July 2024

If you’ve got a sliding door in your home, you’re probably familiar with the dirt and grime that has a tendency to gunk up the track. Cleaning that track might not be a regular priority, but when it starts slowing down the door (or causing it to stick altogether), it’s time to tackle the job. Luckily, it’s a fairly easy task—here’s what you’ll need to do.

What you need to clean a sliding door track

You don’t need special tools or expensive cleaners to get in between the metal tracks of your sliding door. Instead, TikToker Mr. Gardeners uses hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to lift the dirt and clean the track without any scrubbing. The items you need are:

Steps to cleaning the sliding door metal track

First, grab your handheld vacuum (or a vacuum with a hose attachment) and vacuum out any loose, visible dirt. Larger vacuum attachments aren’t great for this, especially if you have a really small track or one with a bunch of levels and components inside. If that’s the case, grab a cardboard tube, the kind you get when you run out of toilet paper. You just stick it to the end of your vacuum like you would any other attachment, as shown in this Instagram Reel from A Clean Bee. Bend the edge of the roll to make a slit and shove it into the small space. It works really well for pulling dirt out of crevices.

Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

Then take your baking soda and sprinkle a fine layer of powder to thoroughly cover the track. Next, grab your hydrogen peroxide and pour it onto the metal track and let it sit for five to 10 minutes. The baking soda and hydrogen peroxide combination will create a reaction that raises the seen (and unseen) dirt to the top.

After the dirt has lifted, take a cleaning cloth or paper towel and wipe down the track. You can use a little water to rinse and remove any leftover residue, if needed. Repeat this process anytime your door starts to stick or feels rough or bumpy when you slide it. Watch Mr. Gardeners’ TikTok for visual step-by-step instructions.

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for July 9, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 9, Wordle #1,116! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

Four of today’s letters are from our mnemonic. The other is fairly common.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

Like the sound of a trumpet or siren.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There are no repeated letters today.

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with B.

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with E.

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is BLARE.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE then guessed BLAND assuming I wasn’t looking for any additional vowels and needed to eliminate common consonants. From here, the answer was obvious: BLARE.

Wordle 1,116 3/6

🟨🟨⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was medium difficult. The hint was “to form, mold, or create” and the answer contained four common letters and one fairly common letters.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was SHAPE.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word.

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)
Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

CRANE
TRACE
SLANT
CRATE
CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

SALET
REAST
TRACE
CRATE
SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another
Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.
Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.
Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.
Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.
Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

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What you need to clean a sliding door track

Steps to cleaning the sliding door metal track

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Today’s Wordle Hints (and Answer) for Tuesday, July 9, 2024