Simply spray a bit of vinegar onto a mold-prone surface and leave it. If you do this regularly, mold will have a tough time growing, and you will not have to remove it in the first place. Source: wikiHow

Hot Water and Baking Soda
You’ll need one teaspoon of washing up liquid, one cup of baking soda, and a few drops of something fragrant (we recommend lavender or citrus oil). Then add water and mix until the solution becomes a viscous paste and you’re done – a natural black mould remover. Source: Cleanipedia

Contact:
Perfect Bath
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Calgary, Alberta
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The Street Trust (formerly the BTA) is planning a rally tomorrow to “End unsafe streets”

“It is all of our responsibility to drive, bike, and walk as if it is our own child, grandchild, or grandparent who will be crossing the road at the next intersection. Simply put, we must slow down and we must be vigilant.”
— Rob Sadowsky, executive director of the Street Trust

The Street Trust (formerly the Bicycle Transportation Alliance) has made a public statement about the death of young Fallon Smart and the serious collision yesterday that left 15-year-old Bradley Fortner with a brain injury.

“We need action now,” says Street Trust Executive Director Rob Sadowsky. “I am deeply saddened each time I hear about another road death. It is all of our responsibility to drive, bike, and walk as if it is our own child, grandchild, or grandparent who will be crossing the road at the next intersection. Simply put, we must slow down and we must be vigilant.”

The statement comes with an announcement of a rally that will be held tomorrow (Thursday, September 1st) at the north end of the North Park Blocks. The rally is being coordinated with — and will include representatives from — Oregon Walks, Oregon and SW Washington Families for Safe Streets, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Here’s more about the rally from the Street Trust:

“… Outraged residents will rally together to express sorrow about recent road fatalities and to showcase what can be done collaboratively today by road users to save lives now. A group of speakers will speak for a short 30 minutes and be available to answer questions.”

And here’s more from their statement about the recent collisions:

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance is incredibly saddened to learn about the most recent tragedy after Bradley Fortner, a freshman at Roosevelt High School, was hit early Tuesday morning on his way to his first day of school. The teen was hit on North Columbia Boulevard at a location with a 40mph speed limit.

But this is not an isolated incident. Less than two weeks has passed since 15 year old Fallon Smart was hit and killed trying to cross Hawthorne Blvd. Fallon was the 30th person killed on Portland streets this year. Our unsafe streets have reached crisis level.

Tuesday’s crash was entirely preventable. In fact, we believe that crashes are preventable. We have called upon the state, our cities, and our counties to embrace this same belief and embrace Vision Zero now as a new way of approaching transportation. It is time to move from injuring, maiming, and killing people on the road to a place where traffic fatalities are no longer an assumed consequence.

The Portland region needs to be safe for kids, families, pets, people walking, people using wheelchairs, people bicycling, and people driving. And safe means you don’t take your life in your hands when you cross the street. It is time for Vision Zero today! Real change now starts with people on the road and in the driver’s seat, slowing down, being alert, and traveling with care.

Earlier today Noel Mickelberry, executive director of Oregon Walks also published a statement, saying, “Each crash reminds us that a true change to the status quo on our streets is required to provide solutions… We need innovation, we need political leadership, we need money on the ground to make needed street safety fixes, and we need meaningful community input and support. We are talking about hate crimes, about devastated families, about historic underinvestment, about kids not knowing if they will get to school safely. This is not easy work, and we don’t have all of the answers.”

Tomorrow’s rally will start at 10:30 am at NW Glisan between 8th and Park. More information on their website.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

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What we learned about the Central City Multimodal project at council today

This stuff is coming folks. PBOT included this sketch in a presentation to city council today.

Today at Portland city council our transportation bureau took another step forward in a project that will finally build separated bikeways and other street upgrades in the central city.

“We’re at that moment right now where people are fighting their way through the congestion instead of just realizing it’s going to take five extra minutes to get through downtown because we’re a bigger city now.”
— Art Pearce, PBOT

But before we go any further. Please take a few minutes and fill out PBOT early input survey.

