Bar Keepers Friend: As Good As Cat Piss!

Posted on September 18, 2017 - Science/Technology - 2 Comments

Through recent experiences, I've decided to give Bar Keepers Friend a testimonial of It is as good as cat piss!

Ok, so without reading this post the phrase "Bar Keepers Friends: As Good As Cat Piss!" may sound like some weird slam on the Bar Keepers Friend cleaning product. But I guarantee you, that this is a story about hope. Hope and cat piss.

A Filthy Bathtub

A few years ago I bought my first house. Despite being a ninety-year-old home, the house was well-taken care of and in excellent condition with a lot of modern upgrades. One exception to this was the dark gray grime on the bottom of the bathtub. Upon giving an early tour of the house to some friends, one of them looked at the bathtub and speculated that the surface appeared to be compromised, meaning that the grit got embedded into the surface. This damage would require getting some expensive spray job done to reseal the tub and prevent further harm.

"Ok. I'll try scrubbing it real good first though and see if you are right."

So I used the common bathroom cleaners I had on hand and tried to scrub the grime off and got nowhere. Every couple of months during routine bathroom cleaning I'd look at the grime again and say to myself "This time you'll come clean!" I'd once again try whatever bathroom cleaner I had on hand and would get nowhere.

I was starting to accept my fate that I would have to dump a few hundred dollars to get the bathtub refinished, and then my cat died.

The Old Cat

About a year after moving into the house, one of my cats fell sick and over the course of about nine vet-stunning days rapidly deteriorated away until he eventually passed away. It sucked a lot. But what this also did was open up the door to bringing a new cat into the home.

The New Cat

During this cat-lull period, I encountered more failed attempts at scrubbing the bathtub and grew a further acceptance that I'd have to get it repaired.

It took me nearly a year to decide I was ready for a new cat and to find an animal that would be the one. But I did find the one and brought the cat home. All was fine the first few weeks, and then one day he decided to change up his routine and started pooping in the bath tub now and then.

Ok. So the cat has a single behavioral issue to work out, but whatever. If the cat is going to decide to not use the little box for old number two, at least he is choosing possibly the best place to use an alternative. Also, this was only a poop thing. All urination was still done in the litter box like a good cat does.

Hope And Cat Piss

One time though it seemed that a wee bit of urine also got out during a bathtub poop session. Again, fine. Is it not recommended that people pee in the shower to save water?

I grabbed some tissue to clean it up and then it happened. The unpenetrable grim was gone, and the tub surface was spotless where the cat piss had pooled.

The grime wasn't so embedded that it couldn't be scrubbed clean, I just wasn't using cat piss level of cleaning power.

Wielding this new found hope for the state of my bathtub I reassessed all the cleaning supplies in my house. Then I remembered the can of Bar Keepers Friend under my sink. The no fucks given, clean all your shit, wonder powder. Why have I never thought to try this stuff in my bathtub before?

Game on bathtub grime.

If you've made it this far in my tale of dead cats and illicit shitting, then I think it is safe to say you know how this ends. It ends with Bar Keepers Freind, teamed up with some water and a microfiber cloth, absolutely destroying the junk on the bottom of my bathtub.

So there you have it, the silver lining of a cat deciding not to use his litterbox. Whatever chemicals are in Bar Keepers Friend are as good as what is in cat piss.