Maine Nesties
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Shark steam mop/cleaner
Anyone else have one?
Were my expectations for it too high?
I tried to use it on the rubber linoleum floor in my pantry (I think the stuff was put down in the late 20s and hasn't been cleaned since the 70s), and it doesn't look much different. And the pad is fairly dirty, but I expected after all that time, that the pad would be black! Stains didn't even come up with the steam.
Anyone have any experience with this steam mop?
"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky." -- Ranier Maria Rilke
Me:37 MH:38
TTC since Oct 2011
BFP/Beta#1: 13 6/20/12; Beta#2: 20 6/22/12;
MC/Beta#3: 9 6/27/12 BFP#2/Beta#1: 9/21/12
S/PAIFW
Me:37 MH:38
TTC since Oct 2011
BFP/Beta#1: 13 6/20/12; Beta#2: 20 6/22/12;
MC/Beta#3: 9 6/27/12 BFP#2/Beta#1: 9/21/12
S/PAIFW
Re: Shark steam mop/cleaner
It's actually cleaner-- because the steam *does* get hot enough to kill a ton of microorganisms hanging out on the floor. And it *did* pick up what the mop clearly didn't-- as evidenced by the brown/dirt on the cleaning cloth.
I guess I shouldn't have been so na?ve to think that it would work like it did on the television...
Yes, the sanitizing nature of the steam clear is the other reason I want one! I think we'll have to tile first. Speaking of which, is tiling hard to do?? Does anyone know?
We did the tiling in our bathroom ourselves. (The 1" tiles were attached to a ~12"x~12" mesh, so it wasn't like we were doing 10,000 itty bitty tiles!) It wasn't bad. Our floor isn't perfectly level and because we started in the wrong corner, the parts that ended up a little uneven are more prominent than they would have been if we started in a different place.
(Because we started under the toilet, that area is pretty perfect, but it's under the toilet, so who sees that? As we moved further out, the slight imperfections in angle got extrapolated out as we got further away, making the uneven sections more obvious to the eye. We would learn from that next time and start in the more visible areas and maybe use tile spacers if we weren't using the itty tiles.)
The cementing and grouting weren't particularly hard. We found the hard part to be getting it all straight. We were going to do the tile in the shower ourselves, but aside from the other complications in there that have kept it unfinished for 3+ years now, we're too scared to take on the vertical walls and inverted ceiling. We're going to hire out for that. We'd do another floor again though.
A) I'm going to try an experiment and see if some baking soda sprinkled on the floor, combined with some vinegar spritzed on it, will get up the decades of dirt so that the tan parts of the floor look more cream/white. I'll keep y'all posted on that.
I don't have any experience with the steam mop, but have you tried a Magic Eraser on your floor? I scrubbed our downstairs bathroom floor with one (in little sections over a few days) and OMG did it get out all kinds of crud and gunk I didn't even know was there.
He could TOTALLY do it! Especially the bigger tiles or the mesh-backed tiles.
Although, I can relate with him to some degree-- sometimes, I just know that the frustration factor (I'm not always the most patient person-- no, seriously!
) doesn't always outweigh the financial cost of hiring someone else to do it while you keep your sanity.
But then-- I have no idea how long your hallway is! Maybe it's wicked short and it'd only take a day to tile!
I second the Magic Eraser for stains...we use it at the inn where I work all the time and I went crazy in my last apartment on our linoleum tile floor with it...it was actually quite amazing how clean the white tiles (from the '60s) became (it was a LOT of work, though, so I can't say I would do it again...of course, this was a rental, so maybe once I own, I'll try it again if necessary.)
As for the Shark Steam Mop, we just got one of those at the inn. We were mostly interested in using it for our wood floors because the Swiffer Wet Jet was leaving a lot of streaks. I feel like the Steam Mop works better because the fabric pad seems more absorbent. I also love the fact that they can be washed and reused AND that it uses water and not a cleaner that you have to purchase...plus no chemicals. We have found it great at getting stuff like salt stains from the snow up quickly. However, we haven't used it on old stains.
You know, I keep forgetting about the Magic Eraser. I have about 6 of them in my cleaning cupboard! Duh!
Lauram730-- I'm assuming your wood floors at the inn were finished? My wood floors on the ground floor were covered by a carpet and carpet pad for at least 20 years, so while they were finished at one point, the finish is old and worn. I'm not so sure that it would be a good idea to steam them, right?