It has to be good for something

Sugar is not good for dogs.

Gives new meaning to "don't drink the kool-aid."

P.S. Katalyst, kool-aid is sweet because of sugar you add to it. You're not mixing a proper batch in the bowl. So it shouldn't affect your dog that badly. Certainly no worse than bleach!

LOL! The sugar may be bad for dogs but probably not as bad as toilet cleaner!

Kool-aid is not good for humans. It belongs in the toilet. :)

@lorint - the canisters of Koolaid pictured above come pre-sweetened with sugar, that's why I was concerned. People like to buy their cleaning supplies in bulk. The packets of Koolaid require the customer to add sugar.

Does anyone else find it disturbing that a product meant to pass through our digestive system is being recommended for the same use as industrial cleaners?

@kgrote
seeing that the active ingredient is citric acid, it's not too disturbing at all.

"Does anyone else find it disturbing that a product meant to pass through our digestive system is being recommended for the same use as industrial cleaners?"

I'd be more concerned if it were the other way around...

Hmm now I really do need to go to Kool-aid days next summer I was really bummed that I didn't go this year. Yes where I live we have a festival devoted to Kool-Aid! I live where it all started, Nebraska, but I don't drink it so I'll have to give this toilet trick a try

It's not April 1st yet, right?

You can buy citric acid in bulk. It's used as an additive for certain types of animal feed (which is why the listing below shows it in the vet supply category)

Personal endorsement for this particular product (I am not affiliated with the company): http://www.amazon.com/Citric-Acid-4-Lb-tub/dp/B000J69WFO/

Bought a 4lb tub several years ago, and still have some left. It softens water, so if you have hard water you can add it to the dishwasher or washing machine and actually get a clean result.

LOL! After reading this, I swear, I will never drink Kool-Aid again.

"Does anyone else find it disturbing that a product meant to pass through our digestive system is being recommended for the same use as industrial cleaners?"

The other favorite cleaners are vinegar and lemon juice, and there's no way I'm not going to eat those!

@kgrote
No. Since ppl here recommend baking soda, lemons, and vinegar for cleaning all the time.

I also wondered about just using citric acid directly. I suppose this is a tip for those who inextricably wind up with kool aid in their cupboards (my mom might acquire it just because it's free, for example) and needs something to do with it aside from donating to the local soup kitchen.

The coloring won't effect the bowl? How would you explain a toilet that was permanently orange?

Lepidoptery just Palined.

Apartment Therapy just Jim Jonesed.

Either way, don't drink the Kool-Aid.

'I'd be more concerned if it were the other way around...'

lol & ditto.

@bluepuppybites, my old friend, Randy Kottwitz, is instrumental in putting on that Kool-Aid festival! Small world!

I think if the citric acid does the job, I'd just dump in some RealLemon,which I keep around for cooking.

CITRIC ACID??? why are people so irrationally afraid of common chemicals?!

Why not just use, you know, a toilet bowl cleaner?

Clean your pipes, clean your kid's pipes. No wonder mom wouldn't let us drink that stuff. And that was back in the fifties.

@potpie
...?

@laurakz
... are you seriously concerned? I don't think the color would stick *that* well unless your toilet material were incredibly porous or something. If it does, bleach.

The plastic container, sugar, and artificial colors and flavors don't seem too eco friendly. If it's just the citric acid, buy the citric acid, or at least get the unsweetened mix. I just cleaned my dishwasher with packages of unsweetened Kool Aid that I got for free. It does work.

It's just this type of post that makes me luv Apartment Therapy!

lepidoptery- (re: potpie) Look up "inextricably". :)

Yeah, I noticed that later. But if sarah palin gets a monopoly on mis<s>speak</s>typing, we'd all be in trouble. More than we are already.

(Has she already pushed out GWB for being known for misspeaking? Or is her brand of it supposed to be different from his?)

This sounds really neat.

This post is priceless! Just reading the comments has made me laugh so hard...and I really needed it. So, thanks AT!

I dye wool with kool aid. Just saying.

well said @modernist1 :)

so, i would use the kool-aid that comes in the canister, or the packet? and how much if i am using the canister?

thanks!

