One day you notice it, black soles on your feet. If you’ve just been walking around on floors, you thought were clean, then you’re wondering why this happens. Naturally, if you’ve just stained or painted, then the color may not be fully dry, but otherwise, the problem is a little bit grosser. Floors do not magically change the color of your feet, but dirt could.
When you have textured tiles or wood, it can appear perfectly clean but still harbors a whole lot of mess. More importantly, dirt is a breeding ground for germs and bacteria.
Luckily, there’s plenty you can do to fix it. I’ll show you how to deep clean your floors and show you a surprising culprit that you didn’t know was hiding in plain sight. There’s a cleaning tool in your home that is more likely to spread dirt than removing it.
Why does my floor make my feet black? Your floor makes your feet black because it is dirty. Even when a floor looks clean, dirt may be present, especially if you have wooden or textured flooring because there’s more space for dirt to accumulate. If walking around the house changes your soles’ color, then it’s time to do a serious deep cleaning and change the way you care for your floors so it won’t happen again.
Keep Your Feet from Turning Black from Flooring
When you’re grossed out by seeing your feet turn black after walking on the floor, it’s bad enough, but once you learn why it happens, it’s even worse. Let’s look at how to minimize the mess on the floor and your feet first. Then we can move on to getting rid of that buildup for good.
Your floor is a huge area, and thanks to gravity, everything that can move will fall eventually. Dust from the high shelves and ceilings, pollen and debris that comes in through windows and vents, and every other messy substance in your home will reach the floor if you don’t get to it first.
Sometimes it can end up underfoot even when you try to clean up. Naturally, if you clean more often, it will help reduce the debris collected on the floor. However, it works best when you do it correctly. Always clean from the top down.
Mopping a floor isn’t much use if you dust your bookshelves afterward. Choose a high-quality product like Murphy Oil Soap from Amazon for those beautiful wood floors. This economical, natural cleaner works on many different surfaces. Moreover, it’s a natural alternative to harsher chemicals and has been around for over eighty years. Learn More by clicking here.
Stop Tracking in More Messes
1. It’s common in Asian homes for people to remove their shoes at the door. Doing this helps prevent the mess from spreading across the floor.
2. However, the efforts don’t stop there. Having dedicated house shoes or slippers that you wear only indoors will help prevent the spreading of outside dirt in your home.
3. Additionally, they won’t pick up the dirt accumulated on the floor by covering your feet. Whether you keep non-slip socks, flip-flops, or actual slippers by the door, this is a smart practice.
4. Set up a shoe rack and a bench for people entering your home. Then it would help if you remembered to ask everyone to leave their shoes at the door.
5. Other smart additions include a boot scraper and rough welcome mat outdoors and a softer mat inside.
6. The rough mat for wiping shoes will become more effective at freeing smaller particles by removing any clumps of mud or dirt. Meanwhile, the soft mat inside the door will trap even more dirt and debris. Use a rug that fits the space where you have people remove their shoes to catch more of the mess.
Cleaning Your Floor Right
To prevent floors from turning your feet black, you need to mop the right way at least once a week.
However, in heavy traffic homes with more people and visitors, it may be necessary to clean as often as daily depending on how much action the floors get. Especially if you have multiple adults, multiple children, and multiple pets, you have high-traffic floors.
Unfortunately, cleaning more often won’t do you any good if you don’t do the job right. Before you ever start the mopping process, it is crucial that you first vacuum any carpets. Doing this will reduce dust and debris, but your vacuum will redistribute a small amount of dust onto the floors. Next, remove any rugs and clean them properly.
It would be best if you also moved all the furniture as you clean, or some dirt will remain, and circulating air will blow dirt across your newly mopped floors. Finally, it would help if you had a mop and the right floor cleaner.
Why Does Laminate Flooring Make Your Feet Black?
Laminate flooring can easily turn your feet black because of the nature of the material. It can become sticky due to humidity and grease can stick to it easily. Once the vinyl surface is sticky any debris that is tracked in from outside will stick to its surface.
You may have felt the stickiness when walking on laminate in your bare feet. Make sure to use vinegar in your water when washing laminate to remove the chemicals and grease materials that may be on its surface.
