The first tip for keeping your hardwood floors clean is to vacuum them every few days or at least weekly. Dirt builds up on floors very quickly and so do things like leaves. Even when you have a floor mat to wipe your feet off, sometimes things like leaves can still stick to the bottom of your shoes and make their way onto your hardwood floors. This issue compounds when you have pets that go inside and outside, such as dogs. Dogs are shameless and so they do not care, usually, about having some dirt on them and especially on their paws. While having dogs is a blessing, usually, they can make keeping your floors clean a magic act if you do not take the time to vacuum them every few days or once a week. It may seem silly but consider this, the dust and dirt that is brought into the house from outside acts like sandpaper on your floors; as the dirt sits on your floors and is pressed into the floors by people and pets walking on it, it grinds its way into your beautiful floors and wears on the finish of your floors. Try using a vacuum attachment when you do the vacuuming so you do not have to bend over and hurt your back; also, using an attachment with a felt bottom can pick up the dirt and prevent scratching the floor as opposed to using just the metal pipe or a rotating attachment.
The second tip for keeping your hardwood floors clean is to keep the rain out of your house. When you have a lot of rain, it is bound to make its way into your house via feet; people are outside and then they come inside or your pets are outside and then they have to come in, etc etc. The point is, rain is hard to keep out of your house and the frustration to win the battle is often high. The reason you want to keep the rain out of your house is because the water can ruin the finish on your hardwood floors. Another reason you will want to keep the rain out of your house is because if the water is left on your floors or is constantly there, then the water can seep its way into your floors and stain them, or worse, warp them. What you can do to help reduce the amount of water getting into your home is to have a mat for people to wipe their feet, encourage people to take off their shoes as soon as they step inside and wipe up any water that is on the floor. Have a designated spot for people to leave their shoes that are wet and make sure the area is able to handle water or at least keep it dry enough so the water does not ruin that spot.
The third tip to keeping your hardwood floors clean during fall is to keep the residue off the floor with a wax-free floor cleaner. This is something you can keep on hand for those quick fixes. For example, say someone spills a little juice on the floor, you can wipe up the juice with a paper towel or something but there is still some residue left on the floor from the juice; what you do is grab the wax-free floor cleaner and then spray a bit on the spot where the residue is and then clean. It may sound like more work than is necessary but the truth is, just wiping up a liquid that can leave a residue with a paper towel is not completely cleaning the area and so your floor finish can get ruined by the left-behind junk.
The fourth tip to keeping your hardwood floors clean during the fall months is to use a couple doormats. Now, early I mentioned how things can still get into your house and onto your hardwood floors even with the doormats but the truth is that things will be much worse if you do not use them at all. One thing you can try doing is to have extra long running mats on the floor; these mats are great for keeping things off the wood floors since by the time the person is done walking on the mat, they have walked at least 10 feet! Any dirt left on their shoes at that point is going to stay on their shoes.
The fifth tip to keeping your hardwood floors clean is to refinish the floors. If all else fails and the floors lose the battle against the elements, you may have to simply refinish the floors. You can either hire a service to do it or there are DIY ways to do it.