I'm having new countertops and kitchen cupboard doors installed in my
22-year-old already-fitted kitchen, whose doors and counters are falling
apart or looking distinctly seedy, especially following a cooker fire or
two. I need to clean up some of the existing carcasses, as well as the
ceramic tiles surrounding, plus the glass top of the stove. No problem with
the carcasses.

My question is, how does one get the cooking grease off from the existing
surfaces, e.g. the sides of cupboards surrounding the stove, the ceramic
tiles, etc., which is either in lumps or as an invisible film of grease -
and furthermore, how to keep the awful sticky stuff off the cooker hood?

Everywhere I read says to use detergent, or ammonia, or borax, or this or
that, but nothing works. I tried scrubbing the cooker hood with anything
you can name but it's still sticky. Orange oil is OK, but I'd need about
two gallons to do the job, and even then it's still sticky.

Surely there must be some solvent besides petrol which can clean kitchen
grease off surfaces. It's not burnt on, it's like little clear plastic dots
which are immovable.

Any help would be appreciated.

someone