What's Your Floorcare Routine? Mop and bucket? Swiffer? Broom?

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launderess

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How do you clean your floors?

Mop and bucket?

If mop what sort? Cotton string fibers? Microfibers? Sponge?

Swiffer wet jet or damp pads?

Was brought up with using a broom or dust mop to get up dirt, then out came mop and bucket for rest. Always felt using nasty dirty mops that had been sitting about after use rather gross. That and many seemed to just push dirt around.

Those were the cotton variety. Later was turned onto microfiber mop heads which slightly better still had an "ick" factor as one reused the things week after week.

Find Swiffer cloths really do pick up and hold muck far better than any sort of other mop. Plus one throws the nasty filthy cloth away after use.
 
We, or rather my husband David uses the vacuum to get up the loose dirt and then scrubs the  floors using a dishpan full of hot  water and Mr. Clean with an old washcloth.  He does all the housecleaning, but on the  off occasion that I clean the floors I do the same thing.

 

We both feel that a mop just moves the dirt around into a coating on the floor, while using a cloth you rinse the dirt back into the water in the bucket or dishpan and less dirt remains on the cleaned floor.  Our floors are’t that big so it really isn’t hard to clean the, on our hands and knees.

 

Our kitchen and bathroom floors are the new type of vinyl that doesn’t need to be waxed, it retains its shiny surface.

 

Eddie
 
Top Job!

You lot are always going on about ammonia. Well that was what made up good portion of Top Job. One could save a bit of money by simply buying ammonia in those gallon or quart sized bottles.





Then came "Mop and Glow"...

Think tried it on one of our grandmother's kitchen floors. She wasn't impressed and one was made to redo entire thing again "properly" this time. Mopping floor with bucket and pail I'd do, but getting down on one's hands and knees with at scrub brush was not going to happen.

 
So what I do

Is I go and Use a hoover floor washer/polisher and then after that I use a wet dry vacuum and suck up the liquid and then just probably a towel to quickly wipe everything that’s left over
 
Broom or vac followed by a good scrub with my Hoover floor mate. Have had some version of the Hoover since '73, got loads of floor to scrub, though now days it's just the Foyer, kitchen and back entry. I like the Hoover since it put down CLEAN water, scrubs, then vacs it up- no dirty water reused.  The baths get the steam mop and the rec room does not get any use so all it gets is a quick vac occasionally.
 
For hard surface floors

Central vacuum cleaning system remove all grit, dust, etc. then I use old white, terry, hand towels, etc. to wash and rinse the floor, mostly on my hands and knees, I run a rag load about once a month of all the cleaning clause from around the house.

I have never bought paper towels, swiffer or any of the other consumer junk in my life. There’s just no reason you can keep a house beautifully clean without all this trash to buy and throw away. The only disposable paper product I buy is toilet tissue, which gets completely recycled along with all the other food and human waste from the house.

Even the central vacuum system does not use bags, it gets emptied once a year. It’s out in the garage so it’s easier to do without getting any dust in the house.

I am off and amazed when you see the amount of stuff people put out on trash day mountains of stuff in plastic bags that they have just bought the week before, people wonder why they don’t have any money.

We have huge rolling trash bins that I put out maybe four times a year and 3/4 of what’s in the bin or old plastic appliance parts or something that can’t be recycled.

John
 
Personally I’ve never been a big fan of swiffer. I’ve used the wet pads with one of their mops before and it did okay, but it ended up drying out before I could finish the kitchen. I do use it as a dust mop however. Wet Jet left a nasty film on my kitchen floors after a couple weeks and I had to mop with Powder Tide to get it off. Purchased a Casabella Clean water mop. Has 3 chambers, one for dirty water, one that pulls water in to wet/clean the mop head, and one for dirty water. That combined with the floor cleaning concentrate from the Pink Stuff and my floors are clean without any leftover residue.

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I have an Ecovax robot vacuum. I'd never heard of it before we bought it, only had ever heard of the Roomba before that, but it was on a good sale when we received one of the COVID checks back in 2021. It does a decent job for what it is, and I have a small handheld dirt devil to get into the corners where the robot vacuum won't reach. I then use a Swiffer wet jet once every couple weeks to get the grime the Ecovax doesn't pick up.

My apartment is all laminate flooring except for the bedroom, which is carpet, so I can't really imagine being on my hands and knees to get all of that. I did use the method of getting down on my hands and knees and using a rag to mop back when I lived in places that had mostly carpet and hard floors only in the bathroom and kitchen. That really did work well for small areas. And I'll tell you now that the robot vacuum isn't perfect and neither is the swiffer, but honestly I'm not aiming for perfection. With being a full-time caregiver and also disabled myself, good enough is good enough for me. My house probably wouldn't pass Martha Stuart's inspection, but it certainly is livable, not at all what most average people would call dirty, and that's what matters to us.

Ryne
 
I use a Shark stick vac for hard floor vacuuming. If there's smallish spills etc I'll use a Swiffer Wet Jet with the disposable pads. For washing the floors I use the Bissell Crosswave. I find it works well but it's a bit cumbersome in tight spaces or wont' reach into the, so I use the swiffer wet jet again for those spots. I can't do much bending down anymore. The Crosswave also does low pile rugs and mats. Upstairs where there's still some wall to wall I use my Miele vac with a power brushroll. For the carpeted stair treads I dig out my old Electrolux with the powered hand brush.
 
I had a Swiffer Wet Jet a few years ago, but thought it just smeared dirt around on the floor. More recently I've been using a sponge mop and double bucket, with soapy water in one side, and clean rinse water in the other. If the floor was really dirty, I rinse again with clean water. My sister has a Rubbermaid microfiber mop like used in hospitals, along with the wringer bucket.
 
I use a Bissel Crosswave floor cleaner. For my OCD, I know that the water with cleaning solution, is always clean during application. This is instead of rinsing the mop out with dirty solution, which is what happens with a mob and bucket. I do use a Swiffer for small clean-ups and spills, but I toss the pad afterwards.
 
Vacuum, then get down on all 4's with a bucket full of Dawn at 130F and a blue Scotchbrite sponge then go to town. Toss the water when it gets dirty and refill. Probably will change as I get older but still works for now.
 
Well hubbie bought the swiffer mop and used to clean the floor. But now the chore is mine and I vacuum the floor first, and then use 4 swiffer wet mops to clean it. I am not a fan of swiffer at all just feel that it just gets some of the dirt and just smears it around. I rather get on my hands and knees and clean it with household floor cleaner and a bucket, as I feel it cleans better.

Doug
 

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