Just buy a pound of citric acid at the health food store. Much cheaper that way!

what the... i don't even...

what happened to baking soda and vinegar? I personally wouldn't spend a dime on this crap.

Ok, what a random idea here. I love yall, but before I could read this on AT myself, it was linked to on a site making fun of it.

You realize a greener alternative to dumping..um....Koolaid in your toilet is just squeezing a lemon if you really want to go the citric acid route.

Besides, sugar is SO bad for dogs, cats. I don't want to wake up to my pet possibly hurt by my dumping a can of Tropical Punch in the john.

Seriously, I'm all for creativity but if you're THAT desperate to clean your toilet to the point of rummaging around the koolaid in the pantry, you might just want to make a trip to the store. I could list a dozen things easy in my pantry that would clean a toilet better and that I have on hand above a whole plastic thing of koolaid.

oh and all koolaid is chocked full of citric acid no matter the flavor. Its a flavor enhancer and gives it a hit of tartness. Its not just citrus flavors.

oh and all koolaid is chocked full of citric acid no matter the flavor. Its a flavor enhancer and gives it a hit of tartness. Its not just citrus flavors.

I just saw the other day on TV (can't remember what show for the life of me!) that you can also pour a bottle of store-brand cola in your toilet overnight and it will eat off the rings/stains left from standing water...like, if you're gone on vacation and come home to those rings...yeah. I think I'm going to try the cola, and then maybe I'll try Kool-aid :)

Young Marines had to take turns cooking in the chow halls and were instructed to clean the grills with Kool-Aid. He said it was amazingly efficient.

wouldnt it be great 4 xmas time ...to have all the colors of the rainbow in the toilet...OOOOHHHHHH the glory!!lol

I've been using my mom's left-over fizzy Polident tabs for absolutely everything - tea-cup rings, toilet rings, bathtub rings... and it even cleaned the shower mat... minty-fresh!

Ok there's citric acid in Kool-Aid but I don't think feeding sugar to your toilet bacteria is a great idea.

I can't wait to try this because it's funny. Also, we feed poop and pee to the toilet bacteria. It's not as if they are starving.

can you just drink it?

@bepsf - you mean like aspartame (brand name Nutrasweet)?

It might be fun to clean the holding tank as well. Especially with the magic color changing packets. Fun for the whole family. Brings a whole new level to the koolaid man commercials.

@lepidoptery
Palin has beauty queen syndrome and can pronounce large words while wearing vaseline on her teeth, but can't logically string them together.

GWB couldn't even make medium-sized words.

Its "malapropism" vs "noocular"

:o}

@Sussu But the whole point of cleaning your toilet is to starve and possibly kill them, not to give them a treat...

Floral preservative (the little packages that come with a bouquet of cut flowers) is citric acid, sans the colour and flavouring that is found in Kool-Aid. In a pinch, a bottle of Mountain Dew achieves the same results (for flowers, that is. Not sure about toilet bowls).

Maybe I'm just odd - but I wouldn't be worried about the harmful effects of my dog or cat drinking water laced with sugar from the toilet because I DON'T LET THEM DRINK FROM THE TOILET BOWL! Isn't that the logical fix here?!?!

I tried this and it worked!!! It was a slow process, but after using one canister of Lemon Kool-Aid just a little every evening over the course of a few weeks the main 4" rust stain I've had forever is totally gone.

I use earth friendly cleaning products for just about everything, just sometimes takes a little bit of elbow grease. My kids may kill me if they see me pouring kool-aid into the toilet! :)

@dream_nerd:
After my eyes STOPPED BURNING FROM THE ALL CAPS AND ?!?! festival in your post, I decided to drop a simple reminder that some of us have large dogs that can, and do, drink from the toilet sometimes because they can lift up the lid with their noses. Most of us don't think it's worth the PITA of using child proof locks on the toilet seats to keep them out. Plus, my oldest dog prefers to sleep on the tile in the lower bathroom. I'm not going to lock her out. She's old. She's earned the coolest spot in the house. Dogs drinking from toilets is not earth-shattering news. It isn't even news. It's actually pretty common, even if it grosses the humans in the house out. The porcelain bowl means the water is colder that the water in their bowls.

