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Post by Jannie on Feb 8, 2016 6:53:34 GMT -5
Swannie, my immediate suggestion is this: If he thinks he knows the best and only way to mop a floor, then let Mr. Swan do it himself! In case anyone cares, I sweep with a broom first, then go over with a Swiffer WetJet. Only problem I find is the Wet Jet solution is expensive. But it does go a long way. There's no right or wrong way, in my opinion. My Grandma used to wash her floor on her hands and knees, then "to keep it clean" she would lay newspaper on the floor. Ugh- newsprint ink over a clean floor! By the way, she had linoleum in her kitchen. You really can't find lino these day. I myself have vinyl sheet flooring in the kitchen.
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Post by cyn on Feb 8, 2016 14:26:59 GMT -5
How do you mop? I thought the real dirt came up from sweeping and mopping was to just wipe up any stains and you use the mop as like a cloth and wipe up stains. He said you are supposed to do this swivel thing with your arms and keep any dirt underneath the mop and that what I was doing was just moving dirt around. Everyone mops differently ~ because there's so many kinds of mops, and so many kinds of dirt! My floors can get really dirty (from dogs tracking in mud) and if I'm good about it then I'll use a towel to wipe up the paw prints before they get a chance to dry. If I let the dirt dry, then I'll have a messy floor with loose dirt, which I'll vacuum up - but the floors are still "dirty" although not crunchy underfoot - just not glossy like they can/should be. I think Mr. Swan's swiveling comments are easier to understand if you think about how you'd clean up a spill on the counter - you'd use something to pick it up, and you'd try to 'swivel' the mess into it - not just rub it back and forth and spread it around. But, when I mop, I probably mop the same way you do: I push the mop back and forth (no swiveling) to get the floor clean - not pick up dirt. If there's a *really* dirty spot, I use my little steam cleaner on it first, because it's easier that way - I don't want to scrub it with my mop, a cheap little sponge one that I'd most likely destroy,  . |
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Post by immaculata on Feb 8, 2016 15:18:50 GMT -5
I thought the real dirt came up from sweeping and mopping was to just wipe up any stains and you use the mop as like a cloth and wipe up stains. Sweeping gets the larger loose particles of dust and dirt off your floor, also dog hair, bits of grass, crumbs, and so on. Mopping it (or rubbing it with a wet cloth, or however you want to clean the floor) actually cleans it - it gets all the rest of the near-invisible tiny little particles of dirt off, especially stuck on ones like grains of powdered sugar, splashes of coffee, dried-on mud, or stuff like that, and the invisible bacteria, viruses, and fungi, too. Sweeping is kind of like hoovering the upholstery on a sofa, or shaking the flour off a T shirt; whereas mopping is like taking the loose covers off the sofa and washing them in a washing machine, or laundering that T shirt. One tidies and the other actually cleans... although there is a bit of an overlap, so that's probably why it's confusing. You wouldn't just comb your hair; you'd wash it. You wouldn't just brush the crumbs off a kitchen table or counter and think it was done, would you? You'd then wipe it down with hot soapy water and a sponge, or disinfectant spray and a damp cloth. In the same way, it's the usual practice to first sweep or hoover a hard-surface floor, and then mop it or wipe it down. I usually sweep the kitchen floor once a day; and one day a week, I sweep it first and then I mop it. If your Mister Swan is so particular about technique, you should let him do it.  |
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Post by italianlady on Feb 8, 2016 16:52:17 GMT -5
How have you cleaned your floor up until now? You can't have just swept it and left the spills and sticky and dirt there without giving any idea to mopping so how did you do it before now? Does your bf so it differently than you, and if so that doesn't mean your way is wrong there are lots of ways to mop. Which way gets the floor the cleanest?
