Q. I live in Sydney, northern suburbs. I'm trying to find the optimum solution for a bedroom floor to replace the sick carpets with an alternative healthy floor. My ideal is bright sand color flooring. Timber seems not that tough as bamboo, but bamboo products are imported from China and the quality may not be as good. If anyone has a bamboo floor for a few years now, I'd like to hear from you, and if you are happy with the quality, please let me know where to buy it from.

A. Well we haven't had it for two years, but we have had it for a couple of months. we have the dark maroon color and it shows dust and cleaning streaks retty badly so i have to clean it every other day to. i wish i would have went with the lighter color now like you are talking about. as for scratches, since ours is so dark, the deep ones do show but i go over them with a matching stain. i have never noticed lighter scratches. but since you are talking about getting the lighter colored flooring, the scratches wouldn't show up very easily. we were very happy with the quality. it wasn't like hardwood flooring where you have to inspect each piece before you put it down, each one that came out of the box was in perfect condition. and the brand we bought was nice and thick.

Q. I have an invalid living in my house. He sometimes cannot control his bowels and makes a mess in the floor. I currently have carpet over hardwood floor. I need the carpet to be taken out and want to find some sort of flooring that can be mopped with Clorox or Lysol in water to destroy odor. I would like to avoid any type of flooring that would have to be glued to the hardwood. It appears that all vinyl flooring has to glued down. Does anyone have any idea what I can put over the hardwood that will stand up to some serious cleaning?

A. Try laminate flooring, it is easy to install by locking the pieces together like a puzzle and it floats(needs no glue). It also cleans like a dream, we just got it and love it. You can get the kind that looks like wood or tile. We have the ceramic tile type and it really looks like tile. GL!

Q. The laminate floor in my bathroom has dye/paint on it and I don't know how to get it off. The color came from the dye/decoration on a plastic bag that got wedged under a hamper and got wet. The ink transferred to the floor and now I don't know how to get it off. The flooring is not the best, and I know that if I use a scrubby on it I'll just damage the floor. Any suggestions? The floor is off white, so something that would bleach out the color without damaging the floor might work, but I don't know anything like that either (regular bleach will not work). Thanks!

A. I wish I knew. Sixteen years ago, my step-son and I were dying Easter eggs and some of the dye spilled on the flooring. I am the guru of cleaning, but I have found no solution to this problem. Good luck.

Q. The flooring is vinyl, will it also affect the other areas? It already showed discoloration. The condo was empty for 3 months and when we found out that it was flooded when we decided to do our cleaning. And was shocked to see a puddle! Later we learned the the pipe was busted 8 days ago! The admin of the condo will only pay for half of the floor area of 50sq meters. Should I agree to that or they should change all flooring?

A. It's all gonna come up sooner or later.

Q. Aside from the expensive yet beautiful tatami mats, what kind of wooden flooring would impart a Japanese feel to my room? It's a small bedroom and I'm going to place a straw-type, tatami mat-looking, area rug to finish the room off. What flooring would be a nice accent to this?

A. Wood and tatami are expensive! plus real tatami is prone to hold nasty bugs (ticks and fleas and the like) which are bad for allergies so you have to do some serious cleaning and they need to get replaced every X amount of years. do japanese ghetto instead! get tatami mat rolls (the kind japanese take to the beach or instead of a blanket for a picnic or what some may use for a curtain) and lay these out on your floor. for real ghetto, duct tape them to the floor.

Q. I have been cleaning my laminate flooring with some cleaner just for laminate flooring and my floor keeps looking duller and duller with each cleaning. It is a new floor and I want it to look great not dull and old looking. Any suggestions?

A. Just a little Vinegar and Water I recently had a Shaw laminate floor installed in my kitchen. I called their customer service representative to ask the best way to clean their flooring. She told me to use 1/4 cup of vinegar and put it in a 30 to 32 ounce empty spray bottle filled with plain water. I purchased a terry mop cover that has elastic all around it from Home Depot, which I dampen with water and place on a Swiffer dry mop head. I then spray the floor (a small area at a time) with the vinegar/water solution and then wipe it up with the damp terry mop. It does a good job. There is no streaking, and you are using very little water on the floor. One company has come out with wet cloths to attach to Swiffer mops that contain vinegar and water, which I also plan to purchase and try. Make Cleaner at Home To make laminate floor cleaner, mix 1/3 white vinegar, 1/3 rubbing alcohol, 1/3 water, and 3 drops dishwashing liquid for a quart total. For best results, wipe off quickly.

Q. Just want to know how often people mop their laminate flooring or how often you should? also what with? I currently mop my laminate flooring and tiled flooring around every 2-3 days sometimes more often, i use hot water with either all purpose cleaner or floor cleaner, and every now and then i use diluted bleach but i dont use bleach too often.

A. Use the floor "WIPE" type mop as they dont hold any water but contain all the cleaning stuff

Q. It was a water based paint and unfortunately we left it thinking we would cover with carpet but now we have to sell up and we desperately need someone to come in to clean it off. Do floor cleaning companies do this kind of work? the hardwood floors have a seal, but they are quite old... any answers loved, we are desperate! (also does anyone knows how much they charge?) thanks!

A. Why pay someone? You can get it off with a $4.00 bottle of "latex paint remover".