Sweeping and mopping floors

[ctuser1]

OK. This feels silly to be asking. It probably is obvious to everyone except me. But it has been a "problem" for me for a long time - so I thought I will ask anyway.

I hate sweeping and mopping the floors. I have all kinds of flooring materials in my house. Living room and dining area is hardwood. Bedrooms are laminate. Kitchen area and basement is tile. DW puts some low pile, cheapo runners and rugs over the tile because she feels uncomfortable over the tile.

Net net - I need to clean all kinds of floors.

My current instruments for this is a "bucket and brush" set from Sams. The brush is only about 8 inches wide and I find it a huge pain to use that to sweep the entire house.
I have two vacuums, a canister as well as an upright. They don;t exactly do a very good job except for the rugs.

Stairs are especially painful to sweep.

Mopping is also a bit of a pain - but is done less frequently and hence is not the biggest of issues for us.

What kinds of "brush", "mop" or any other set of instruments do you use to do this? I won't mind spending money on this if it is really necessary (e.g. on swiffer brand stuff), but would avoid if possible.

[APowers]

For sweeping tile/hardwood/laminate, you can spend <$20 and get a decent broom (12-16" wide). That will be worlds better than an 8" brush. A good upright vac should have some sort of "noncarpet" setting for smooth surfaces (my Shark liftaway does), but that will likely run well over $100 (mine was ~$300).

For mopping, I use a window scrubber on a 5' pole (see attached photo). the scrubber/head should be ~$15 at Lowe's, plus whatever you may buy/recycle as a handle. It works really great as a damp-mop (spot mopping/touchup) and less well, but still good, as a deep clean mop. I just fill my kitchen sink with hot/soapy water and use that as my "bucket" (my house is not so big that the kitchen isn't close enough to everything).

Or, you could buy a fancy robot vacuum and attempt to do away with sweeping altogether. I'd expect that to cost ~$300, and have no recommendations.

[ctuser1]

Thank you. I will try a better broom as the very first step.

Any ideas where I can get a good one that will last without paying a lot? Lowe's/HD perhaps? any specific product recommendation?

[APowers]

Thank you. I will try a better broom as the very first step.

Any ideas where I can get a good one that will last without paying a lot? Lowe's/HD perhaps? any specific product recommendation?

Costco/Sam's usually carry some sort of broom+dustpan set for a reasonable price. I don't know that it really matters *too* much-- worst case scenario, you buy one, figure out what you really like in a broom, and then buy a second one, while keeping the first as a porch/garage/outside broom. I currently have two brooms and a push broom (plus one for the airbnb basement), and wouldn't mind having yet another, so.....¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[GuitarStv]

If you own a vacuum cleaner, there's no reason to ever sweep.  Usually we can get away with not mopping more than once or twice a year by doing spot cleaning if/when stuff that can't be sucked up gets on the floor.

[Frankies Girl]

Word of warning: do not put in super dark colored flooring because it will show every freaking speck of dust, hair, whatever. I am someone who mistakenly did this - gorgeous dark hickory hand scraped flooring in the majority of my house. It looks good for like 5 minutes. I have cats, and there are pawprints and fur and dust EVERYWHERE. I can clean it and not even an hour later it will be covered in footy prints and fur again.

I have wood floors in 90% of the house, and big white-ish ceramic tile in the kitchen/baths. We have low pile area rugs in the living and bedrooms.

I have many pets and two adults that also shed like crazy, so I also have a robot vac. It runs DAILY. It does a good job of picking up the main areas but we're lucky to not have lots of crap to move each time and it can easily get under most all our furniture, so mostly just setting up the  barrier to keep it inside a general room/area, and hitting the button to send him out, then dumping it after, and clean the brushes ever week. We rotate it to do each room at least 1 a week, and do the living/dining/kitchen area daily. Our house is small so it's not a huge deal, and the vac does the main living areas in about an hour without running out of charge.

We have two vacuums. One fancy canister vac that has a hepa filter and one old school upright with a beater bar/brush. The upright is the one we pull out for quick passes over the rugs about once a week. The canister is less frequent and more thorough - say every 2/3 weeks.

