How To?

My nephew left a brand new gallon bottle of clothes detergent on top of the washing machine. Unfortunately he didn't secure the lid and the vibration of the washing machine knocked the detergent bottle off. This is the mess I had to clean up.


How do you clean up liquid detergent on brick floors? The floor is not a flat surface. We do have a sealer on the brick but all those nooks and crannies?

I thought about it for a minute and then decided to gather up some towels and try to sop as much up as I could. If my floor had been a flat surface, I would have tried a dry sponge mop or squeegee and a dustpan to sort of squeegee up as much as I could but that wouldn't work on an uneven surface like a brick floor. I had to use dry towels because once you add moisture it's going to suds and be harder to get up.

After I used up the towels, I threw them in the laundry sink. I didn't want to just throw that much detergent in my washing machine so I rinsed the towels out as much as I could before tossing them in the washer. Meanwhile I blotted up as much as I could with paper towels. Once I got it as dry as it was going to get, I used my sponge mop and water. I mopped and rinsed, mopped and rinsed, mopped and rinsed. Fortunately my laundry sink is right there. I didn't even have to make a step. So I mopped and rinsed in the sink with clear running water. But, the wet mop made it sudsy.

So I changed my strategy a little. I mixed some vinegar and water and poured it on the floor in little bits. This seemed to really help with the sudsing. Kept it from foaming up. So I continued to pour some vinegar water on the floor and mop it up and kept rinsing the mop out and doing it again.

After I got as much up with a mop as I could, I did my last thing. I pulled out the wet/dry shop vacuum. I made sure the vacuum bag was out and then I poured vinegar water on the floor, used a soft brush to brush it around and then vacuumed it up. I figured this would be sure to get it out of even the nooks and crannies of the brick. I did this for about 2 gallons of water/vinegar.

So it was a little bit of a process, but it worked and my floor is good as new. It just smells a little like a soapy salad in there but that will pass. LOL!