Your mop is just moving dirt around.

The mop slides across the surface, the dirt sitting in every pore of the tile stays right where it is, and whatever was on top gets pushed onto the spots you just cleaned. This fortnight, Oskar takes on a tiled floor with micro-dry steam. The particles are fine enough to push down into the pores, lift the dirt out, and the microfibre cloth catches everything before it can resettle. The difference between actually cleaning your floor and polishing the dirt on it.

Look in the bucket

After mopping a room, look at the water in your bucket. The browner it is, the more dirt your mop picked up. Trouble is, that water doesn’t stay in the bucket. Every dunk and wring puts most of it back onto the floor, just spread thinner. Cleaner-looking floor, same dirt, different spot.

Watch the episode on YouTube