(Untitled)

[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

Comments

[ceo]

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

[gosling]

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

[donnad]

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]

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]

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.