Floor and Tile Cleaning in Dhaka: Why Your Grout Went Dark and How to Fix It

Floors in Dhaka take dust from the street, water in monsoon and traffic all year. Most people mop often and still have dull tiles and dark grout lines — because the problem is usually the method, not the effort. Here is how floor cleaning actually works.

The mopping mistake

One bucket. You dip the mop, clean a patch, dip it back into the same water, and from that moment you are spreading dirty water across the floor. It dries into a film, the film attracts dust, and the floor looks worse a day after mopping than the day before.

Use two buckets — one with cleaning solution, one with plain rinse water. Wash the mop in the rinse bucket before it ever goes back into the clean one. This one change makes more visible difference than any product you can buy.

Two more habits: sweep or vacuum first (mopping over grit scratches the surface, and those micro-scratches are what makes a floor go permanently dull), and use less detergent, not more. Excess detergent cannot be rinsed away and leaves a sticky residue that grabs dust.

Grout is the real problem

Grout is porous. Dirty mop water sinks into it, and in our humidity mould grows in it. It goes grey, then black, and mopping will never bring it back because the dirt is below the surface.

What works, in order of effort:

1. Baking soda paste + a stiff brush. Cheap and effective on light discolouration. It is slow work on your knees.
2. Oxygen bleach solution, left to sit 15 minutes, then brushed. Better on mould than chlorine bleach and it will not strip colour from coloured grout.
3. Steam or a rotary machine. What actually lifts years of it, and what we use.
4. Reseal afterwards. Clean grout that is not sealed is dirty again within months. This is the step everyone skips.

Different floors, different rules

• Ceramic and porcelain tile — tolerant. Almost any neutral cleaner works.
• Marble and natural stone — no acid, ever. No vinegar, no lemon, no descaler, no strong bathroom cleaner. Acid etches the surface into dull white patches that only re-polishing removes. pH-neutral stone cleaner only.
• Mosaic / terrazzo — common in older Dhaka buildings. Same rule as marble; it is stone chips in cement.
• Wood and laminate — the enemy is water. Damp mop, never wet, and dry behind yourself. Standing water swells laminate at the joints permanently.
• Vinyl — neutral cleaner, no abrasive pads.

Monsoon

From June to September the floor by the door takes the whole street's worth of mud. Two practical things: a proper absorbent mat inside and outside the entrance, and a dry mop pass in the evening. Also lift any rug that gets wet — a damp rug sitting on tile for two days leaves a mould shadow on the floor that is genuinely hard to remove.

A realistic schedule

• Daily — sweep or vacuum the high-traffic path.
• Every two or three days — two-bucket mop.
• Monthly — brush the grout in the kitchen and bathroom doorways, where it darkens first.
• Yearly — a machine clean and reseal of the grout throughout.

When to bring in a machine

If the grout is dark everywhere, if the floor has lost its shine across the whole flat, or if you have just taken over a flat somebody else lived in, hand-scrubbing will not get there. Floor and grout work is part of our deep cleaning service — scrubber, extraction and resealing, priced by area from ৳2 per square foot.

Moving in or just finished work on the flat? A full home clean before the furniture arrives is far cheaper and better than cleaning around it afterwards.

Book online or call +880 1719-950059.