DIY Life

Winter is here for some of us, and along with the cold comes having to scrape the car windows every morning. That is a serious pain for me, considering I am height challenged. I have a difficult time reaching the center of the windshield.

Surfing the net looking for de-icing solutions, I came across some reader tips on The Dollar Stretcher. Sue was looking for some remedies for a homemade window ice removal formula, and just happened to pose the question on stretcher.com. She received some helpful answers.

Marianne says to place 3 parts vinegar and one part water in a spray bottle, spray the windshield and all the windows and mirrors before you go to bed at night, and in the morning you should have ice free windows. You can also use rubbing alcohol if you don't have any vinegar.

To those of us who have to drive every day (and on the freeway, no less), we end up with a smattering of bugs all over the front windshield that can not only drive us batty once we try to use that auto-wiper function to clean all that muck off, but can actually impair vision.

To me, I'd rather not smear dead bugs all over the windshield, making the problem worse. Want a rather quick and easy solution? How about a standard razor blade? I've found that carrying a standard razor blade in a protective little case in the glove compartment works wonders when there's no time to wash the case but you just can't stand all those smeared bugs all over the windshield.

Note: Be careful here, razor blades are dangerous instruments. But, if used with a holder/handle system (you can get these for a dollar or two at any hardware store), light scraping or just sliding that razor blade gently down the windshield will make those bugs easily come off and reveal a nice and clean windshield, perfect for more driving without those annoying visual distractions right in front of you.