Hi, here’s a hard one from me… 😅

We recently replaced all our pans with stainless steel ones. In my husband’s defence, we’re both still getting used to them! The thing with stainless steel is that you have to let the pan preheat for a little while before adding the oil. Well… my husband let it heat for \*way\* too long, and when he added the oil, it started smoking/burning to the point where it became genuinely dangerous and looked like it wasn’t going to stop.

He put the pan on the floor and, luckily, considering how bad it was looking, the “only” damage was that the floor got burned.

I’ve tried cleaning it with vinegar and oil, Fairy and hot water, and The Pink Stuff. The most I’ve managed to do is lift some of the burnt surface, but there’s still a pretty obvious burn mark.

I’m starting to accept that we might have to replace the flooring, but we’re renting and I’m getting a bit anxious about how our landlord will react. 😭

Any ideas? Is there anything else I could try before admitting defeat?

Hi everyone!

I’m hoping someone can help me with a slightly unusual plug/socket problem.

We’re currently renting an old house, and I think the kitchen was installed quite a long time ago. The sockets are positioned very close to the worktop upstand, so there’s hardly any space underneath them.

The original/older UK plugs fit into the sockets and work fine because they have a much slimmer plug body. However, modern UK plugs are bulkier/thicker and don’t fit because they hit the worktop/upstand before they can be fully inserted. I’ve attached a photo to show what I mean.

Unfortunately, most of our kitchen appliances have the newer, bulkier UK plugs so I'm finding myself in a situation where I basicaly have my kettle and air fryer in the living room which is not great...

I’ve already tried a 90-degree UK extension lead, thinking this would solve the problem, but unfortunately the plug head is still too thick, so it doesn’t fit either.

As we’re renting, we can’t modify the socket or the worktop, so I’m looking for some kind of safe solution that would allow us to use modern UK plugs with these sockets.

Does anyone know if there’s a slim/low-profile UK BS1363 plug, extension lead or adaptor that has the same sort of slim plug body as the older UK plugs, but can accept a normal modern UK plug?

Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated!

PS: None of my plugs work! (not the kettle, microwave, not even phone charger...) in all the other parts of the house they fit.