Best and safest way to completely disinfect a tile kitchen floor?

Depends on the type of flooring material. Is it tile in squares, or linoleum that comes in a roll and is laid? How old do you think it is? One of the problems with using soap based things on floors is that if you don’t get it all up, the soap residue will attract dirt. Certain types of cleaners will ruin the finish on the floor as well.

Are you going to do it on your hands and knees or with a mop? Armstrong has a good linoleum cleaner. I’ve been using Fabuloso Oxy with my steam mop, and it’s been doing a good job. I like it because it’s not oily and doesn’t leave residue like the pine cleaners sometimes do.

To get the job clean to hospital standards, I’d go to a janitorial supply store, and tell them what you want to do. Most of them will sell to the general public. You need to keep in mind that these cleaners are designed for large areas and floor cleaning machines, so you would need to adjust your expectations (it won’t shine unless you have a floor polisher). There are some multilevel companies such as Shaklee that also sell hospital grade cleaners.

Oh, and to echo what @Barnacle Bill said, a steam cleaner would do a great job at sanitizing-with or without chemicals. I have spent a good deal of time researching steam cleaners. There are ones like the Shark which produce a wetter steam, and then there is a professional steam cleaning machine that works at a much higher temperature with less water. The steam from the machine with the lower temperature does not melt off grunge and hard water deposits like the higher heat from a professional machine.

The ability to clean without chemicals is supposed to be one of the advantages of a steam cleaner. PM me if you should end up deciding to purchase one. There are different kinds of machines, and it’s best to know what you are getting before you buy.

A spray bottle with a diluted bleach solution would work just fine.
A couple of tablespoons of bleach to a quart of water.

Bleach is not that toxic, to humans, but it is a great disinfectant.

www.dienviro.com

This is a line of completely non-toxic industrial cleaning products originally developed for use in pediatric cancer wards. They subsequently added more consumer appropriate sizing and packaging.

This was developed under the leadership of Deirdre Imus in conjunction with Hackensack Univ. Medical Center.

The thought behind it was that it made little sense to have children in the hospital for treating their cancers and then bombarding them with toxic cleaning products at the most vulnerable time for them.

So basically this stuff is good enough to clean according to hospital standards minus the noxious toxic chemicals.

There is a list of stores which carry them. You can also order directly from the site.

Do not use dish soap. It’s too ‘filmy’. Why do you need to disinfect your kitchen floor? What are the tiles made of? Is it sealed? What about the grout? Steam is the best and it works on all surfaces.

Unfortunately, there is an abundance of antibacterial product on the supermarket shelf these days. Even Mr. Clean makes a disinfecting floor cleaner. That would work as good as anything if you can’t get a steam cleaner.

Make a dilute solution using either an ammonia based product (like Pine Sol) or a bleach product (like Clorox) and water. Either of these (by themselves) do a great job of disinfecting and are pretty benign.

CAUTION: DO NOT MIX CHLORINE BASED CLEANING PRODUCTS AND AMMONIA BASED CLEANING PRODUCTS AS THIS RESULTS IN THE CREATION OF A POISONOUS GAS. USE EITHER ONE OR THE OTHER.

Here’s a good article on the different types of cleaners that disinfect. I haven’t read the entire thing, but skimming it tells me that it saves me a whole lot of writing here…

http://www.cleanlink.com/sm/article/Disinfectant-Cleaners-Give-A-Good-Fight--3804

I use pine soil.

we have a problem every year with those teeny tiny little ants, I use a little bleach in hot water to mop the kitchen floor, it erases the trails they leave to lead themselves back and it disinfects the floor too

Vinegar

I have used vinegar too, and it cleans well.

Well the reason I want to disinfect is because we aren’t the first ones to live at our condo. I don’t know how often the previous people cleaned. Plus we’ve had cockroach problems and I despise those vermin crawling around on my floor.

I’m thinking of using a steam cleaner…I’m not exactly sure what type of material my kitchen floor is…it’s not hardwood or carpet…some type of square tile.

Thanks for all your responses!

I knew someone who combated cockroaches with borax. They crawl through it, they clean themselves, and they die. Simple and effective, but it’s not very attractive, because you have to sprinkle it where the walls meet the floor. To make it work, you have to do this everywhere. It’s also works on silverfish, and apparently it’s the main ingredient in Taro, an ant killer. If it works on all these guys, I’m guessing it works on about all creepy crawlies.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4490138_kill-roaches-killing-family.html

I f you can use bleach on it, i would use it.