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Post by dayeanu on Feb 8, 2016 19:48:25 GMT -5
I'm with italianlady and Di on this one. Getting the floor clean is the object. Don't over think it. There IS no right or wrong way. What ever works, and whatever you're comfortable with, is the way it should be done. If you want detailed directions for washing seriously dirty, dried-on chunky stuff, let me know - I'm your woman with the plan. I can give you detailed directions on cleaning exceptionally gross floors. (I use a spray bottle of disinfectant, a broom, a paint scraper, a dust pan and a bucket.) If you have a more or less normal dirty floor, any way described above is fine. I especially like the suggestions of letting Mr. Swan do it himself, the way he wants! |
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Post by papermoon on Feb 9, 2016 0:03:24 GMT -5
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Post by italianlady on Feb 9, 2016 0:20:51 GMT -5
OMG she's my favorite person on that show!! I think she's the best actress.
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Post by bobolink on Feb 9, 2016 0:45:58 GMT -5
I think I will wash some floors tomorrow. |
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Post by lydia on Feb 9, 2016 3:25:57 GMT -5
Most practical skills are learned through practice. You get good at something like mopping by doing it, rather than by talking about it. So I don't agree with getting someone else to do it.
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Post by cricket on Feb 9, 2016 14:25:22 GMT -5
There are a million variations on mopping. You have more than enough posts to wade through already, but I'll throw my two cents in because you never know what wording will click for someone.
It helps to review basics sometimes. The principle of mopping is that you are using a solvent (hot water and cleanser) to dissolve the dried-on or ground-in soil, creating a suspension of dirt in water. Then you absorb the dirty water up, which is the step that removes the dirt from the floor.
Why use a cleanser? Water is a polar molecule--which I know you know because you've had plenty of science, but maybe haven't thought about it while staring at a mop. One end of the molecule likes to hang on to other water molecules, which is why water will rinse away like a single thing instead of scattering like marbles dropped on the floor. The other end of the molecule can attach to other stuff, like soap. And soap likes to attach to dirt. So water can pick up other bits and hold it inside the lump of water, which likes to stick together. (Water can attach right to dirt--look at the Grand Canyon! But you don't want to spend millenia cleaning your floor, so we add detergent to help it suspend dirt in itself quickly.)
Why scrub? You know stirring tea causes sugar to dissolve faster. Doing something to mechanically agitate your cleanser will help it loosen and dissolve the soil faster.
So agitation is good, but the best precise motion to accomplish this will depend on a million things.
It will depend on how strong you are, which directions you can apply pressure in, and which way you can move repeatedly without hurting yourself.
It will depend on the mop, how abrasive the material it's made of is, how long any strings are, how heavy it is.
It will depend on what type of soil you are loosening and dissolving. For light soil, a quick wipe might do it, dissolving soil and absorbing it up in single pass.
Heavy, cemented-on soil it might need to be scrubbed with a brush or even chipped at with a scraper to get loosened.
With a professional string mop and a wringer bucket, you can put down a lot of soapy water, pretty much flood a section of floor, then agitate it around with the mop and it's many stringy surfaces. Then you can wring the mop practically dry with the mechanical advantage of that strong lever. Then that big, practically-dry mop can absorb all that dirty water right back up quickly, leaving the floor pretty clean and nearly dry in a short time.
We don't usually have such heavy duty equipment for the relatively small floors in our homes, though. But we also don't have traffic like a public space, so often a different type of mop that works more like wiping up a spill on a counter works just fine. (Like a sponge mop or an old-style swiffer mop that applies the cleanser and wipes it right back up in one step.)
If your boyfriend was trained to mop with an industrial mop bucket on the job somewhere, he may have a strongly ingrained idea about the right and wrong way--but it may not apply to the lightweight, home mop you are using.
Likewise, he has a different body and different distribution of upper body strength. What may be an efficient movement for him may be painful or impossible for you.
I'm not saying you can't learn something from him, just that you have to make sure it applies to you and the situation you are in right now.
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Post by dayeanu on Feb 9, 2016 19:42:44 GMT -5
Here's something I learned about mopping, while cleaning my own house.
It doesn't have to be perfectly clean the first time.
I used to mop and scrub and rinse and scrub and rinse some more - until the floor was as clesn as it could get. I even got a little brush, and Q-tips, and cleaned every crevice.
It took me a long time to get the floor really clean.
And then I was burned out and sick and tired of mopping, and did not do it again for a long while.....