Ok. Thanks. As we were saying…

PBOT’s Central City Multimodal Project finally got the go-ahead from the Oregon Department of Transportation to begin public outreach and planning. PBOT project managers shared a presentation about the project with council members today in advance of formally accepting a $852,000 payment as part of an intergovernmental agreement with ODOT.

Thanks to a $6 million federal grant (via Metro) and $2.8 million from the recently passed local gas tax, Portland will spend $8.4 million, “to help make getting to and around the Central City safer, easier, and more convenient by foot, bike, and transit.”

While the public process for deciding where to put new bikeways, transit-only lanes, new plazas, and so on, hasn’t started, PBOT has already been meeting and making presentations about the project to various city advisory committees and a few select powerful stakeholders like the Portland Business Alliance, the Central Eastside Industrial Council, Travel Portland, and others.

Today at city council we got a peek at how PBOT will frame this crucial project, how council feels about it, and a few more nuggets. Here’s what we learned.

Downtown Neighborhood Association is pumped

While we’re concerned at how PBOT has private meetings with certain stakeholders prior to opening up the process to all citizens, they also use these meetings to line up key early support. Today at council they brought Ronnie Boyle, the chair of the land-use and transportation committee of the Downtown Neighborhood Association, along to testify on the project’s behalf. And she was psyched.

“We are extremely excited about this project,” Boyle said. She continued to say that many downtown residents don’t own cars and want to walk and bike as much as possible, “but they want to feel safer.” “Too often people have very personal stroies of close calls and injuries… and I’d like to hear less of them.”

PBOT gets it

PBOT Planning Manager Art Pearce.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Watching the council meeting today we were pleased with the tone and framing we heard from two top PBOT staffers: Planning Manager Art Pearce and Capital Projects Manager Gabriel Graff. They have a well thought out and strong case from all the angles: statistics, economics, demographics, planning, and so on.

Pearce understands that Portland is changing and we need to change our streets as a result. Here are some of the comments he made today:

“We’ve been waiting and the constituents have been waiting for this process to get started, so we’re excited to get this underway…

Central cities around the world are re-inventing themselves and the Portland central city needs to think of itself as an evolving place that needs to continue to be competitive with central cities throughout the world…

[This project is a way] to make the central city vibrant and grow and include more residents and employees in a way we can really be proud of.”

And Gabriel Graff gave a short slide presentation (PDF). He talked about the need for improved safety and pointed out that 20 of the 40 high crash intersections for people on bike and foot are in the central city. I also really liked that Graff said the project is just about safer trips, but more trips. One of the best arguments against private motor vehicle use in the central city is that it simply doesn’t pencil out mathematically in terms of space.
Here are a few more of his comments:

“The central city is home to the densest concentration of people and jobs in the state. It’s the region’s economic hub… 30 percent of Portland’s growth will happen in this boundary which has just 3 percent of the land… 37,000 new households, 51,000 new jobs… How can we safely and efficiently get people to these jobs as Portland grows?

We see this project as one of PBOT’s first significant investments in our vision for growth.”

The Biketown effect: Bike share is now a major political force

(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Biketown changes everything. We’ve been saying that for years and now that it’s here we’re seeing the impacts in real life.

Today Commissioner Nick Fish brought up Biketown on his own accord to share that, “My impression is that the launch of these bikes has been a huge success.” The fact that Fish, completely unsolicited, shared his view about bike share in this context is crucial. Those orange bikes make pushing for bike infrastructure so much easier!

And even Commissioner Amanda Fritz shared a bike share comment. “I’m very pleased it’s working,” she said. But as you might expect, she then added how she’s “very concerned” that many people use bike share without helmets and that, “they continue to ride as other cyclists do on the sidewalks downtown.”