A good large sweeper area broom is definitely worth it for basic stuff, and make sure to hang it up so the bristles don't warp; I was never taught this, but it makes a HUGE difference and it's also why most brooms have a little hole on the top of the handle. Dustpans are nice but never able to get every bit of the pile so I just sweep to the vac and suck it up with the hose attachment (less messy I think that way too). I have to admit that I rarely use the broom tho. We mainly use the robot vac, and the weekly upright vac with a 1-2 times a month deep vacuuming using the canister vac with the hepa filter.

I use a mop similar to the window cleaning one recommended by APowers for basic cleaning on the wood floors. I use window cleaner or Bona to do basic mopping on the hardwood. For the tile, I use a standard foam mop with an abrasive scrubby section, and use a cheap all purpose cleaner or a touch of ammonia in the sink with hot/warmish water. I also wipe up spills the instant they happen with cleaning cloths I keep near the kitchen (cut up old tees and cotton into washcloth sized pieces, keep in a decorative easter basket, toss in washing machine with regular load, hang dry around the washer area). I mop maybe every 3-ish months unless we have company over as I don't care at this point about pawprints/smudges.


So a condensed version: robot vac daily, person-powered vac weekly, deep cleaning once a month. Rarely sweep, mop as needed (usually every quarter).

[lthenderson]

We just vacuum up loose debris on our hardwood floors and tile regularly and spot treat any spots with residue with a spray bottle and a mop with a terry cloth head. Maybe once a year will we actually mop the entire thing.

[Metalcat]

I have a robot vacuum and I very very rarely mop. We don't wear shoes inside, so there's rarely a need for mopping. We have 3 animals, and I like to keep my place spotless.

[LaineyAZ]

Adding another idea on the prevention side:  entry mats just inside and outside your exterior doorways. 

[Cassie]

Robot vacuum weekly and mop every month. 2 adults and 2 tiny dogs. You would be surprised how dirty your floors really are.

[chemistk]

The main living area of the house (~600 sq. ft.) has one contiguous installation of engineered hardwood. It's a darker shade and has a semi-gloss finish. End result? Every. Single. Crumb. and Every. Single. Smudge are instantly apparent. When the afternoon sun shines, it's the same effect as taking a black light to a motel bed - every piece of hidden filth is exposed.

We (my wife and I) collectively sweep the entire floor 3x a day, sometimes up to 6x. We vacuum the whole floor (vacuum has a hardwood setting) at least once a week. We spot mop as necessarily and then I handwash (as in bucket and rag on my hands and knees) the floor probably once every two weeks.

The floor in this house fucking sucks, and this system is the only way we can keep things reasonably clean. If the kids weren't guaranteed to break the damn thing after a week of having one, I'd absolutely have a robotic vacuum in the house.

[Fishindude]

It's real hard to find a good soft bristle broom anywhere.   All of the ones you find at the box stores are stiff bristle and don't work so well.
If you find one you like, buy another to keep in stock.

I use a shop vac to go around the room getting all the corners, dust bunnies, etc.   An upright vac doesn't have as much suction.

[SunnyDays]

Frankie's Girl - "footy prints" - I laughed so hard at that!  I have a dog and 2 cats that track in dirt, mud, grass, pine needles, you name it.  And of course, the cats also jump on the counters.  And the table.  And on top of the fridge.  So OP, consider yourself lucky if it's only floors that drive you nuts.  (Light-coloured vinyl floors are just as bad as dark ones.  My carpet, which is taupe, is probably the best at hiding dirt, but it's shocking what comes out with the Bissell steamer.)

I use an upright vacuum on my carpets - I find that canister wands aren't heavy enough to pick up the same amount of dirt, even with the rotating brush.  Vileda has a great line of all kinds of brooms, mops and brushes. For my vinyl floors, I use their DuActiva broom, that has a foam piece alongside the bristles and is good for picking up dust and pet hair, and then the Pro-Mist Microfibre Spray Mop for washing.  You can also purchase a Multi-Surface Cleaner, but I just use dish soap and water.  On laminate, some cleaners can leave streaks and film, so you might need to experiment there.  You can also try a stick vacuum for hard floors - I have a corded one that I use on occasion and is good for stairs too, either hard or carpeted.  No matter what you choose, you have to use them!  Frequently!