And then one day, I realized that I could do a quick, light mopping, and get the floor fairly clean.
And then I could do it again a few days later, and take it down another layer, to another level of clean.
And each time, the ground-in stains would get a little lighter.
And each time, maybe I'd clean out ONE corner or crevice.
And I realized that it's better to do it just ok, just mediocre, but do it more often, so that the floor is basically always fairly clean - than to get it surgically clean once every few months!!!!
After all....it's a floor. Dirty shoes and dirty feet walk on it. By definition of purpose, a floor will ALWAYS be "dirty" and "germ-y".
So really.....unless you're cleaning up something like rodent or other excrement, a nice quick wipe up to get spills and any loose dirt and dust the vacuum or broom missed, is good enough.
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Blackswan
Banned
Joined: October 2008
Posts: 6,388
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Post by Blackswan on Feb 10, 2016 11:58:47 GMT -5
These are such great replies! Cricket yours was astounding! Now I totally get it down to the scientific atomic level! That's awesome! I even understand now why soap matters! I love it!!!!!! And why we wring out the mop. I think that WAS the post that really clicked!!!! Also the one person who wrote about comparing it to wiping with a paper towel. Thank you guys, I'm sure I will be a much better mopper now and I will do it when mr swan is off doing something else. I'm very sensitive to any sort of criticism, even constructive so I want to avoid it, especially now that I got the real scoop on mopping! |
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Post by lucie on Feb 10, 2016 12:25:49 GMT -5
Guerilla mopping! That's what I had to do for years! Go for it, Blackswan, and mop when he is not around.
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Post by joyinvirginia on Feb 11, 2016 0:30:46 GMT -5
I don't like string mops and threw my old one or years ago. Instead I sweep or vacuum first, before the mop gets wet, then I use the swiffer with the wet pads and do a small area at a time, depends on how dirty floor is. When a pad is dirty, I throw it away and get a new one.
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Post by cricket on Feb 13, 2016 10:56:41 GMT -5
Thanks for validating my powers of dorkiness, Swan!
You may recall about me from discussions years ago that my husband and I have autistic traits below diagnostic criteria and both my kids are spectrum. NONE of us learn well by watching alone to various degrees. We all require clear verbal or written instruction as well. We never just "get a feel" for anything.
So we run our household (and small talk around the dinner table) on just this sort of exploration of underlying systems. And we all think it's interesting.
Unfortunately, it's hard to turn it off, so if I get started, I tend to ramble on in depth about things that most people find pretty boring. When you "just have a feel" for how things work on the surface, technical details are irrelevant and excruciating.
You'll notice that the people with the most how-to knowledge are often the other type, people who "just know." And they never developed the skill of communicating verbally with precision because they just don't need it in their lives. I have to sort through youtube how-to videos for the gems that both show and tell. People naturally good at doing have so much to share, but they often don't realize anyone else needs the telling part.
It's all down to our mirror neurons, I guess. Mine don't work as well as some people's, and my kids' don't work as well as mine. That has made me a bit of an interpreter, explaining the world to them and explaining them to the world. But with a foot in both camps I probably don't do either well enough. Once someone learns how to hack mirror neurons, we'll all be able to "just know" like neurotypicals, and things like engaging in small talk and watching other people play professional sports will become enjoyable, and I'll wonder how I could have ever enjoyed writing a loooong post about dirt suspensions.
PS--I should have mentioned that the reason you should sweep or vacuum first is to remove all the dirt particles that are too large and heavy to become suspended in soapy water. (You can stir sugar into your tea, but you can't stir marbles into your tea. Marbles just get wet and roll around on the bottom of the cup.)
Maybe it's just me, but it's horribly tempting to skip sweeping when I'm going to mop because I entertain the false hierarchy that mopping>sweeping, probably because mopping gets stuff sweeping leaves behind.
But obviously that's wrong. Mopping isn't greater; it just works on a different type of soiling.
And skipping sweeping is a bad idea because if a particle is too big to be absorbed up with the mop water, it's going to still be on the floor when I am done mopping. Except now it will be wet and want to stick to the floor.
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