Safe Floor Cleaner?

[gooberific]

I usually use a hexagonal toddler playpen (supergate) on my kitchen floor for floortime, and leave bits of the kitchen linoleum uncovered, which if there are any accidents, I just spot clean with 50/50 vinegar/water.

My floor is, however, overdue for a good scrubbing.

Ideally, I would like to just use the supergate to block off the parts of the kitchen that would make them hard to catch (under the table, etc), and I have already bent a couple grids to the right shape to prevent them getting behind the fridge.

That would leave about an 8x10 area of floorspace for them to play on, but I want to use a cleaner that would be safe for them...seeing as it's my kitchen, hubby is a messy cook, and toddler is a messy eater, the floor can get quite dirty at times.

Should I just use the vinegar and water and tough out the smell of it, or does anyone know of something else I can use?

 

[Maisiepaisie]

The vinegar smell should wear off after a while. If not you could always rinse well and spray with a sweet smelling small animal safe disinfectant. I use THIS. Its good for killing germs but not as good as the vinegar for cleaning.

 

[Toadies]

Check out your local health food store. They carry several safe soaps for all kinds of things; laundry, dishes, veggies. I've never checked for a household cleaner, but I bet they carry some.

 

[buttons]

I add a few drops of natural sweet-smelling "perfume" sorta thing. It helps somewhat...not too much though. I have fleece though and when I cover the vingear treated floor up I don't notice the smell anymore.

The cleaner Maisie suggested though seems animal safe.

 

[gooberific]

I was looking at some stuff in the pet department at Wal-Mart, there was something similar, but it didn't give EXACT ingredients, and so I said forget it. It also didn't specify if it was or wasn't tested on animals, so that made it a definite no-go in my book.

Toadies, thanks for reminding me. I've been meaning to go and it keeps skipping my mind! It's only about a mile from my parents' house and I'm there at least once a week... local health nut place. I used to get homeopathic stuff for my cough there and I was actually amused by all the cleaners.

Thank you all for your suggestions. It's all just a matter now of me going to Good Apple and finding something, or resulting to vinegar... and then trying to find someone to mop for me. hehe

 

[paperlady]

I'd think lemon juice would work, since it's acidic, like vinegar is...

 

[gooberific]

That's a good point. But it ends up sticky if you're not careful. Besides, the only fruits we have growing outside right now at our apartments are all still green. We have oranges right outside our back door, and grapefruit on the way from our car... haven't seen the other ones with fruit yet around the place, so not sure what type of tree... though they mostly look like orange and grapefruit. I'll have to bother my parents to pick their lemons when they're ripe-ish and give it a try.

I also want to try the half lemon with baking soda for an area deodorizer, so the growing season needs to hurry up. (at least we get two of them in az?)