Pergo Flooring

My entire house is floored in pergo - and let me tell you, if your little one is not mobile yet, you are lucky! The workload that comes with taking care of those floors only increases as your children become more independent and starts making messes independently of you: I never knew how much dirt and dust and whatever else got tracked in/on/across the floor just from daily use by the family every day until we got pergo. I was literally spending 20 minutes 4 times a day sweeping the floor and spot cleaning spills. You'll have to sweep that damn floor 5 times day if you don't want his hands and feet to get dirty and have little pieces of "stuff" stuck to them all the time. Im very much anal about the cleanliness of my home, especially the floors, and after 6 months of the never ending floor sweeping and a really horribly painful back from all the stooping over, I changed my way of cleaning.

First of all, because pergo is laminate flooring, you CANNOT use any product that is traditionally used on wood floors: absolutely NO soap based products, or anything with "natural conditioning oils", not even Pine-sol like cleaners Most other traditional floor cleaning products sold in stores will either strip the laminate off, or make the floors look "cloudy" because they leave a film behind on the laminate. However, the Swiffer company has solved my problems! The traditional "swiffer wet jet" uses a non-stripping, NON soap based, non bleach containing solution that is PERFECT for pergo floors. There is zero chemical smell, zero film, and once you've finished cleaning one half of the floor, the other half is already dry. I have my own toddler in the home, two cats, and a 3 month old baby I care for so mild and as non-toxic as possible cleaners are important to me - and while you should not allow your baby or pets to drink from the bottle of swiffer solution, it is the safest, cheapest, and easiest alernative for cleaning pergo. The bottle of cleaning solution attaches and stays on the mop itself, so there is also no worry about children getting into the "cleaning product" cabinet - once the thing is stuck to the mop device, its stuck there for good.

ALSO - get rid of the broom, and invest in another Swiffer product called the "sweeper vac". It is a tiny upright vacuum with an attached static cling dust pad - it will suck up all the stuff off the wood floor (even things as big as cheerios, little rubber bands, pebbles) and the cheap, replaceable dust pad will attract all the rest of the junk that the vaccuum might not pick up. It is rechargeable and plugs into the wall - I swear, its the best damn thing Ive bought for myself in years. Cuts my sweeping time down by far more than half, and it is so much easier on the back than sweeping. Both the wet jet and the sweeper vac can be bought in your local grocery and drug stores.

Good luck!

Hi J.,
We lived in a condo a few years ago that had Pergo floors and the owner didn't clean the floors before we moved in either! Within 10 minutes my clean, white socks were filthy. I got on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor then drying it. Once I got it really clean it was easy to maintain with damp mopping. I L. the Holy Cow products. They are biodegradable, non-toxic, VOC free, no ammonia or alcohol, and no harmful chemicals or solvents and they work. I found them at Raleys.
Sincerely,
L.

Hi J.!
This is my second house with Pergo floors and I love it. The kids haven't been able to scratch the floors (unlike the Brazilian Rosewood floors in our last house). I actually really like that you can see any dust and dirt on them, because that means that when they look clean - they're REALLY CLEAN! I use Pine Sol and a good old-fashioned mop to clean my floors. Before I mop, I sweep the floors. That's it! Pretty low maintenance. For the record, if you don't like Pine Sol, you can use pretty much anything, up to and including bleach. I've used dish soap in the past when I ran out of Pine Sol. Worked fine. I haven't been able to hurt my floors no matter what I've tried. Believe it or not, when my youngest spilled hot-pink nail polish in the middle of the hallway and then didn't tell me until it had dried, I even used acetone nail polish remover - and the floors still look good as new. Go figure!

Hi!
Good Luck with the floors We Have a 2900 sqft house of pergo and it sucks. Damp mop and dust mop is what I use.

I wanted to know what you did to lose the weight and what type of vitamins you use. I'm always very low on energy and very slugish feeling. Just wanted to see if you could give me some nutritional info! Thanks!