I know I said just last month that I’d already optimized floor-cleaning as a process. Nevertheless, I recently came across a method (for wood floors) that was new to me. Completeness requires me to evaluate it.
Materials needed:
- One O-Cedar(R) "Hardwood Floor ‘N More" All Surface Dust Mop
- One O-Cedar(R) "Hardwood Floor ‘N More" All Surface Dust Mop Microfiber Cover
- One aerosol can Endust(R) Dusting And Cleaning Spray (no kidding)
Procedure:
Attach dust mop cover to dust mop. Spray dust mop cover with Endust. Push around on the floor. Spray again when necessary.
That’s it.
The "dust mop" is obviously the archaic technology on which the Swiffer(TM) was modeled, lo these many years ago. The cover is machine washable and reusable. I don’t know if the Endust is strictly necessary, or if water or some other inexpensive liquid would work just as well. Have to try that next.
This method isn’t going to work in my kitchen or around my dining table, I can tell you that — far too much sticky crud. But it did a good job removing the miscellaneous smudges and footprints on the hallway, living room, and schoolroom floors — the kind that pop into relief when the light hits the floor just right.
The big benefit: Quick, simple, and un-messy. Keep the dust mop and Endust handy, and you could easily get it out just to do thirty seconds’ worth of touching-up (which would cover about a 5-foot-square patch of floor). No puddles, no spills, no hands and knees.
One drawback: the microfiber cover, plus Endust, has a surprisingly large coefficient of sliding friction in contact with the floor. That is, it’s hard to push. I suspect this is crucial to the microfiber cloth’s success as a cleaning tool. Anyway, you can work up a bit of effort just moving it around. (At least if you’re five months pregnant you can.)
Speaking as someone who makes her own glass cleaner and tends to scrub things with baking soda, I consider it a drawback that this method requires the purchase of a bona fide Consumer Product. In an aerosol can, no less. I feel a little less crunchy than usual, kind of fifties-housewifeish, when running around my house spraying anything out of an aerosol can. In fact, I think that this can of Endust is perhaps only the third aerosol can to enter my home in the last five years. (The other two cans contain, respectively, mosquito repellent and WD-40.) Furthermore, I have a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, who has sprayed himself twice in the face with nonstick cooking spray and is generally fascinated with anything that shoots out really fast from any other thing. Believe me, aerosols are a drawback.
Nevertheless, it looks like a pretty good solution. I didn’t want to clean the whole living room on my hands and knees, anyway.
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