It is scientifically proven that keeping your floors clean is one of the most annoying tasks a human must endure. Staying ahead of the grease and grime that naturally accumulates through Newton’s law of gravity and Murphy’s law of “anything that can be on the bottom of someone’s shoe will be, and will end up smashed into your floor” might feel like a never ending job. If you give up the struggle, your funky floors make your whole house look gross. Luckily, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite floor cleaning hacks that will give you a one-up on the evil spirits of floor grime:
- DIY your own heavy duty floor cleaner. The following cleaning solution works wonders for cutting grease and deodorizing your floors and is made of ingredients you probably already have around the house.
Simply mix a gallon of water (as hot as your faucet will give you) with 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup baking soda (or cleaning soda, if you have it), and a healthy splash of dish soap. You can use this cleaning solution on multiple surfaces; it makes a great mopping agent and also works to get tough stains out of carpets. If you use it as a carpet cleaner, saturate the stain, place a towel over the area, and then apply heat with your iron. Your homemade steam treatment will do wonders for your carpet. - Go to war with filthy grout lines. Even if you mop on the regular, the porous nature of grout gets dingy and filthy over time, and makes your entire floor look dirty. A good grout line cleaning livens up the whole space. A really simple way to draw out the dirt in grout is to create a paste of baking soda and warm water (for really filthy grout, replace the water with peroxide), put it on your grout lines and let it sit for 30 minutes or so to draw out the dirt out. Follow this by spraying a mixture of half water and half vinegar over the surface. The vinegar will make the baking soda fizzle, and break up the grout grime in the process. When the fizzing stops, simply mop it all up.
- Tap into the power of the sun for those resistant stains. If you lived through the 1990s, you probably remember putting peroxide and lemon juice in your hair during the summer to lighten it. While that was a terrible trend that was terrible for your hair and also looked terrible, it is a great way get stubborn stains out of your carpets.
Simply mix one part hydrogen peroxide with three parts water, and the juice from half of a lemon and pour into a dark colored spray bottle (if your spray bottle is transparent, the sunlight will cause the peroxide to oxidize, you want it to be on your floors when it does that). Liberally spray this solution on your tough stains and let it sit for a few minutes and then scrub it away with a hard bristle brush or a rag. For the toughest stains, repeat one or two times until it’s gone.Caution: This is not recommended if you have dark colored carpets, as the peroxide can lighten the carpet. It’s a good idea to test it in an inconspicuous spot first.
- Give your floors a professional do-over at a fraction of the cost with rental floor scrubbers. If it feels like you’ve reached the point of no return with your floors, you might be able to breath new life into them with the assistance of one of the rental floor scrubbers from your nearest hardware store. You would be amazed at the magic those bad boys can work.
It is a common misconception that only the queen of England can afford professional floor cleaning services. While hiring a professional might cost one of your vital organs, you can DIY with rental floor scrubbers for less than it costs to fill your gas tank up. Basically, if you forgo your morning latte for about five days, you will have saved more than enough for your “rental floor scrubbers” fund.
Do you have any great floor cleaning tricks we didn’t mention? Please share them in the comment section below!