Throw Away Your Mop and Bucket
Are you using a mop and a bucket of progressively more dirty water to clean your floor? Please stop. First, ask yourself when the last time you cleaned the mop was afterward. I don’t mean rinsed it off but truly sanitized that mop. Second, ask why you think smearing dirty soap-water around is a way to clean anything. Throw away your mop and bucket. You need a steam mop and multiple different pads to get the floor clean.
Otherwise, you are just redistributing the mess, and that’s why your feet look black from walking on the floor. Sure, a mop can soak up a juice spill, but it’s not really doing much for the bacteria. Even when your cleaning solution does kill bacteria, you’re still just pushing wet dirt around.
I strongly recommend upgrading to a Light ‘N’ Easy Floor Steamer from Amazon. By using steam to clean your wood and tile floors, you can easily get them cleaner. Moreover, the absorbent, changeable pads are easy to replace as you work, so the dirt gets removed from your home.
Plus, you can use this mop with just water, making it an environmentally healthy option. Get yours delivered to your door by clicking right here. If you want to use a standard mop, you should only do so on a sanitized floor.
Use a clean, new mop to go over wood or tile with a cleaning product that helps keep the floor in better condition. Sure, it’s a few minutes more work, but your floors will be clean, and they’ll stay that way.
Why Is My Wood Floor Turning Black
Sometimes it’s more than just your feet turning black. If your wood floor is turning black as well, you may have a larger issue than some dirt. Most of the time, wood, laminate, and tile needs a good clean and less mess tracked over it to stay clean, but changes in your wood’s color are alarming.
While natural cleaners such as vinegar can be great on most floors, you’ll find that they can damage wood and the sealants that keep your wood safe. While this tends to lead to a lightening effect, improper, caustic cleaning can also open your floor up to that blackening effect, which is caused by mold.
Although in some cases, it can also be caused by stains on the no-longer-sealed floor, it’s often mold setting into the boards. Switch to a cleaner made for wood, such as Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, before your floor takes any damage. Not only is Bona professional strength, but it’s also non-toxic for a safe clean you can feel good about. This environmentally responsible cleaner leaves no residue to dull your floors, and it’s the correct pH for your wood. To see the excellent Amazon reviews, click here.
For floors that already have mold, you may need to replace parts since mold sends out extensive roots. However, you can strip the sealant and try a 10:1 solution of water and bleach to kill off that nasty mold.
However, doing this will raise the grain of the wood. Keep in mind that you will need good ventilation and personal protective gear such as a ventilator mask and gloves to handle mold and bleach. Make sure you dry out the floors first with heaters and fans to remove the moisture that is causing the mold.
This is a suitable time to check for leaks or other issues that contribute to mold formation. Fixing the mold will only work if you can prevent it from coming right back. Once your bleach has done its job and the floor is fully dried, you will need to sand the floor.
After that, refinish the surface with a high-quality sealant that is mold and mildew resistant. If you’re lucky enough to stop the mold in time, make sure to keep those floors clean properly in the future.
Does Carpeting increase the Possibility of Your Feet Turning Black?
Since carpeting can trap the following compounds, you will track more dirt onto other sections of flooring:
- dead skin cells
- mold
- insect feces
- pet urine
- pet hair
Make sure to have your carpet professionally cleaned at least once a year since a vacuum rarely is able to fully clean your carpet. The dirt from dirty carpeting will be tracked onto floors that are wood or laminate, causing dirt to stick to the bottom of your feet.
Final Thoughts
It is disgusting to think about why your feet are turning black when you walk on the floor. Nevertheless, now that you know what caused the problem, you can begin to fix it. As frustrating as it is to mop all the time, preventing dirt and residue buildup is vital.
Floors collect everything that falls from the ceiling down. Then you track in more dirt from outside with every trip, so it’s no wonder that this can happen. Switching your mop and using the right products can make an enormous difference.
Additionally, consider instituting a no-shoes indoors policy, and wear house slippers or socks as you walk around. Making a few minor changes can help save your feet and your floors from a lot of mess.
