Removing carpet pad residue on parquet


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Old 12-17-18, 08:55 AM
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Removing carpet pad residue on parquet

In preparing a deceased relative's apartment for sale, we removed the decades-old wall-to-wall carpeting to expose the parquet wood floor. The old dried-out, compacted carpet pad was stuck onto the floor in many places, sometimes along with fibrous material from the bottom of the carpet, but we were able to scrape off the thicker areas. But we're still left with lots of residue everywhere, as you can see in the photo. Now we're looking for the easiest way to get that stuff off. We were hoping that we could wash it off, but our experiments with mineral spirits, hydrogen peroxide, and window washing fluid didn't work well. A hot steam iron mostly just flattened the stuff out and spread it around. Any advice? Should we rent a floor buffer? (We realize that the floor should be refinished, but we'd like to leave that to the next owner, since the apartment doesn't have much value and the entire place really needs to be updated and remodeled. We're just looking for a DIY solution to get it looking presentable in a way that might be better than re-carpeting.)

Also, some of the parquet tiles are loose. What kind of glue should we use to reattach them to the concrete floor, on a high floor of an apartment building?

Thanks a lot.
 
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Old 12-17-18, 09:24 AM
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If you are unwilling to sand/refinish about all you can do is use mineral spirits, a plastic putty knife and LOTS of elbow grease.
 
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Old 12-17-18, 11:23 AM
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There will be no easy way to clean that floor and if you start sanding.... you're sure to loosen more tiles. If it was me..... I'd put down heavy floor paper to keep the glue from getting tracked and leave it like that. In the sale it's understood that the floor needs replacing.
 
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Old 12-18-18, 11:13 AM
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That old parquet was made of very small pieces of wood, I doubt that it can be saved. They will come apart if sanded and had a very thin finish.
 
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Old 12-19-18, 06:37 AM
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Bad news, but thanks for the help. I guess we'll just cover the floor and paint the walls.
 
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Old 12-19-18, 08:20 PM
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I think covering the floor is likely your best option as well.
 
 

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