Commissioner Fish, the built environment and behavior change

In the most interesting exchange of the day, Commissioner Fish shared a story about getting flipped off for calling out someone’s dangerous driving while he was walking downtown. “I feel particularly vulnerable in light of the terrible tragedy that recently happened on Hawthorne,” he said.

And then he said,

“It struck me there are limits to what we can accomplish through legislating. We can legislate all we want, but some of the beahviors we’re talking about — cars and bikes observing the laws of the road, stopping at red lights, not accelerating when the light is yellow, putting people at risk — beyond changes in road design and these improvements you’re talking about, what’s missing in terms of getting the message to people that irresponsible and dangerous behavior on our streets is not tolerated? Whether you’re in a car or on a bike?

PBOT’s Pearce had a great and quite interesting answer:

“Portland is at a place in its evolution where we’re growing up as a city and this [bad behaviors] is part of that. We’re experiencimng more congestion and more conflicts as we navigate the streets on a daily basis. Your initial reaction to that is to try and navigate through [the congestion], and that’s actually accelerating those conflicts.

We need to develop a culture where people start to understand that as a city gets larger it takes more time to traverse through the city. We’re at that moment right now where people are fighting their way through the congestion instead of just realizing it’s going to take five extra minutes to get through downtown because we’re a bigger city now.”

(Keep in mind Pearce is saying this to Fish — the man who recently complained about how livable streets projects are making it harder for him to drive downtown.)

“Are we going to win that fight through friendly persuasion or through a bigger stick?” Fish quickly retorted. “What has to happen for us to get people to think twice about their behavior?”

Pearce then mentioned enforcement and informational campaigns, and how biking, walking, and transit infrastructure investments will eventually encourage people to drive less and allow us to “turn the tide on congestion.”

Fish seems to think there are only two ways to combat bad behavior: education and enforcement. What he’s missing is this: the built environment has a large, immediate and direct impact on human behavior. As we build more humane streets, people will behave in a more civil and respectful way.

Our streets will have more “clear spaces”

PBOT also shared a few sketches of what the new street designs will look like. Graff described the designs as having “clearer spaces” that will “acknowledge and reduce all of the conflicts that arise at intersections.” On the newly designed streets every user will have “clearly delineated spaces for travel,” he said.

Here are a few samples from his presentation:

This is a protected intersetion in Chicago that PBOT is using as an example.

Portland is taking inspiration from Seattle.

Graff said that this project will continue Portland’s legacy of constantly “evolving” streets. He also showed images of carfree public plazas and the Indianapolis Cultural Trail as an example of how Portland needs marquee bike path projects that will stimulate the economy and engage tourists and locals alike.

The timeline from here is to spend the rest of this summer doing public outreach and forming an advisory committee. Then 2017 will be spent on planning and development and construction will begin in 2018.

Stay tuned. And remember to take that survey.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

BikePortland is supported by the community (that means you!). Please become a subscriber or make a donation today.

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‘Black Williams Project’ will honor street’s past

From BlackWilliamsProject.com.

North Williams Avenue, Portland’s busiest biking street that’s full of new shops and housing, was once the heart of our city’s black community.

But due to the negative impacts of systemic racism, city policies that hurt people of color, and recent demographic shifts, Williams has changed dramatically. Some of that original culture still thrives, but it’s a shadow of its former self.

Now a public art project wants to help Portlanders remember what was lost and celebrate what exists today.

“Having engaged subjects as diverse as the civil rights movement, indigenous culture, and modernist object design, my work reproduces familiar visual signs, arranging them into new conceptually layered pieces.”
— Cleo Davis, project lead

The Black Williams Project came out of the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s efforts to make the road safer by reconfiguring travel lanes. That project sparked controversy when advisory committee members and local residents spoke up to oppose the city’s plans, demand acknowledgment of the area’s racist history and give more support to the voices of existing black residents.

