Hellobee Boards

@wrkbrk: do you wear shoes in the house? We only wear shoes in the entryway and the kitchen (direct path outdoors) and those floors are impossible to keep clean. Everything else is fine.

Also, be careful using a wet mop on hardwood. You can ruin the floors. I spray a very light coating of vinegar and water, mop and then dry.

@wrkbrk: are they really hardwood? I wonder if they weren't sealed properly or something?
Sorry no shoes in the house, they track grossness around

@wrkbrk: I'd look up the specific kind and see if there are similar complaints on Google or something

How about checking your HVAC filters? That's another way dust and dirt are spread around. We don't wear shoes in the house and it makes it way better! Also vacuuming a lot helps. I can not believe the dust my dyson picks up when I vacuum so much I can't see anything on my floor. We don't make guest take off shoes for families and I always make sure to take an hour after to mop to get my house back to they way I like it. I also change my swifter pad frequently - I use 4 just for my kitchen which is always the worst room even though we don't wear shoes in there either. Good luck! I feel your pain!

Does your son wear natives? My kid's feet get SO gross wearing them and then if he's barefoot he spreads the junk around. I try to wipe off his feet when he takes them off and I often wash them out in the sink with dish soap.

@wrkbrk: Does the same thing happen to your feet when you’re barefoot around the house?

Just coming in here to say that it may be pollution/smoke settling in on your floors. We've been close to some fires and the smoke has been pretty bad and it literally creates a new layer of dust every other day. We're getting an air purifier today to hopefully help out.

@wrkbrk: my guess is shoes in the house and dust. We take shoes off as soon as we get home. And we don't let them walk barefoot on hard floors since they transfers dust the most.they have indoor slippers. I wouldnt use water on your wood floor that could be part of your problem. Wood floor should only be kept clean with vacuuming, sweeping and dry mopping.

Our (new construction house) was SO dusty until all of the house within a couple blocks were done and landscaped! The bare dirt and digging put SO much dirt in the air! Did your builder also clean the vents before you moved in? They can hold a lot of construction dirt/debris.

I agree with others who are saying it's dust/grime/pollution of some sort settling on your floors. Rather than asking your builder about a flooring issue, in your shoes I might be wondering about the seals on your windows/doors. If you've been having them open a lot, maybe try closing them, cleaning the floors, and seeing if the problem persists? I know one room in our house (the family room) gets WAY dirtier than the rest of the house because we have two sets of double doors that open to a patio where we grill, have a fire pit, etc., in the summer, and a fireplace we use in the winter. So that room just needs more attention.

Also, my DH and I have the same discussion you and your DW have - it's not that I think his bare feet CAUSE the dirt, but I do think the sweat/oil dampness from bare feet attracts, gathers and spreads dirt somewhat more than the dry bottom of a pair of indoor sandals or slippers. That and the dampness attracts all the dirt to the feet, making the floor seem dirtier than it probably is!

We have this problem in our new house too. I'm really not sure what to do about it, I sweep a lot and I could also probably be better with a mop, but I also know that the previous owners weren't the cleanest people. I'm working on fall cleaning and will try to deep clean our wood floors along with the vinyl and tile.

@wrkbrk: haha! One other thought - have you had the place deep cleaned? Sometimes when new wood floors are finished, a layer of dust -a lot of it!-settles on everything (so door/window frame tops, crown molding, on top of cabinets) and falls down over time. This happened to us when we rented a brownstone where they’d had st redone floors and took a long time to get it fully clean.

Yeah, it could be something coming in from outside.. we recently moved into a place next to two large parking lots, and the amount of black grime I wipe off the windows is unreal. The floors also get dirty ridiculously fast. It doesn't help that they're dark brown with a finish that highlights every speck of dust, but it's not just the finish - they really are dirty.

FWIW my parents had the same problem when they moved into a house near a major highway. It went away completely in a year or two when they let the tree next to the house grow out. So if it's an air quality problem, a plant screen may help.

Oh, and we had some work done before we moved in that involved trenching into the concrete walls. So. Much. Dust. We wet wiped everything, even the walls and ceilings, before moving in, and several times after. But it's been a year so I don't think that whatever is causing our dust problem is coming from that...

@wrkbrk: I agree with the dust/pollution hypothesis. Have you checked your furnace filters? Do they need to be replaced? Maybe try a filter that traps smaller particles? I know a lot of newer furnaces suck air from outside so it definitely could be dust from construction that's making its way past your furnace filter.