Glue-Be-Gone

Isn’t it funny how those self-adhesive floor tiles won’t really stick well to the floor, yet when you pull them up, the glue stays put? Okay, not so funny, really more of a pain.

A couple of years ago we had to redo the laundry room floor, and there were tiles left over. I thought there would be enough to do the bathroom floor, so I cleaned up the vinyl that was already in that room, and started laying tile over the top. I even rented a tile cutter from the local lumber center. There were almost enough tiles to finish. Sigh. I didn’t ever find more matching tiles at the home improvement stores, and after awhile I’d lived with it long enough that I didn’t even see it anymore. Throw a big rug down and it’s easy to forget about it.

Time did not forget, however, and the floor did not age well. The tiles moved around as we used the room, some didn’t stick at all, just laid there, held in place by the other tiles. One day this past summer I thought it’d be a great idea to start pulling them up and go back to the original vinyl. Yeah, right in the middle of wedding plans and preparations…

So that project got started, and the tiles came up, but left the adhesive stuck on the floor. That’s pretty, huh?

Every once in awhile I’d soak the floor in WD-40 and scrape up a bit of glue. That worked great to get the stickiness up, but left the floor greasy and slippery, and my house smelled like petroleum. Healthy. Or not.

Again, throw a couple of big towels down and live with it – only this time I did not forget. Last week I saw a pin on Pinterest for homemade Goo Gone, and read the blog post about it here. Easy, cheap, and I had the ingredients on hand, so yesterday I mixed up a batch and today I gave it a try.

I used one cup of vegetable oil and two cups of baking soda combined in a leftover spaghetti sauce jar.

This wasn’t really a paste, but it worked great to just pour a bit onto the sticky parts of the floor, then spread it around with the scrub brush. This is just a few Tablespoons of the solution. It worked on about a 2 ft. X 2 ft. section of the floor.

I could feel the baking soda “grabbing” at the adhesive, and after scrubbing for just a few seconds, the adhesive was softened and ready to clean up. I did use a paint scraper to pick up the balls of goo, then wiped the floor with a paper towel. Then I sprayed some degreasing cleaner (Mean Green) and wiped that up, and ta da! A nice clean floor with no sticky and no slippery. All in just about two minutes! Yea!

I barely used any of the solution I made, so obviously a little goes a long way, and what I made will last quite awhile. Cheaper and healthier than a can of WD-40, that’s for sure! Oh, and it’s nice to be able to walk into the bathroom and not stick to the floor!