Cleaning question

[Louie and me]

I live in an older home built in the late 50s and when we moved in there were grubby vinyl tiles in the laundry room. I've tried every cleaning product i can think of to brighten them up and in the end decided they were just suffering from old age so I just washed the floor and stopped worrying about it. The other day I accidentally spilt some Tide liquid detergent on the floor and left it there until I finished putting the wash in. When I started to clean it up - voila! There were pristine clean spots where the Tide had been. It doesn't seem practical to use concentrated liquid Tide to wash a floor but does anyone have any ideas what else I could use to get the tiles clean? The laudry room is about 10' by 20' so it is quite a big area.

[sirrahbed]

Have you tried plain old ammonia and a brush? It smells so awful but seems to be the best thing I know of to deep clean old tile. I also have the older tile in my laundry room - eventually we went to Lowe's & got stick down replacement tiles and now it looks new!

[Laura's Babies]

Try some dishwasher liquid. I find it makes the water soft and does a great job on cleaning and brightening things up.

[Freedom]

If you use ammonia, be sure to have proper ventilation! We don't want to read about your trip to the ER, lol.

I used GOOGLE and put in
cleaning vinyl tile floors

Lots of hits, many suggest using ammonia.

Many also suggest using WINDEX!

[Louie and me]

Thanks for the tips. A friend suggested wax remover incase the previous owners just put wax on top of grime.... Haven't tried that yet.

[Karen]

Hey, at least you now know that there's the potential for it to be clean! Let us know what you try and how it works, okay?

The cleaners a former employer used swore by Tilex for everything - sadly I am so terribly allergic to it that I had to leave the building for a while after they came the first time, and we switched what they used in our office, but that might be worth trying, too. Strong stuff!

[Catherinedana]

I have a steam cleaner that cleans simply EVERYTHING. You might try that

[Catlady711]

I don't know if it will work on regular tile, but I once cleaned my grubby linoleum with straight bleach.

You have to have PLENTY of ventilation and work on only small areas at a time. Pour it on, let it set 5-10 minutes, wipe it up with a sponge, rinse floor with clean water, let dry.

Don't use Bleach and Ammonia together, the fumes are toxic.

[wombat2u2004]

Washing Soda (an old builders trick)

[Louie and me]

Thanks for all these suggestions. I was hesitant to use anything like ammonia or bleach when Louie was still here but I can do that now a small area at a time. The Windex too.
Loved the idea of the steam cleaner but I'm afraid the tiles will "lift" if the floor gets too wet. They did when my hot water heater sprang a leak.
I've tried baking soda and dishwasher liquid before.
I'll keep you posted!