7 Effective Ways to Keeping Your Floors Clean

Here in Malaysia, we are known for our barefoot culture in our homes, hence floors at our homes are usually in a rather clean state. Since most of us tend to keep our outdoor shoes outside, we don't really bring in dirt and dust – perhaps only some like those that stick to the bottom of your feet from your shoes – as much as those who wear their shoes in.

However, that doesn't mean we don't need to clean our floors as often considering the logic that we don’t bring in much dirt. As a Malaysian, I believe most of us do clean our floors very often and uphold excellent floor cleanliness – one that even Gordon Ramsay from Hell’s Kitchen would mark it as marvellous. The fact that we preserve our floor cleanliness much more strictly is because we are walking on it with our bare feet. Without any protection for our feet, it is crucial for us to ensure the surfaces where our bare soles tread on are hazard-free - safe from pins, nails, and sharp stones or anything hazardous – and as dirt-free as possible. Now, we won't want to bring dirt to our beds and risk getting insect bites, do we?

If there’s anyone I know who has developed an obsession – and a rather serious one, actually – for floor cleanliness, that person would be my mother. Our home has non-carpeted floors only, so we sweep and mop our floors only with water or soap water. However, no matter rain or shine – or even if the world is about to end, I believe – one can be absolutely sure she'd never fail to mop the floor with at least plain water once every day, even after dry-mopping the floor. On a day when the floors weren't mopped with water at all, she might stay up all night thinking about it. Although she often complains of back and joint aches, but these evil ill-minions will never deter her from performing this cleaning chore that she deems as a daily mandatory. 

While I agree with her on the importance of keeping the floor clean, I disagree with her philosophy of mopping the floor everyday with water. I’m clueless as to how many Malaysian households actually practise this, as there are some whom I personally know that even mop the floor twice a day. Oh the dreary hassle of rinsing the mop head and twisting it to squeeze excess water out of it for another clean mop each time, even I detest it!

Then again, is this wet-mopping really, factually, necessary every day? And did you know that if you over-clean your floor with water, you might end up trapping more dirt on it instead?  

You are aware that any solid, almost microscopic substances like the common ones found in households such as dust, fur, hair, dead skins, ear wax, sand, finger nails, pet dander, and so on are easily trapped in liquid, which means that they can be wiped off easily using a damp cloth or mop. But here's the thing: while the damp cloth or mop would be able to wipe off solid substances easily, don't forget that your damp exposed floors would also able to catch them again, and even more too.

Depending on how clean you want your floor to be, there are actually a few more effective and effortless household practices out there which allows you to keep your floor clean longer, and even cleaner, without the hassle to wet-mop it so often. Once or at most twice wet-mopping a week should do the trick. Unless you feel that the floor is greasy due to gatherings or parties held during that particular week, or if you really love doing this chore more than twice a week.

Dry cleaning is sufficient  

To deal with dry solid substances like dust or hair and other allergens, dry cleaning methods work wonders. While sweeping is able to drive dust away, using a broom makes it difficult to clean hard-to-reach areas like under the tables, beds, couches and narrow slits. Also, using a broom may leave some dust and other almost microscopic pollutants behind if your bushy broom is dusty, or if you accidentally missed bringing some of them to the dustpan when your eyes fail to detect them. After all, our eyes aren't designed to detect these miniscule substances.

On the other hand, Dry Floor Wipes are even more effective and effortless. Dry floor wipes are specially designed to capture dust effectively and are usually disposable, but now there are some of them that are reusable too. Specially designed to clean in dry condition, they are able to wipe away dust, hair and dirt without water or detergent by using electrostatic attraction. They are also coated with a special substance that helps to pick up dust effectively. You can easily get them from supermarkets, hypermarkets and DIY hardware stores, or even from Lazada! The Scotch Brite brand by 3M works the best among others, in my opinion of course. You could get its Easy Sweeper for only RM 59.25 (excluding GST) on Lazada. On the other hand, they don’t come with the wipes though, so you need to get the dry wipes separately which is also available on Lazada.

Place a clean wipe sheet on a dry flat mop head and begin mopping away to your heart's content. You'd be surprised just how easy it picks up dust and hair in just a light swipe.

However, the downside is that it is really much more effective for only smooth surfaces. For jagged surfaces, it is unable to reach in between gaps using a flat mop head, unless you wipe into the gaps using your hands. Also, for coarse surfaces, their tiny crude spikes may forcefully scrap off the dust and hair that have been captured on the wipe.