The stakeholder advisory committee that ultimately came together in agreement around the project spun off a separate committee in July 2013 to find an appropriate way to honor the history of Williams Avenue. The committee had $100,000 that had been set-aside in project funds to create public art along the corridor.

According to committee member (and now retired PBOT project manager) Ellen Vanderslice, the process to select the artists was turned over to the Regional Arts and Culture Council in 2014. RACC put out a call to artists and a selection was made in November of that year.

The artists are the husband-and-wife team of Cleo and Kayin Talton Davis (read more about them via The Skanner). They own businesses and property along North Williams and grew up in neighborhood.

Their vision, as outlined at BlackWilliamsProject.com, is for a series of sidewalk murals, signage, and kiosks that will be installed between Broadway and Killingsworth.

Here’s more from the artists about the three artistic elements you can expect to see:

SIDEWALK MURALS

Tiles will be printed using a porcelain enamel process, then embedded into the concrete of the furnishing zone. The installation will require current concrete to be removed and replaced with tiles in the area of the artwork. A total of 10 locations are planned.

SIGNAGE

Every tile location will be highlighted by a sign. Signs will face primarily toward the sidewalk and be 12”x18” located at an average eye level.
Signs will be printed porcelain enamel on a steel substrate. Porcelain enamel is extremely graffiti resistant; it is difficult to scratch and paint or marker can be removed easily with a little Windex or acetone.

FUNCTIONAL ART / KIOSK

The kiosk incorporates a touchscreen to access a variety of multimedia presentations, and additional information not presented in the tiles or signs. It will be updated as additional interviews are made, and other relevant art is created. The kiosk is intended to be installed on the NE corner of N Cook and N Williams intersection.

A community celebration will be held once the art is installed. PBOT has not released the expected date of completion, but sources say it could be as early as next month.

Learn more about the project and the artists at BlackWilliamsProject.com.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

BikePortland is supported by the community (that means you!). Please become a subscriber or make a donation today.

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Oregon DOT launches ‘Safétymon Go’ campaign

Safetywhirl is one of 11 characters created by ODOT to encourage road safety.

The Oregon Department of Transportation has a response to the uptick of fatal and serious injury crashes on their roads: a new safety campaign that piggy-backs on the popularity of the Pokémon Go game and is timed to coincide with back-to-school season.

It’s called Safétymon Go and it comes with the tagline: “Safety is nothing to poké fun at!”

The Oregonian calls the new campaign, “groan-inducing.”

“Just in time for back-to-school,” reads a press statement about the new campaign delivered to media this morning, “members of the “Safétymon Go” family are focusing their messages on traveling safely: to and from school, in school zones, near college campuses and sports fields, and around other gathering spots and busy locations.”

There are 11 characters in all, each available in poster form on the ODOT website. They have silly names and associated safety attributes like: Safetoise, “Always look left-right-left before crossing streets”; Psafetyduck, “Always wear a helmet when you are riding your bike!”; and Safetykarp, “Be aware of your surroundings”.

Safetychu!

The Safetychu character wears an ODOT safety hat and a vest. His message is all about school zones. Here’s how ODOT describes it:

Safetychu proudly wears an ODOT hard hat – as if he were in a work zone, but instead he’s in a school zone and he wants you, drivers, to SLOW DOWN in school zones! Students, pay attention when you are traveleing to and from school. Make eye contact with drivers when you are crossing the street. And when it starts getting dark, wear bright clothing like the safety vest Safetychu is wearing. Be safe and have fun!

Catch them all!

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

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Portland has a transgender biking club

Screengrab of article in Portland Monthly.

Portland Monthly magazine has the story of a new riding club in Portland: Transgender Riders United.

Here their lede:

When Quinn Lindstrom moved to Portland six months ago, she quickly fell in love with cycling, and began to seek out a group that shared her passion. But although there are more than 10 bike clubs within the city and countless others around Oregon, Lindstrom, a transgender woman, struggled to find one that felt like a good fit. She eventually decided to start her own group, Transgender Riders United (TRU), where trans folk of all genders could cycle together without judgment.

