If you’re dealing with black toilets or tile crusted with pet urine: Zep.

I never thought that I would need this information (and I’m guessing neither did you), but 5 years ago things got really bad for me & now I’m dealing with hoarder problems.

Now I’m trying to claw my way out & get the courage to invite my landlord in to fix a bunch of shit in my apartment.

My toilet’s been broken for years now, and I’d just “flush” it with a bucket when I had the energy, leaving it with a black crust inside.

And I tried to send my dog to my parents when I was too sick to take him out consistently, but they were like, “LOL nice try. We all know that your little rat dog is the only reason you haven’t killed yourself, so just keep letting him use puppy pads. Because when you get better, you’d rather deal with the dried overflow dog piss crusted on your bathroom tile than deal with not having your dog.” And they were right!

That’s all to say: Zep acidic cleaner.

I remember watching episodes of Hoarders & they were like “aw, we can’t do anything about the black toilet.” NO. Squirt some Zep, give it a few minutes, and brush the black away like it was a week’s worth of normal toilet scum.

Same with crusted animal urine. I had used every cleaner known to man (fuck you for your false promises, “Pink Stuff”), plus steel wool & pumice stones. But 2 repetitions of “3 minutes letting the Zep spray sit before wiping it with a wet paper towel“ and I’m getting my bathroom back.

The bottle warns that it’s super-toxic & my bathroom has no ventilation, so I’m working my way through in one square foot increments, but this is such a relief that this situation won’t require the replacement of a toilet & tiling at my expense.