I second Kathy Rich's endorsement of Simple Green.  That and vinegar are the
only cleaners that I use wherever there be ferrets.
 
Francine put Simple Green's nontoxicity to the test last year.  I was
mopping the bathroom, and I guess the bucket full of dilute Simple Green
looked like a BIG CUP to her (one of her nicknames is the Queen of Cups).
Ironically, I was talking to a roommate about how SAFE Simple Green was
(knowing just enough pharmacology from indexing medical books to be
dangerous), and had my back turned to the bucket.  I heard some scratching,
but just thought it was one of the ferrets trying to get into a drawer
somewhere.
 
I turned around to dip the mop in the bucket, and there was Francine, with
her back legs hooked over the side of the bucket, her front legs churning
frantically to keep her head above the frothy solution, spluttering and
coughing.
 
I held her face under the sink faucet to flush her eyes, and then held her
under the shower head and rinsed her thoroughly tip to tail.  I bundled her
up in a towel and called the vet.  By now she was wheezing.  I had the
Simple Green bottle, and the cautions just said it was an eye irritant.  We
decided that the best thing to do was to give her some pediatric Benadryl
cough syrup (the standard 0.5 ml or 1/8 tsp dose) and watch her breathing
and her eyes.
 
The Benadryl worked.  I dosed her every 8 hours.  The initial inflammation
of her eyes passed almost immediately, but they watered some for the next 24
hours.  Her wheezing would return at the end of the 8 hours for the next two
days.  Other than that, she came through okay ... and squeaky clean!
 
The tragedy averted in this episode was drowning.  After that, the ferrets
go into their cage when I'm mopping.
 
-- Lee
[Posted in FML issue 1903]