Footprints permanently in the urethane

Q: My Apt. has fir floors that were refinished in the last year or two. They are maybe 90 years old. Footprints permanently in the urethane (bleeding spots). They appeared one day a few months ago after I moved in.

Sanding with fine grit paper doesn’t take the spot (tread mark) off. I have no idea what was on the shoes, no chemicals are in the house. It could have been the maintenance man, but I’m worried about my deposit. Appx. 30 footprint/tread spots. It looks like the floor was refinished by amateurs, but they are a showcase item to them. Nobody has any idea what to do about this. Help!

PS Would rather fix it than get maintenance involved. Already had an incident where maintenance man ground grease from his boots into a throw rug of mine while working in the apt.

A: It sounds to me as if the workers walked over the finish when it wasn’t fully dry and left foot prints. If this happened on the first coat, the only way to remove them is to remove the finish down to and past the marks…which essentially means starting over. It’s quite possible the floors were done by low ball hacks. Cheap price. Fast job. Zero quality.