The very best system for mopping the floor without a plug

I had a friend post on Facebook the other day asking if she was the only person in the world who still mopped the floor on her hands and knees.  I wanted to respond, “Yes!”  But a quick perusal of the comments revealed that she most definitely was not.

With the exception of electronic devices, mopping the floor falls into two major camps.

First you have the “Hands and Knees Method” where you get down on the floor with a bucket and some rags.  The advantages are that you always start with a clean rag and you can get into the corners and make sure the edges are clean.  The disadvantages are that you are down on your hands and knees.  Ouch!  Oh.  And it takes forever.  This is hands-down (ha ha!) the cleanest result you will get with any system.  However, with the discomfort and time involved you will avoid the chore like the plague and it will rarely, if ever get done.  So, yes.  Once every three months you have the cleanest floor in the neighborhood, but guess what that means during the other 89 days?

Second you have the “Stick Mop Method.”  Stick mops come in many shapes and sizes but typically you use the same sponge on the end many times before replacing it with a new one which you may or may not have found in the store when you needed it and so may or may not have it on hand to replace when the time comes around.  The advantages are that you get to stand up (yay!) and the job goes much quicker (also yay!).  The disadvantages are that you can’t get into the corners or clean those edges very well.  Also, have you looked at those sponges after even one go-around?  Bleck!  Fortunately, it is better than nothing and it also gets done more often than it would on your hands and knees.

I like to use a combination of both of these strategies.  I found a stick mop with a very large head, like six times the area of those sponge heads.  I thought perhaps, this would make the job go even faster (it does!)  Even better, the head isn’t covered by a sponge at all but by a laundry-machine-washable terry-cloth rag.  Thank you!  Now not only do I not have to search the grocery store for the right sponge replacement (did I have a P-type mop head or a Q?), but because I can throw it in with my other laundry, it’s always clean when I start!  Of course, this still leaves the problem of the corners.  So, after I wipe the floor quickly with my stand-up mop, I take the rag off of the mop and bend over to scrub the spots it missed.  It is super fast and the floor looks great!

One final tip!  I no longer use a bucket.  I feel like this adds too much time!  Maybe I am a whiner, but if I have to go fill up a bucket then my thought-process changes from, “After I sweep, I’ll mop the floor real fast,” to, “After I sweep, I should schedule a time to mop the floor.”  Big difference right there.  Besides, the giant mop head doesn’t fit in the bucket.  Instead, before I put the rag on the mop, I run hot water over it in the sink and squeeze it out – just like I would if I were wiping the table!  If I run out of wetness, I stick it over the sink and squirt some more water on it.  For a really big job, I have three of the rags and I can just take the old one off and pop a new, wet one on.  You see what this means, too, don’t you?  Instead of sticking my mop back into increasingly dirtier water, I have fresh water every time!  Ah.  I love it when the lazy way is the cleanest way.  Don’t you?

In all, this took me much longer to tell you about than to actually do.  I love it.  Try it.  It is truly the best of both worlds.

I actually own one of the ones below which I bought at WalMart but I use the terry-cloth covers in the refill pack listed below that.

Microfiber is nice dry, I think, but won't do nearly as good a job as terry cloth when wet!