Swiffer Solutions

I own many a Swiffer product. Two of my favorites are my swiffer wet jet and my swiffer sweep and vac. Yes, I do own both a regular mop and broom, but on my huge kitchen floor filled with the hair of two dogs, neither seems to be very effective.

I have struggled with using both of these products because of all the consumables that they require. A few months ago I thought I had found the solution to this problem. I purchased some microfiber cloths from the autocare section of Target and put them on the sweep and vac. They worked very well and I could wash and reuse them. I "hacked" my Swiffer wet jet and have been refilling the bottle with my own solution. it works just as well as the solution Swiffer sells but without the extra packaging. As far as the pads for the wet jet go, I took Amy's (From Motherload) advice and bought terry cloth pad for the bissel steam cleaner and put them on the wet jet. They didn't fit perfectly, but they did get the floor clean.

All of these solutions were working until I started to worry about all of the dog hair I was putting in my washer. Shortly after we bought our house we had a clogged stack pipe which was a royal pain in the you-know-what. The toilet on our lower level would overflow if I did laundry, I don't EVER want to deal with this again. It required not just a plumber to fix but a "sewage guy" with an industrial strength roto-rooter like piece of equipment. Anyway, I started to become concerned that all of this dog hair I was washing out of these cloths was going into the stack pipe and contributing to another backup. I decided that I would go back to using the disposable cloths for the sweep and vac. My supermarket makes a generic brand that are very affordable and work great.

I then had a stack of microfiber cloths lying around. I did use them to clean with, but there had to be another use for them

The terry cloth pads I was using on my wet jet were proving to be cumbersome. They blocked the nozzle if not put on just right, I wasn't really pleased with how this was working out. But then I thought of my microfiber cloths. I decided to open up my sewing machine and do a little experiment. I took some of the cloths, double them over, and zig zag stitched around the edges to hold them closed and make the "pad" double thick.

Well, they looked like they might work, but would them stick to the wet jet. I ran downstairs, got the wet jet and slapped a pad on. Yup, they stick. Hummm.... would they stay stuck if I used them to mop the kitchen floor? A couple of squirts and a lot of scrubbing proved that they would stick.

YE HAW! I found a solution to my swiffer problem using things I already had in the house. :)

I never in a million years thought that I would get so excited about moping my kitchen floor, but I did and I am.