vacuuming

I’ve mentioned before how much I love my Roomba. I still do. But it’s just the most recent vacuuming device I’ve used over the years.

The Electrolux

This is a vintage, 1954 Electrolux vacuum cleaner. The exact kind of vacuum cleaner that my mother had. I hated it.

You had to pull the canister around, and it was always clonking into things. I would see commercials on television that showed ladies easily and delightedly pushing an upright vacuum cleaner around their homes, and it looked so much easier! And fun!! (From an early age, I’ve been enticed by Madison Avenue.) And I certainly must admit that I didn’t vacuum all that often. But in the summers, Mother thought we needed to learn some basic housekeeping skills and would make us do stuff like clean the bathtub and vacuum. So, I learned how to use it, but I always yearned for an upright machine. But if you’re interested, the Electrolux pictured is for sale on Ebay.

When we got married, we got a vacuuming device as a wedding gift. It was an “electric broom.” Now, they are called “stick vacuums.” It was a lightweight, light cleaning device, but way better than nothing. And, extra bonus, it was an upright device, and I didn’t have to haul a big ol’ clonky cannister trailing behind me when I vacuumed.

The Kirby, with its myriad of attachments

When we bought a house, I felt a greater sense of needing to keep things clean and tidy, and we needed a real vacuum cleaner. When we were first married, the small apartment complex where we lived owned a Kirby vacuum cleaner that everyone had access to. It was a big, hefty machine, and an upright. David used it way more than I did, and he liked it. We had seen a demonstration of the new Kirbys at the fair, and for Christmas (and birthdays and anniversaries), we bought one. A big, heavy machine, it did everything! (Just ask the Kirby salesmen.) There were attachments for curtains and upholstery, for small spaces and edges and corners, attachments for things I never did (inflating stuff, for example). It was great! (Notice that thing at the front right of the photo. That, boys and girls, is a shag rake. Yes, after vacuuming clean my shag carpeting, and shag carpeting was what we had, I was supposed to attach the shag rake to the front of the of the machine and go over the carpeting to raise the nap and make it all look even.) The Kirby pictured here is also for sale on Ebay.

However, as I, and it, grew older, we lost some of our shine. To use the hose and attachments, the (heavy) front of the machine has to be removed and replaced with the hose (and then the attachments). Then, when done, remove the hose and re-attach the front. Even with the front, floor-vacuuming part removed, the whole thing was weighty. Emptying the bag was rather messy. I didn’t really love my Kirby any more. I wanted something different.

I wanted something much lighter than the Kirby. I still wanted an upright. And I loved the idea of onboard tools (not having to remove a part of the vacuum to attach a hose to use attachments). I loved the Dyson guy. We got an income tax refund and got a Dyson.

While the Roomba is great, there are things it cannot do that a regular, real vacuum cleaner can.

: The vacuum in its regular upright cleaning mode.

: The Dyson’s attached hose, pulled out and crevice tool attached, ready for things like:

: a mess from some work I was doing. The Roomba might get what’s on the floor, maybe what’s in the corner, but it cannot get what’s on the baseboards

: or the dead flies, bugs, debris in the windowsills.

This Dyson’s parts snap together and are easy to take apart and examine and clean and snap back together. A few weeks ago, it wasn’t quite up to normal, and, while the upright part worked all right, the hose wasn’t picking up anything. ANYTHING!! I jiggled the hose, hoping to dislodge whatever what causing the debris dam. I poked a yard stick down, felt the hard place and tried to twist the, whatever–leaves, dirt, paper. Nothing. So I hoisted it up onto the table and had a look.

: The dust & dirt collector seemed to have some stuff stuck in it.

: Oh, my. There was a lot of thread and string and, stuff, wound around the brushes (which doesn’t make the hose not work, but, really, does need to be cleaned off)

: As did this tube, that runs from the hose into the dirt collector

: Leaves, dust, dirt, sand, and rice in the dirt canister told me I had cleaned up in the garage around the area where Peter plays (in sand and rice) out there