I have several fond memories of carpet from my childhood. Oddly enough, I’m pretty sure they all end up with a carpet stain of some sort. For instance, when I was a little tyke living in Dawson MN, we had a sun room that was used as a kids playroom. So there I was, sitting and playing comfortably on the soft orange and yellow shag carpet floor with my Tonka Trucks. There was a band-aid on my big toe from an accident involving gravity and a big rock from about a week prior. The toenail underneath the band-aid was sporting some beautiful shades of blue, black and purple and was still a few days from being ready to fall off on it’s own. I was crawling around on my knees happily rolling my trucks over my He-Man toys when my mom called me for lunch. Being the fat kid that I was, I got pretty excited. I jumped up as best I could, screamed and fell right back to the carpet. In my haste for nutrition, I somehow managed to get my toenail (even with a band-aid on) stuck in carpet fibers and the whole damn thing was ripped off. Of course I made no effort to try to stop the blood. I just sat there, crying while it ran down my foot and onto the carpet where Mom later attempted to clean it up. Had I known then what I know now, I could have been of some use. And so, all these years later, an attempt for redemption is made. Please have a look at How to Clean Carpet Stains. Someday, when you need to clean a carpet stain caused by your own kid, you’ll be glad you did.
Archive for the 'floors' Category
Every time I clean my floors, I have this debate with myself over whether I prefer hardwood or carpet. Usually, the winner is whichever surface I’m not cleaning right at that moment, because each is unruly in its own special way. Hardwood has its dust bunnies and its drying time after mopping. Carpet would be easier to care for (Just vacuum!) if it weren’t for the layer of filth that gradually builds up in high-traffic areas. To get rid of it, you’re pretty much stuck begging, renting, or buying a carpet extractor, and then let’s talk about drying time. Also, what exactly is in the soap you have to put in those machines? I’m only curious because every time I clean my carpet, I end up dumping a ton of it down the drain, and for the next week I have a constant layer of it on the soles of my feet. I’ve always thought it would be reassuring to know that cleaning carpet wasn’t tantamount to pumping the environment and my body full of toxic chemicals. So imagine my joy when I learned how to clean carpet without mysterious detergents. The details are all in my latest article.
I never knew the simple pleasure of wood floors growing up; however, I did become well acquainted with the displeasure of carpeting. Getting an occasional third-degree burn, seeing my dad’s wrathful vein surface across his temple as he eyed an awful stain, trying to extricate a sloppy pile of Golden Retriever feces from a carpet that was initially in no way brown - these are my fond memories of the stuff. The first thing I did when I moved was to expose the beautiful maple which once graced the home. After a few months of heavy traffic and sock-sliding competitions, I realized I didn’t know how to clean hardwood floors. To my surprise, it wasn’t at all difficult. I figured it would be a complex operation - that there wood be a tortuous yin to my floor’s charming yang. Sure, you may have to refinish now and then, but the normal upkeep of hardwood floors is an easy task. Read my latest article to learn how to clean hardwood floors quickly and safely.
When I mentioned to some of my coworkers that I was planning to write an article about cleaning grout, the unanimous response was groaning. Everyone hates cleaning tile grout. Which is too bad, because ceramic tile looks nice, and you can’t have tile without grout. But—good news—cleaning grout doesn’t have to involve hours of tedious scrubbing. While researching for the article, I learned about an environmentally friendly cleaning product that does the hardest part for you. My latest article features step-by-step instructions for how to clean grout with minimal work and without stressing out your health or the planet. Sounds too good to be true? It’s not—take a look.
Learning how to clean linoleum floors with vinegar is just about one of the easiest and most sensible lessons we can offer a person who is just now realizing that all of these gimmicky cleaners and toxic chemicals are just about large companies playing the average consumer. I’ve been cleaning floors with vinegar for quite some time. Even when I was working as a janitor in our state university system, I was using vinegar to clean floors. Of course, there wasn’t a lot of linoleum there because larger institutions usually choose vinyl over linoleum. For large traffic situations, this makes a lot of sense, but for domestic use, linoleum is cheaper, easier to clean, and is made from all natural materials.
So the next time you’re considering your options for flooring, think about linoleum. The fact that you can clean linoleum with vinegar and it’s easily recyclable makes linoleum the obvious choice for someone looking to install “green” floors.
