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Strip the floor of the old wax that is causing the staining. You will do this a few times. A buffing/stripping machine has been useful to people in the past (remember the old machines that grandma used to have to wax her floors? yah...that's what you are after).

Once the floor has been put back to 'factory original' condition you can paint it. But once it is all cleaned up you probably won't have to. I would clean the life out of these old tiles and then see how it goes.

Painted floors don't last very long (a couple of years) and they cause more issues than if you had just left them alone a few more years while you saved up the money to have them removed (flooring contractors can cut out ALL the layers at once to get you back to the original subfloor structure).

Can I rent a buffer someplace? I'm not staying in this house any longer than it takes to get it ready for market and the next people may very well want something totally different. This is a house in a good neighborhood in the city, but still in the city, and there's a definite cap on what I can get out of it, no matter what I do to the house. I want to clean it up and get rid of it fast before a riot in our city drops the bottom out of the market. Hiring a contractor to take out layers of flooring (and probably asbestos abatement) is not worth it and not in the budget. I'm looking for suggestions about techniques and products for painting floors, and whether sanding/buffing potential asbestos vinyl is a good idea.

Whether you paint it or clean it up and make it look 'pretty' once more it doesn't matter. Either way you need to get the OLD GUNK off of the vinyl. If you paint it now, it will peel/adhesion failure before you have time to list it...and then you will be in a real pickle.

Using a buffer and a chemical stripper is totally normal for vinyl tile...regardless of it's asbestos content (or lack thereof).

You can do a quick 'deep clean' to see how good this can get. You can take a PILE of clean white cotton cloths, a spray bottle full of Windex Original formula and some time.

You can soak a 2ft x 2ft area with the Windex. Let it sit for about 60 seconds. Then wipe it up with a clean cloth. Check the cloth. It should have so much gunk on it that it appears brown/orange/yellow. Excellent! Now we are getting somewhere.

Soak the spot again and let it sit for 30 seconds. Wipe it up with a NEW CLOTH. Check the cloth. It should only be 1/2 as bad as the first cloth. Now you mist the spot, let it sit for a few seconds and then wipe up again with a new cloth. Keep doing this until the cloth comes back 'damp' looking (maybe even a little blue because of the windex colour).

Now you know how MUCH GUNK is on that floor. You can do this 2ft x 2ft cleaning (on hands and knees) if you wish. I would purchase a gallon of the Windex and I would sacrifice several sets of cotton sheets for this job. It can be done for the price of a gallon of Windex and a weekend of your time (on your hands and knees).

Now you are ready to paint. Or leave it be.

Then again a sheet of new vinyl plank would do just fine. You are trying to cover up cr@p with more cr@p so you might as well give the next homeowner something they can get 5-10 years out of...not just 1-2 years.

Even with the sheet of vinyl, you need a clean floor. Which means a weekend with Windex is in your future.

Windex just won't cut it with this floor. I don't think they cleaned it three entire forty years the last owners lived here and it's been waxed multiple times without removing old wax. It's bad. I've tried ammonia and a number of other things. Did get TSP but haven't tried yet.