Dogs are not people. Sometimes they do nasty things, and sometimes they get into mischief. As for dogs and sugar (and chocolate! Gasp!), I wish I had a nickel for every Oreo and piece of Halloween candy that the furry thieves in this house have gobbled up. Considering that all my dogs have lived to ripe old ages without health problems, and that they all came from different lines, I don't think there is anything spectacularly different about their body chemistries. Sugar isn't good for dogs. It isn't good for people, either. Life goes on.

I'm glad to see something that isn't an industrial cleaner being recommended. We don't need industrial cleaners for most home cleaning jobs. Citric acid with do just fine, and it will even kill some germs by disrupting their natural acid/base balance.

"what happened to baking soda and vinegar? I personally wouldn't spend a dime on this crap." why would you use those two together? They will neutralize each other and be of little use, other than the mechanical action of the fizzing. It's like people who put vinegar in their wash with the detergent, or people who use dish soap and vinegar mixed. The vinegar renders all of those things pretty useless.

I agree with ilspeth.
If you think of dogs drinking toilet water as disturbing, how about dogs eating poop? (Especially at this time of the year they often catch them crunching a "poopsicle" in the back yard. I try to pick up the poop as much as I can, but at this of the year, when I return home from work it is already after dark. Plus, a layer of snow each night covers it very efficiently.
Sorry, this is a long-winded post to say that I although I do not encourage it I don't worry about one of my dogs taking a few sips from the toilet (I don't think she does it very often though).

Citric acid is available powdered to use in canning. I have a container and can't wait to try some of it in the toilet. The disadvantage is it's clear and someone will forget there is something soaking in there and flush it and I won't know it's gone, no way to measure success.

I love the peroxide white vinegar route. Man that stuff cleans everything!!! Did I read about it here? Never going back to the old cleaners.

Hmm, used to use straight kool-aid to clean some of the fire equipment on navy ships. I'll have to revisit this non-toxic idea. And yes, we would drink the same stuff with sugar added on the mess deck (made separately of course).

Buying koolaid in bulk, you say?

http://i.infopls.com/images/home/jonestown.jpg

hate to be the lone voice of dissent, but i didn't think the kool-aid as toilet cleaner thing worked very well at all. will def try the white vinegar and hydrogen peroxide, though, and hope for better results.

Once while cleaning a house for a move out (paid gig, I did ecocleaning before it was cool, or demanded higher prices), I used coca cola overnight. Worked a treat. ;-)
The house had been erratically cleaned for the previous ten years, owner had dementia, and one loo was quite difficult to get clean by my normal means, or some borrowed commercial cleanser. Cola was a last ditch effort.
Now, I thought it was phosphoric acid that made it work, but I can see citric working just as well.
And the packets of kool-laid and the knock offs are in most groceries and convenience stores. I'm tempted to try them.
I suspect lemon is suggested because it has the fewest and lightest color additives.

i have nothing to say about putting kool-aid in the toilet. it neither disgusts me nor entices me, but i have completely enjoyed reading all the reader comments. people are so funny!

I have never had a pet that drank from the toilet. For starters I keep a water fountain running 24 hours a day (with stops for cleaning of course) and the need has never arisen I wouldn't think. THAT grosses me out totally. As for cleaning the toilet I use NEU which is a great product and not toxic to the environment. It's fun, though, to read about using Kool Aid. If I still had such a varmint in the house I would give it a try.

Don't stop there, water and citric acid IS Prestone 10 minute Radiator Cleaner, and the main ingredient in most Radiator Cleaners or Flushes that cost from $1 to $5. The companies list a MSDS with the ingredients on their sites.

"sugar isn't good for dogs" - do you let your dog drink out of the toilet? . . do you let your dog lick your face and say their mouths are "cleaner than ours", too?

citric acid is used for canning and usually can be found in late summer at Safeway with all the canning jars.
it is also used in bath bombs

and, as I discovered tonight, it takes off some wicked at-least-40-year-old limescale crud down the toilet pipe which I had thought was black unglazed porcelain!
(moved into an unrenovated apartment in Europe, have been discovering all sorts of rather unsavory things. Thank God for high ceilings and other cool weirdness
to make it tolerable)