There has got to be a better way to vacuum and mop my floors…..pl

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I have heard that wood floors and dogs don’t mix. We are going to pull up all of our carpet and are thinking of Pergo for some of the floors, tile for other portions. I can’t wait to be rid of wall-to-wall carpeting in the majority of our rooms. Haven’t decided yet on the kids rooms. Since they are (will be) young and crawl/spend a lot of time on the floors, I am debating putting wood floors in their rooms. Any tips? I would suggest that you get a damp mop for the pee accidents with the dogs and get to them as soon as possible. I have not yet had wood floors, so I don’t know if that will work or not. The danger, I would think is off pee running into the seems and being permanent mess in your home. Did the floor manufacturer website recommend anything? Some have 1-800 numbers you can call and get advice on how to treat their product. Good luck with everything! Sounds like really busy household there! We have one toddler and a baby on the way, and now, one cat. Herlean

The Victors wrote:

We recently pulled all the carpet from the house and replaced it with engineered hard wood floors, and ceramic tile. I was against the laminate wood because I was scared it would not hold up to our 3 messy kids, my clumsy but loveable husband and our now five dogs:

A 6 year old female housetrained shih Tzu, a now marking the house after almost 2 years of being here (due to a new male puppy) 2 year old male miniature dachshund, an 18 week old (approx) toy miniature female dachshund (both were rescue dogs), and just recently added 9 week old brother and sister mixed lab puppies.

All but the labs are fixed and they are scheduled to get fixed Friday.

My husband was against hard wood because of the cost, but I
don’t feel the engineered wood is much better than laminate, but we agreed to disagree and we have engineered wood.

Anyway…. As you can imagine, we have several accidents a day due to potty training. We have doggy doors that go through the laundry room, into the garage, and then out the back door but I also park the car in the garage and the new puppies do not get the concept of not running out nor getting out of the way of the car. So, we run the puppies out of the back door that currently only has a metal door and a brand new fully glass storm door. I have recommended to hubby we need to possibly take the new door down
and either put a storm door up with a doggy door built in or just leave a storm door off since the door goes to a covered patio, and install a doggy door there since that is where we run them out the majority of the time. That should help with the potty training, we really can not expect them to go out the doggy door (even though they know how to use it to come in and go out sometimes) to potty if we are always running them out a different door. Anyway, that is a little history on our situation, now my question for recommendations. We are using a product called Nature’s Miracle, something expensive we bought from Pet’s Mart for the tile after we clean up the mess (it was recommended by a trainer) and a product called Simple Solution for the hard floors. It is suppose to remove the stain and odor so they won’t use the same area again. UMMM…. Not working very well, they potty everywhere even if the area has been previously sprayed,
and expensive although I did find it cheaper at Amazon.com than Pet’s mart and I forgot to check Wal-Mart to see if they carry it.

Okay, to my questions……

1. windowtext;FONT-FAMILY: Verdana;”>What does
anyone recommend if it is something other than what we are using for the floors? We have tried to start setting a timer to run them out and they are in a crate for crate training, although they will pee outside and come in 10 minutes later and pee in the floor. The pet’s mart trainer recommended puppy pads, the vet said no way, that teaches them it is okay to pee in the house, so I guess that is a matter of opinion. 14 years ago, successfully trained a terrier mix when we lived in an apartment with puppy pads, but the labs only chew on them and the shih Tzu lays on them like they are a cozy bed.

windowtext;FONT-FAMILY: Verdana;”>I am currently using the swiffer vacuum that you have to charge, and use the cleaning cloths with. (I have a yellow dyson vacuum that I got a great deal on during Christmas and I used it everyday on our carpet due to the carpet being the previous owners and was not very clean despite several attempts of steam cleaning it. When I switched it to bare floors, it stopped sucking up the crap, and just slings stuff everywhere with some kind of exhaust air that comes out. Then I use the swiffer wet jet along with the cleaning pads and the solution for tile and hard wood. I can go over the entire area, then take a wet paper towel and wipe down a piece of tile and it is brown
and dirty. I can’t afford all this solution here, wipes there, spray, etc. What kind of vacuum cleaner is specifically designed to be used on bare floors? Would it be a canister vacuum? One that doesn’t require bags or cleaning cloths would be ideal, but if it works great, I can manage. And what about the mopping? Is there a better way to get the floors clean? I know with 3 kids and five dogs (the dogs always come in dirty and muddy due to an apparent monsoon season we are having here in Oklahoma) To keep our socks from being black, it will probably require daily vacuuming and mopping. I have been looking at the Hoover Floor mates and the Hoover canister vacuums.

I just want something that works great the first time, that doesn’t run out of power and needs to be recharged before I get through the whole house; that doesn’t require multiple pads and several bottles of cleaner a month (our house is 1580 Square feet) but we keep the bedrooms and bathrooms closed off so the daily cleaning area is not that large.

What can anyone recommend? I am not a Martha Stewart type
of clean freak, but I do enjoy a nice clean house, it helps deal with the craziness of homeschooling and everything else. I look forward sitting on the edge of my seat with your experienced tools and recommendations.

Melissa in OK
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