Still the dry method: Vacuum Cleaner for jagged, coarse surfaces

As mentioned above, while Dry Wipes pick up dry, solid substances wonderfully from smooth surfaces, it does not however for non-smooth surfaces. When it comes to non-smooth surfaces, let the Vacuum Cleaner do the job.

Get a powerful, with at least 700v of power and above – the higher, the better actually – , vacuum cleaner will do the trick. With a superb suction power, no dust can ever escape again. Also, the wider the vacuum nozzle is, the faster the job can be done.

If you want to reach into intricate, small gaps of the floor, you may want to try a handheld vacuum cleaner. With a shorter distance from the nozzle, you are able to view and locate where these pesky, tiny dust and hair are and suck them all in.

There are many vacuum cleaners available on Lazada and you can surely find one that suits your choice and budget, some cost below RM100 while most other cost above RM150.

Wash your feet before you enter the house



At my home, it is mandatory that you wash your feet before you take your first step in, or you'd come face to face with a scary monster… Just kidding, although the part where I mentioned ‘monster’ I did have a particular person in mind.

But really, my mom made it to be such a big fuss that everyone and anyone, including some of our closer guests (like friends or relatives), have got to get their feet washed with water before entering the house, be it a thorough soap spa or just a rinse, as long as they washed it.

While it may sound bizarre to some of you who may not practise this – or probably not as strictly as my home – at home, this is a great way to preserve floor cleanliness. Dirt and dust are inevitable when we go outside, so washing our feet properly before entering our home-sweet-home can actually help to wash away or, if not, decrease the amount of sand, ashes, hair, pollens and the list goes on long as you can name it that will of course contain certain germs and bacteria that you'd be bringing into your abode. A quick, proper wash where both feet rubbed against each other will do.

But be very sure to DRY your feet properly AFTER the wash, or else it defeats the purpose as dirt and dust may easily stick to your wet feet again.

Wear indoor shoes or slippers



Grease and dirt are usually caught on the floor because of our foot soles. While some of us may have already cultivated the habit of feet washing, our skin naturally excretes oil to keep it healthily moisturized, and this explains why grease may still be developed on the floor over time.

Grease can bother certain clean freaks, but if it bothers you so much too, try wearing a pair of indoor shoes or slippers to keep your moisturized soles away from being in contact with the floor's surface directly. And even if you don't wash your feet at home, wearing these indoor foot wears can help to minimize bringing in dust and dirt, considering the fact that you won’t wear this out and away from the ‘inside premise’!

You can get these indoor slippers for about USD 3 per pair on Aliexpress, which if converted to Ringgit it would most probably be around RM 18-20 including postage and the likes.

Keep all windows and doors closed when you're out


Needless to say, while airing your abode is great to promote better air circulation, dust and allergens will be brought in too along with the air particles. So make it a habit to shut up all openings in the house when you're out to minimize entry of dust.

Dust filter screen  

While we can keep our windows and doors closed when we are out, we can't possibly keep them closed all the time when we're at home, can we? And for some of us, our houses might have openings or gaps which cannot be closed, like vent holes found in mostly older houses. 

When your budget hits a green light, getting dust filter screen for your windows, doors and vent holes are a good choice. With a good dust filter screen, you get to reduce dust from entering while leaving the windows opened. Not just that, these screens also give you a peace of mind by deterring bugs and pests from entering.

Get the right flooring and lamination

For easy cleaning, carpeted floors should be avoided at all costs. Dust and other allergens are very easily trapped in carpets and worse, once they are trapped within, it's impossible to remove them completely, and this may breed dust mite, mould spores, cockroach allergens and more scary unwanted pollutants.       

Non-carpeted floors like marble, wood, bamboo, ceramic and even painted floors are better choices because they don't trap dust and allergens as stubbornly as fuzzy carpets. Any flooring made of textile will most definitely trap dust and allergens more easily and stubbornly than non-textile flooring.

What’s more? To reduce dust further and promote easier cleaning, you might want to consider laminating your floors. Flooring companies these days offer various floor lamination options which do not only reduce dust and allergens, but also make your floors more long-lasting by making it shock-, pressure-, scratch- (for which pets owners might want to consider), and abrasion-resistant. Get the right flooring can indeed save you a huge amount of hard time work – say, less mopping of the floor!

Did this help? I sure hope it did for some. Share this out to your clean freaky-friends and perhaps help them get some relief off the floor cleaning chores! Happy keeping the floor squeaky clean!

By Denise Goh
October 09, 2015 | Home & Lifestyle