How to Clean Different Types of Floors

Don't use Mop and Glow on anything. It doesn't make them any "cleaner" than any other product, it just puts a layer of waxy film on the floor. Over time this builds up to a waxy residue that traps dirt and dulls your floor, and then the only way to clean it is a very time-consuming difficult process where you strip the finish. Stripping is very damaging to linoleum and way too much effort.

Linoleum is not a synthetic flooring. It's actually made from pressed solidified linseed oil impregnated onto wood pulp. Don't use any products that are designed for synthetic floors (like vinyl, laminate, tile, VCT) because it will damage it. You need to buy a special product derived from linseed oil if you ever want to finish it, but as long as you take care of it the finish will last for years.

Shiny doesn't mean clean. That's an unfortunate American standard that came about by military inspection guidelines finding their way onto government contract requirements, which were then copy-pasted by people writing proposals for local governments, universities, and big commercial buildings. I cringe every time I see a floor with a nice shiny 7-coat burnished luster with loads of dirt trapped inside the finish. As a result, cleaning product manufacturers since WWII have worked hard to associate "shiny" with "clean" because adding oils and waxes are a cheap, nontoxic way to elevate the perceived value of their product.

The floor is "clean" when you see no visible soiling, there's no odor, and you don't feel anything on bare feet. The best way to clean is to vacuum it first then mop with plain warm water. I can't emphasize this enough: vacuum first. A canister with a horsehair floor attachment is easiest but anything designed for hard floors is fine.

The trick is to use a clean mop. If you don't, you'll never get your floors clean. If you're using a regular rag mop, it needs to be washed every time you use it or at least spend time getting it as clean as you can, squeeze the crap out of it, and put it away somewhere with good air circulation. If you don't, all you're doing is spreading dirt around.

Rag mops aren't ideal because of this. Their real purpose is for spreading chemical onto the floor like a giant paint brush (i.e. commercial floor stripping) but they do a lousy job of cleaning. What you want is a mop with easily interchangeable heads so you can toss them in the laundry when you're done. Personally I use microfiber pocket mops like this, but there are velcro styles and all kinds of neat toys on the market now. With pocket mops, you just need 1 pad for every 500 square ft (or 1 per 50 square m) of linoleum for each time you clean. Depending on where you are located be prepared to spend between USD $3 to $10 per pad, so if you can get them cheap buy enough for two cleanings.

Wash them in hot water with your towels and don't use fabric softener or dryer sheets. If you don't have a dryer, they dry in a few hours if you hang them up.

Honestly, you don't need any special chemical to mop linoleum. This really goes for most hard floors but especially natural floors like stone, wood, and linoleum. Tap water in the US and most of Europe has enough residual chlorine to control bacteria, but if your floors are really dirty you can troubleshoot:

• For cutting through hard grease, add 2 teaspoons of Dawn or similar dish soap to a gallon of hot water. The better at cleaning greasy dishes, the better it will do on your floor. Next time you mop use plain hot water.
• For odor problems, pet urine, etc., use a bit of oxidant to break down the residual chemicals. Your best bet is 2 tablespoons of drugstore hydrogen peroxide, but it's unstable and difficult to store. Oxyclean (or a competing brand) is basically a stable, solid peroxide and you don't need much of it, put half a scoop in a gallon of hot water.
• If you have serious allergies, the best thing to get is chlorine dioxide. You can find it at janitorial supply stores and some drugstores. Follow the label instructions but then dilute it to half that strength for linoleum so you don't wear down the finish. (i.e. use 2 ounces if the manufacturer says to use 4)
• If your floor is dirtier than the floor of a Chucky Cheese ball pit, use a proper wood soap like Murphy's Oil Soap. About 4 ounces per gallon of hot water and elbow grease will cut through just about anything without damaging the finish. You'll need to go behind and mop again with warm water to get the residue off, then buff dry if you want it to shine.
• When in doubt, just use a little washing soda (sodium carbonate) to raise the pH of the water. Most soils that are stubborn at neutral pH respond well to a high (alkaline) or low (acid) pH, but acid wears down the finish of linoleum. You can find washing soda at any grocery store next to the detergents. Baking soda isn't a substitute.
• (edit: All of the above works for hardwood floors too, but unless you have sealant, you risk the wood soaking up the water and warping. For hardwood, soak your mop and squeeze the living shit out of it until it's as dry as you can, then mop and immediately follow behind with a dry mop to buff it and soak up the water. The trick is never leave behind a wood floor if it's wet. People say not to use water to mop wood but that's bullshit because every single product from Bona to Pinesol is water-based. The best thing that these otherwise crappy products do is chelate the impurities in the water and buffer the pH. Other than that they just rely on adding a waxy film to make the floor shiny and therefore appear cleaner to the customer.)

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Albert Einstein Quote on Capitalism

"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."