Condo Blues: Homemade Non-Toxic Floor Cleaner

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Homemade Non-Toxic Floor Cleaner

The four seasons in Central Ohio are: Winter, Still Winter, Mud, and Blazing Hot.

We are now in the season of Mud, although you might call it Spring where you live.

Lacey loves this season. The weather is warmer and allows us to give our girl the long and frequent walks she so desperately needs to drain her nervous energy. It also allows her to create intricate muddy paw print art installations on the kitchen floor when we come home.

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 As much as I like to support the arts. I like to support clean kitchen floors more.


Lisa ruins all of my hard work!

After my neighbors vet said that her floor cleaner kept making her cat sick, she and I were on the hunt to find a non-toxic and pet safe floor cleaner. In desperation, I experimented with non-toxic floor cleaner recipes because the cleaners in the store don't list their ingredients. With an ingredients list I don't know exactly if I am buying something that is pet and people safe. I shouldn't be surprised. There isn't a law or requirement for companies to list the ingredients in their cleaning products. So they don't and claim doing so will deluge trade secrets.

Vinegar is a natural disinfectant and is good for cleaning many things - except dirty paw prints.   Fortunately, by adding a good, healthy sploosh or two of dishwashing detergent to the vinegar and water mix fixes that. The dish detergent cleans dirt and mystery sticky stuff from the floor. The vinegar and water disinfects.

I gave a friend the recipe for my homemade floor cleaner and she swears by it for her hardwood floors.

You will need:

1 part dish detergent: You can use what ever brand you like. I go with a plant based dish detergent (you can learn more about the brands I like here).

1 part vinegar

2 parts water

Refillable spray mop - I use an O-Cedar microfiber spray mop like this one because I can refill it with any brand or type of cleaner I want and the removable pads are machine washable. I think cloth pads clean better than disposable pads. Let's not forget how much better reusables are for the planet and your wallet.


Make it:

1. Combine the dish detergent, vinegar, and water in the spray mop dispenser.

2. Put the cap on the dispenser and mix the ingredients by giving it a shake or two.

3. Put the dispenser in your spray mop and clean up the town!

If you don't like the smell of vinegar, you can add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to the mix or use a scented dish detergent.

What do you use to clean floors?

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