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© St. Petersburg Times, published June 15, 2002
No longer must you forlornly gaze on the mass of deceased love bugs that shellacked themselves to your car's finish last month. Help is here, thanks to our readers' suggestions and Casimer Smerecki's generous compilation of the responses he received to his request for a love-bug cleaner.
We begin our list of love bug solutions with a preventive measure. At first sight of insect infatuation, spray the front of your car with cooking spray. Just as with scrambled eggs, the bugs will not stick to the sprayed surface, and any that do will clean off easily with soap and water.
Let's move on from this ounce of prevention to the pound of cure: namely, removal of bugs and stains after impact.
Apply oven cleaner spray to the area, let it stand a while, then wash it off with a sponge and water.
Mix a half cup of baking soda into 1 gallon of water, apply the mixture to the area with a sponge and let it stand for one minute. Wash off and rinse.
A commercial cleaner, Shaklee Basic-H, can be mixed and applied to the besmirched area. Let it stay for two minutes, then rinse.
The laundry product Spray 'n Wash also is useful in debugging. Just spray, let it sit for a couple of minutes, then wash off.
Super Clean, a Castrol product, can be applied, left for a few minutes, then washed off.
Simple Green, a product sold in supermarkets as well as by discount stores like Kmart and Wal-Mart, should be mixed according to directions, applied and washed off.
Applications of WD-40 may be made directly to the area; but NOTE that it may leave a residue and the product is highly flammable, so don't use it near flames or heat sources.
Diesel fuel will power bug corpses from your car's finish, while it removes accumulated road scum from a variety of sources.
Thanks for all the suggestions. Remember to file them in a safe place so you'll be ready when love bugs renew their dalliances in October.
Catherine of Seminole wishes to dig into that treasure of National Geographic magazines that functions as a mighty, unseen library of information for our readers. Catherine needs a copy of the December 1959 issue, which contains an article on Sam Pryor's Doll Library in Greenwich, Conn. If you have a copy of the magazine that Catherine can have, please send your reply to her, in care of this column, and we'll see she gets your message.
Viv has more than 100 cake decorating books from Maid of Scandinavia to give away. They not only have pictures and instructions but lots of recipes too. Call (727) 546-4216.
Bud Sullivan of St. Petersburg recalls seeing the film A Bell for Adano 20 years ago. He never sees it listed for TV broadcast, and he wonders if a reader might have an extra copy of it. Call Bud at (727) 864-1901.
It has been a while since we had a missing instructions alert, so lest we get out of practice, here goes. Leon Jones of Ocala has a Welbilt bread machine, model ABM2H60 (with two beaters in the bottom of the baking pan), but no instructions.
The Welbilt company has not answered his letter, and its toll-free number has been disconnected, so Leon's turning to that ever-reliable source of information -- our readers. Hey, even a couple of bread recipes would be a welcome crust, he writes, but more information about how to make his own bread would be ideal. Send e-mail to freonleon@mfi.net.
While we're at it, here's a request from Port Richey's Margaret Burrough, who bought an electric typewriter at a flea market and will never be able to write the great American novel without some instructions. This is a Smith Corona memory typewriter, model XD 4700. Contact Margaret at (727) 848-3083 if you can help.
When the Sumners wrote about their need for old bricks to complete a home project, they were delighted to receive almost 200 responses from readers. Their thanks are profuse and energetic.
But, with all due respect, they are still a few bricks short of a full load, so to speak.
The Sumners are not picky, so if you can donate to their cause, call Heidi Sumner at (727) 347-3257.
- Send requests to Reader Exchange, Newsfeatures, the Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg 33731 or e-mail cole@sptimes.com. Requests will be accepted only by mail or e-mail; no phoned requests, please. This is an exchange column, so we will not run items that are for sale. Except in unusual circumstances, readers must agree to publication of phone numbers (please include the area code).