How to clean very dirty stained white lino tiles?
Question:I'm renting and there's a room full of white lino tiles with tiny colored speckles in them which, in a past life, may've actually been much whiter. Now they are so scratched up with in ground dirt that no matter how much I mop and scrub them with household bleach I can't get them to look clean. What else could I try? Thanks
Answers:
I experienced a similar situation and not until I got down on my hands and knees with a stiff bristle brush did I see an improvement. I used an ammonia based household cleaner, very intense work but I got the results I desired.
How strong was the bleach solution?
I would try 50/50 bleach solution in a well ventilated room and let sit for 5 mins. In the scratched dirty areas use a scrub brush.
If that does get it any cleaner, I would use area or room size rugs and cover it up if you can't stand to look at it!
you can try a product called tsp(trisodium phosophate) you can but it at any hardware store (home depot, lowes, ace, etc...). you mix it with water and mop it on. another great cleaning product i found is made by zep . it is a citrus cleaner/degreaser. you can buy that at home depot is about $3 or $4 a quart spray bottle. there is a good chance if you used bleach on it that the tile is too far gone to come back white. good luck
You can try stripping the wax off of them and re-waxing. This can be done with materials that you can get at Home Depot. They can be used with a mop, but the best way to do it is with a floor stripping machine that you can rent there also, and abrasive pads. These machines are quite a lot to handle, however. You might want to check some of your local rental centers to see if they have a smaller machine.
in the past i have used mr clean erasers to get rid of the stains. the downfall to that is that it dulls the shine. once the floors are clean, use "mop n glow" to shine it up and protect it again. if they are the same tiles that used to be in schools, you can use SOS pads (steel wool) instead of mr clean erasers. they are cheaper and work faster.
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