(no subject)

[gosling]

If, say, your exceedingly independent four year old were to attempt to make himself an impressively large volume of a version of chocolate milk (using maple syrup!) while you were busy elsewhere in the house, and then, I expect due to the weight, were to drop it, covering most of the kitchen floor, how would you go about cleaning it? It appears his culinary science experiment has created a substance of immensely tenacious stickiness, and washing it several times has been virtually useless.

Comments

[ceo]

I swear I'm going to put a padlock on the fridge.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

And the cabinets! (and the pantry and maybe the whole house...)

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Ugh, what a mess that must have made.
You could try Dr. Bronner's, but be careful, if you don't get all the soap up, it will be slippery if it gets humid or wet. Otherwise, lots of water, multiple washings, using sponge and/or paper towels instead of a mop.

[eanja]

What is your floor made of? Would really, really hot water help? I have a tiled floor, and pouring boiling water straight out of the kettle onto it will dissolve most sugary things. But I can't say I've ever tried it on a large area, versus "I'm making tea anyway and don't feel like scrubbing that spot".

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

When I was about 12, I had a similar accident but with Jell-O. Let's just skip the details on what exactly happened! It took many, many moppings for the floor to be not sticky. It was just a matter of elbow grease, i'm sorry to say.

Years later, my mom found red Jell-O spashes under the cabinets. We thought that was the end of it. Then I went to college, and my parents got a new refrigerator. On the floor under the refrigerator, of course, there was more red Jell-O. The moral of this story is: if you want to be done with this mess, you need to move to a new house.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

They use Dawn (hand) dishwashing liquid to clean critters who get caught in oil spills; perhaps it will work on floors? There's something special in the brand Dawn that cleans oil based stuff better than other liquid dishwashing soaps. Unknown if it works on maple syrup. But I'd say scoop as much up with paper towels before trying to finish it off with the soap.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Just reading this now; how did it go?

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Oy vey...I could sort of see Xander doing that at some point. :-}

[ceo]

Update: Some scrubbing with towels soaked in very hot water appears to have done the job. Might need a final go-over, but that's not happening tonight.

Floor is hardwood that's in need of refinishing and not getting it anytime soon.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

As far as I can remember, I've never had a hard time removing sticky food stuff (egg whites!) when I put my mind to it. My only guess is that the milk/sugar combination may have dried enough to produce a solid layer, and simply washing over it doesn't dissolve the entire layer. If that's the case, you might try putting water and a little soap on it, and using a combination of waiting and repeated scrubbing with a stiff brush to get the entire layer to dissolve. Then wipe it up thoroughly, and do a few rinse-and-wipe cycles afterward to make sure none of the dissolved gunk remains behind.

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of some of the messes I've had to clean up after a spill while brewing beer.

A decent hardwood cleaner, a mop, hot water and lots of rinsing tend to do the trick for me, at least with malty, hoppy, surgery, stick wort. Sadly it's one of those "keep mopping until it's no longer sticky" situations.