I checked this book out of the library to see if it was worth buying and it definitely is. It is a fantastic guide to cleaning the house, and outfitting it as well. This is a book one would want to own, since there is too much good info here to remember from reading it once.
And, added bonus, it's not psuedo-spiritual hippy nonsense. Sandbeck has a no-nonsense approach to keeping a clean house with a small carbon footprint.

I want to follow her advice and use diluted white vinegar for all surface cleaning.

That's pretty much all I got out of the book because I thought this book was about organizing and cleaning. But the book goes into how to select appliances, floorboards, paint, sinks etc. which I didn't care for and also labeling things and such which I had no interest in doing.

I had hoped she would talk more about reducing the amount of stuff you had, but she doesn't get into that at all, in fact, she recommends having duplicates of stuff so that they are not misplaced. Like scissors in the kitchen and then another one for gardening... why? because she is imagining a household that is big that the kitchen and the garden can't share a pair of scissors. hmm, I'm glad I'm not living there :)

I loved this one too, thought it was a quick read and full of info. I hate hate hate the smell of vinegar so I can't say I'll be cleaning with it, but I have switched to Dr Bronner's hemp peppermint soap and am happy so far. I hope to implement more of her ideas and try some more recommended products.

Author made me feel like I was being talked down to. I found some useful recipes in between chapters of static.

This is really more about how you can build your home to be sustainable, which isn't quite relevant to me. It was a good reminder about how to be greener around the home in general though.

If you are not up on recommended environmentally friendly practices (bleach bad, vinegar good) then this book is a good primer on the subject. However if you've read even just a little then it is largely a not so organized rehashing of what's already been said succinctly in Clean House, Clean Planet and other such books.

Book greatly improved once I moved into the actual "cleaning" chapter(s). As far as I'm concerned, I could have skipped probably the first third.

I'll probably end up buying this to use as a reference.

We changed everything over after I read this book. I do miss the smell of Tide, Gain, Clorox, and my all-time favorite, Comet with Bleach. I'll live. No, really, maybe I'll live with fewer old age ailments than I would have if we hadn't made our home chemical free(for the most part).

I haven’t finished this book yet but I’m not sure I ever will. I borrowed it from a friend thinking that it would be a book full of Earth-friendly cleaning recipes. While it is Earth-friendly it is not a user-friendly book.

First of all, there are no clearly laid out recipes in Organic Housekeeping. A book like this ought to be able to be used as a ready reference. Got a tub with soap scum? Look up “bathtub” or “soap scum” in the index, and you should be able to quickly reference instructions. In this example the index references the following pages: “138-139, 145-56, 149-52, 154-55”. Notice how most of those overlap? If you scan the pages carefully you may find what you’re looking for, but it’s not going to be easy.

My other major complaint is the author’s use of scientific citations. As the proud recipient of a scientific education I feel that Sandbeck picks and chooses her references very carefully to validate her beliefs. While that is, to some degree, what we all do, the manner in which she does it grates. For example, this is part of her explanation for why she does not recommend the use of fabric softeners:
Rosalind Anderson, Ph.D., and Julius Anderson, MD, Ph.D., of
Anderson Laboratories, Inc. published a study entitled “Respiratory
Toxicity of Fabric Softener Emissions” in the May 2000 issue of The
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. When the doctors
exposed laboratory mice to air that was contaminated with the fumes
from fabric softener sheets, the rodents developed irritation of the
eyes, nose, throat, and lungs, and some had severe asthma attacks.
Fine, she found a study that showed fabric softener sheets were toxic to mice. A brief scan of the paragraph shows that it was done by two self-employed scientists. We don’t know anything about their lab, it’s tagline might be “Slinging Mud At Big Corporations Since 1988”. A closer reading shows that the study was actually published in a journal which appears to be reputable. If Sandbeck had started her citation by mentioning the journal and followed it up with the names of the authors, no institution mentioned, my eye would only have picked up the journal. And at that point I might have been more likely to swallow the information that Sandbeck was attempting to convey. I know this is nit-picking, but it colors the feeling of the entire book. It seems that Sandbeck has strong opinions that she tries to prop up with carefully selected scientific studies.

This brings me to my last complaint. Ellen Sandbeck’s methods work for her, but I suspect that she is a long way from average. Her first chapter is very overwhelming. Before you get to any cleaning advice at all she states that you must organize and document every item in your home. A reader with a cluttered home, in need of housekeeping help, would probably drop this book onto a nearby pile and despair of ever getting their home clean.

In summary, I would skip Organic Housekeeping in favor of more succinct such as Clean House, Clean Planet or even a book from another generation of housekeepers such as Heloise.

i want to buy this book. the tips for keeping a clean house were very helpful and it gave great advice on how to live eco-friendly on a budget.

I've been trying to adopt more green approaches to cleaning, and I really appreciated this bottom-up look at our houses. Everything from how to clean what we've got or how to think about cleaning (including decluttering) to what to buy when what we've got wears out. I only buy books if I've borrowed them from the library at least twice and want to read them again; I'm considering buying this one.

A great resource for those of us who are concerned about this sort of thing. The author's main goals are to be non-toxic, efficient, and practical in housekeeping, and her writing style is fun and very reader-friendly. She has good, practical ideas, step-by-step guides for almost every type of cleaning, and cites lots of research to back her up.