I have new concrete floors in my home that I have cleaned or I clean on a regular basis. The floors are only a couple of years old. If your's are a grimey as you say I would first get a rotary type machine that has green pads that you can put a liquid cleaner into. Once the floors are clean and allowed to dry for several days (let floors dry completely, you don't want to seal in moisture with the wax or sealer) you can use a floor wax or seal the floors with a concrete sealer. A good sealer or wax will help keep the floors clean by beading up any liquid or keep dirt from penetrating into the concrete. Then just mop floors on a regular basis. A wax will need to be re-applied occasionaly as it wears off. I have about 2000 sq. ft. of concrete floors and I can imagine that it would be quite a job to try to clean by hand. I have a small rotary scrubber that I have never had to use because regular mopping keeps the floors clean.

Yikes, we just had a local Flooring Contractor begin our flooring project. We're replacing the carpet that was original to the home, and ripping out the tile in several areas to install LVP over slab. The Contractor talked a great game, telling us about his 15 years experience and his "5 Star" reviews. When I asked about getting the old carpet glue up, he assured me he had a "power scraper" that will take the glue right up. Asked about filling nail holes from tack strips, he said he had self leveling stuff to fill those. My wife and I knowing we were getting new flooring began removing old carpet and tack strips where accessible. I filled the little craters left by pulling up the tack strip and scraped up what I could with the glue. Figuring this would save some time for the contractor. Well when it came to do the actual prep, he suddenly changed tune saying he's never fills those hole in the concrete it doesn't affect the floor at all and is a waste of time. I can see that might be true with the small holes, but pulling up the tack strips left from pretty sizable "craters." The next "red flag" was when he changed his tune on scraping the glue, he claimed the underlayment would take up any imperfections and we'd never notice once the floors are in. He said something interesting, when he said that when he's installing he asks himself if the floor will feel good under foot to the customer. Which we took to mean, if the customer never knows he didn't do a proper prep or follow manufacturer installation requirements, it's a win. When it came to following Manufacturers installation procedure, he claimed that's just CYA stuff and he does it his way. Running the underlayment perpendicular to the direction of the LVP, nah, he said you don't really need to do that, besides it takes more time. Then there's the logistic accommodations we went over with him from the get go, due to our pets. He agreed to 3 phases...until he began work then he suddenly claimed he never agreed to 3 phases, just two, then went into how he's never had a client who couldn't just put the pets in carriers and put them all in one room, then he questioned why we would adopt feral cats. That was not his job to judge our choice to rescue some cats. Oh it gets worse, with him not respecting our property. When he was taking up the tile in a bathroom, he put the toilet in our Jacuzzi shower. Did not cover the glass shower doors to protect them from "flying" mastic and tile chips. When we called him on it, the excuse was "I know what that shower is made of, and putting the toilet in there won't hurt it." We said that wasn't the point, the point was you didn't respect our property. Anyway it was excuse after excuse, argument after argument about how we trying to tell him how to do his job. Well in the end he was pretty pissed off that we expected he followed through on things we discussed and do a proper surface prep, so he quit the job. We now have a living room with basically a pallet of LVP, boxes of QuietWalk and bundles of base board. We've got another contractor coming in a few days to give us a quote on completing the project.

Densifiers are used to seep into pours of the concrete (the spaces left behind when the water evaporated) leaving behind a silicon product that is more than a surface application (it seeps down into the concrete...not very far but far enough). We have this on the showroom floor where I work. They scuff (but do not scratch). They still stain. They still loose their gloss when objects are dragged across them. But they can be polished up again. Here's the write up of one such product: https://www.wrmeadows.com/en-ca/liqui-hard-canada/ Notice they say it "improves" resistance (but does not STOP) chemical intrusion (staining). It improves abrasion resistance (but does not stop it). Once the densifier is applied, you may not be able to apply another permanent floor down over top (like tile....nothing will grab the top layer of the concrete). A floating floor would be one of the only ways you could add a different floor over top of this. Just be aware of what you are signing up for when it comes to a permanent concrete finish. It has been my experience (6.5 years in the flooring industry) that concrete floors get "covered up" inside of 7 years. As for my costs above...it should be noted that I'm in Canada...in a SUPER HOT market with VERY FEW high-level professionals. The minimum wage in my area is almost $13/hr. Many parts of Canada are going to reach $15/hr for someone to work at a Tim Hortons. As soon as you have a skill of any sort you start making $20 - $30/hr very quickly. Our plumbers/electricians bill out at $180/hr (Red Seal) which is MORE than a Family Doctor is allowed to bill the Canadian Health Care system. Makes you think about a 'trade' doesn't it?

Area rugs. The first photo is, I'm guessing, the bathroom floor. You can see where an area rug was sitting for YEARS. I'm going to guess the damage is because of the backing of the area rug was rubber. Yes. Rubber damages basic finishes even on concrete. And I'm going to guess the other bits of damage around the rug area is due to cleaning products and plenty of use. This is normal for a high-traffic area with a rubber backed area rug over a polyurethane or wax/polymer finish. The second photo looks much nicer which tells me it is the rest of the home. I can see the finish still has some 'coating' on it (the bottom right hand corner of the photo shows plenty of 'build up' of product...it looks pretty thick). This tells me the floor WAS maintained. It but it may not have been fully maintained with all the extras needed. Concrete can be a LOT of work. Like every 6 months you are adding polish and then every 2-3 years you are STRIPPING the finish and then adding MORE finish! Whew! Concrete is a big job to maintain. OK...so you don't like the scratches. I'm sorry but the scratches are NORMAL for a concrete floor. You don't like the scuff marks. I'm sorry but the scuff marks are NORMAL for a floor that requires waxing/polishing every 6 months. Normal. Normal. Normal. This is life with stained concrete floors (of the lower grade finishes). To change any of this, you need to chemically and mechanically strip the floors down to the original stain. You need to remove all the years of polish (imagine 10 years of polish build up...wow) before you can even think about adding any other colour. And even then I would suspect the concrete has been contaminated with all that polish. You would have to grind down past the stained layer (probably several millimeters past the colour) before you can add another colour. The polish has probably seeped into the concrete and will cause a bonding issue. At this point, the best thing to do is the STRIP all the finish (find a commercial floor stripper and a machine that will buff this stuff off) and then add a coat or two of new polish. This will get rid of some of the scuffing but nothing else. Throw down as many area rugs as you can and hope for the best for the next few months/years. After that, I would start saving for a new floor.