Mopping w/o bucket?

August 28, 2006 3:48 PM

Mop Mop: Mopping without a bucket? Possible? Sh-mop?

I hate mopping. After taking the time to fill a bucket with warm soapy water, I get 1/2 way through mopping when I realize that all I'm doing is pushing around wet dirt, bringing it to a dirty pool of water, and exchanging this wet dirt for other wet dirt.

Swiffer Wetjet seems to skip the dirty pool step and go straight to the pushing around wet dirt step, while adding in a 'throw away expensive swiffer wipe' step.

This Sh-mop idea seems like a possibility. Does it work well? Are there other possibilities that work better?

posted by anonymoose to home & garden (13 comments total)

What are you mopping? I find an old fashioned mop works well on tile. Those towel-mops are great on hardwood, where you only use a little spray, but they'd be toast on tile where you're basically hosing the whole floor down. I have one of the mops you link to and it would be useless on my kitchen floor. In my hallways, it's great, although it can get choked pretty fast. Like when we're doing plaster repairs. Like a lot lately. *sigh*
posted by GuyZero at 3:54 PM on August 28, 2006

There are some opinions on the sh-mop and other types of mops in this thread.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:01 PM on August 28, 2006

Mostly hardwood. There's some tile, but I'd be happier have regularly mopped wood and rarely mopped tile than rarely mopped wood and tile.
posted by anonymoose at 4:03 PM on August 28, 2006

Grandpa told me the secret to mopping is changing the water every time you squeeze out the mop. But he'd never been to Cuba.
posted by infinitewindow at 4:04 PM on August 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

I forgot about the cuba mop. Anyone tried those?
posted by anonymoose at 4:10 PM on August 28, 2006

I have had a sh-mop for about 10 years now. I thought it worked wonderfully on our linoleum and tile. I needed to use 2-3 mop heads to clean our floors without dirty water.

Now that we are in a new house with no carpeting, the sh-mop doesn't work. I'd need like 10 mop heads to get anywhere. I don't have time for that nor the inclination to swap them out of the sink constantly.

So, I've purchased a Bissell Flip-It. It leaves a nasty line wherever you stop. The trick is to work your way out of the room and only end up with one nasty line. :-) Then you only have to bend down and clean that one spot by hand. It's great for quick cleans under the highchair or weekly mopping. (I do a deep clean maybe once every few months with the sh-mop.)

I'll have to check out the Cuba Mop. Gotta love Kevin!
posted by TauLepton at 4:41 PM on August 28, 2006

Duuuuude. I've lived in Cuba and never seen a mop like that. But I will definitely be checking it out. That's so much awesomer than the buckets and the squeezing and the sliming and the dirt all over the place.
posted by whatzit at 6:27 PM on August 28, 2006

If you really, really hate to mop and have a lot of floor surface to cover, maybe you won't mind dropping a bit of cash on a Hoover Floormate. I got one as a wedding present, which is appropriate, since it's one of the few appliances I'd consider marrying. My old method was mopping and once-a-month scrubbing on my knees, like my tough-kneed grandma used to do and that was the only method I thought actually resulted in a thorough clean. Which brings me to...

...the best things about it:

1. Fast-rotating scrubbers that lift dirt much, much, much better than I ever managed.
2. It's usable on tile or hardwood.
3. It vacuums up the shockingly dirty water resulting so that the floors dry instantly.
4. If your floors are in good condition, they'll really shine without benefit of wax or other special treatments.

...and the worst things about it:

1. Puny vacuum strength on dry floors -- I still keep my vacuum around to get into the corners or for big messes.
2. You can only use Hoover cleaning products in it, so if your grocery doesn't carry them it can be inconvenient.
3. It's spendy.

For me, the positives have far outweighed the negatives, especially since I didn't buy it myself, and especially because once-a-month scrubbing has a way of dragging out to two or three because it's so damn unpleasant. I like having really clean floors the decadent lazy way a lot better.
posted by melissa may at 7:25 PM on August 28, 2006

I bought a Eureka Deluxe Enviro Steamer a few years ago on a whim and it's just great. They were on closeout for $9.99 and I wish I would've bought another just in case the one I have bites the dust. It's still going strong so far (knock wood).
posted by LuckySeven~ at 9:26 PM on August 28, 2006

This sounds a little disgusting, but it has worked for me in my various small abodes...

1) Clean your toilet really well
2) Add cleanser to water in bowl
3) Mop with that water
4) Flush when you need a change

Okay, reading back I guess it sounds a lot disgusting, but I'm the type of guy who figures there's trace amounts of everything everywhere, so mopping out of a toilet I've just cleaned isn't raising the overall level of nasty stuff in my house by that much. YMMV.
posted by PhatLobley at 9:31 PM on August 28, 2006

I used to use the Sh-mop, back when it was the best thing around. Now I like this other mop better. The link shows where I got mine, but I've seen very similar mops in a lot of places, including hardware stores and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

The sh-mop had a large pad covered with a terry cloth bonnet with elastic around the edge. This newer mop has a pad about the same length but half the width, and its cover is terry-like microfiber that attaches like velcro. The cover is more absorbent, holds onto dirt instead of spreading it around, and is easier to wring out. Unlike that of the Sh-mop, its pad makes full contact with the floor and can get into tight spaces.

My housekeeper liked the Sh-mop a lot, but she loves the microfiber flat mop. She uses it dry to dust-mop the floor and to take cobwebs off the ceiling; she uses the covers for all kinds of dry dusting and for cleaning stubborn spots. What you've seen in ads about microfiber 'miracle' cloths being able to clean just with water -- it's true in a lot of cases.

Don't get me wrong -- the Sh-mop is a very good mop. If you decide to get one, email me and I'll send you all my unused covers.
posted by wryly at 10:44 PM on August 28, 2006

My mother used to use something similar as the Cuba Mop: a broom/brush like this and a rough towel. Worked fine, but a ordinary mop is probably more practical if you don't have a large stock of towels as you then have to rinse the towels by hand i a bucket anyhow.
posted by rpn at 1:17 AM on August 29, 2006

Scooba.
posted by ikkyu2 at 4:07 AM on August 29, 2006