Cleaning steps

We have a cellar kitchen with stone steps going down from the outside to the kitchen door. They are very steep stone steps and at this time of year are covered in dead bees.

They are also green. Little sunlight gets to them except at the height of summer. The very tall laurels across from us block the sun. In winter the low angle of the sun and the height of the laurels mean that no sunlight hits the pavement outside our garden or the garden itself, the lowest point being about two foot up the wall of our house. This means that the ice never actually melts when it is really icy pavements because the sun doesn't hit it. The steps are also shaded from the left by tall porch steps and on the right by the shadow from a tall fence. So they get green and covered with algae. This is not good if you are trying to take a large delivery of groceries down the steps to the kitchen. I usually won't allow the delivery drivers to take stuff down for me, I am worried about them slipping.

In the past I have scrubbed them with washing soda and water, soap and water and stardrops and water. This has never been hugely effective, but usually cut through the worst of the slime.

Yesterday even I didn't want to go down the steps. The cool summer and lack of sunlight hitting the steps meant that they were coated. So I called in for a cup of gossip at the local newsagent and picked up some toilet bleach. Then I carefully went down the steps, squirting as I went. The bleach frothed. It may have been the limescale remover component, or the lemon scent, but it looked like it was working hard.

Today I looked out and there were the lovely limestone steps, green free apart from a few streaks at the bottom where I ran out of bleach. It probably isn't old style or economic, but one bottle of cheapo loo bleach solved a lot of health and safety problems. I shall repeat this regularly.