It is amazing how much soil is held within the snow that’s on your feet! When we first arrive here in Fairbanks, or become aware because of our age, most of us look at that “pristine” white pure snow and think “wow that sure is clean!”

Then, after short time, we realize exactly how much salt, grime, dust and dirt is included with that pristine white fluffy stuff that’s attached to our shoes…

As you can see from the pictures below, it’s even more obvious on a hard floor how quickly the surfaces are damaged by the grinding action of our feet (or rolling furniture, etc) on top of soil that is on top of basically any surface.

In this case, we were able to bring the floor services back to almost original condition, but it was not without a cost. We had to remove not only the wax, but also re-finsh the top of the vinyl itself smooth again. Even doing that, there are some scratches that are remaining.

These pictures are a great “photo explanation” of exactly  how are carpets really never “wear out”, but rather “ugly out” as mentioned on my website.  Dust, grime, soiling combined with foot/furniture traffic is effectively a really terrific “sandpaper”. No abrasives (soil) = virtually unlimited carpet/floor life!