The article has a Q & A with Lindstrom that includes how the group was supported from the get-go by Gladys Bikes owner Leah Benson. The group’s first ride was earlier this month.

Here’s the group’s description on Facebook:

Welcome to the official TRU (Transgender Riders United) Facebook group! Based in Portland, OR, this is a group for any and all under the “transgender” terminology umbrella to congregate, share, and cultivate their passion for cycling. While allies are welcome in this space, this is primarily a safe space, built by, and for, transgender folk in the Portland area.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

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Portland law school targets “rolling coal” offenders

Image from notice of intent to sue filed by Northwest Environmental Defense Center.

“Rolling coal” is a vile act and one of the many deviant behaviors commonly displayed by people who operate motor vehicles.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, let us explain how it works.

Imagine you’re out enjoying a nice bike ride on a beautiful road. Then the driver of a large diesel truck comes up next to you and purposely slams on the gas pedal to emit a huge plume of toxic black exhaust right in your face.

We told you it was vile. But unfortunately it happens more than you might think.

“We feel there should be accountability for this sort of hostile, mean-spirited, environmentally harmful, and ultimately dangerous behavior.”
— Mark Riskedahl, executive director Northwest Environmental Defense Center

We reported on rolling coal a few times in 2014 (including once when someone rolled coal and the bike rider happened to be a police officer) and our stories caught the eye of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center at Lewis & Clark Law School. NEDC Executive Director Mark Riskedahl told us last week that they’ve started a “rolling coal accountability project” because it pollutes the air and it’s just plain, “morally reprehensible behavior.”

The practice has also been deemed illegal by the Environmental Protection Agency and is part of the Obama administration’s efforts to improve air quality.

Also fueling Riskedahl’s work: his wife Melissa Powers is a bicycle rider and law professor who happens to teach a course on the Clean Air Act at Lewis & Clark. She was recently a rolling coal victim herself while riding near Manzanita on the Oregon coast.

Riskedahl says his team (made up of law student volunteers) are putting together a list of potential targets for enforcement actions. They are specifically going after retailers who sell and/or install special devices that allow truck owners to bypass emissions control devices.

And the NEDC wants your help. “We would love to identify the businesses in the region that have developed a reputation for being at the forefront of this hobby,” Riskedahl says.

The NEDC has already partnered with a group of attorneys in Utah and have sent a letter of intent to sue to Diesel Brothers, a Utah-based business that operates DieselSellerz.com and sells emissions control defeat devices.

Here’s an excerpt from the 16-page letter (PDF) that threatens the website owners with federal prosecution under violation of section 203 of the federal Clean Air Act:

Although diesel truck manufacturers such as Ford, Dodge and GMC design and install thousands of dollars of pollution control equipment and software in each of their modern trucks to meet federal emission standards, Diesel Brothers have been reversing that progress with the turn of a wrench and the click of a touchpad. The public is left to pay for the pain and suffering of air pollution related diseases such as asthma, emphysema and lung cancer.5 In submitting this letter of intent to sue, UPHE seeks to protect the public health, guided by the ethical standards of the Utah Medical Association “to prevent sickness whenever possible, to alleviate suffering, to cure sickness and disease insofar as it is humanly possible, and to prolong meaningful life.

Exhibits to the letter include eBay listings that advertise “full delete” (parlance for no emissions control) and videos like the one below that was posted online by “Heavy D Sparks“:

The letter also points out that dealers of these devices are subject to a fine of $37,500 for each illegally modified vehicle or engine and people who use these devices are subject to a civil penalty of up to $3,750 each day they are used.

Riskedahl wants to expand their work into the Portland metro area and they’re looking for leads. They are looking for retailers and individuals. “License plate numbers may come in handy too,” he says. You can reach the NEDC via their website.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

BikePortland is supported by the community (that means you!). Please become a subscriber or make a donation today.

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