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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Vacuums suck

Hi. My name is Elizabeth. And I'm addicted to vacuum cleaners. 

Despite being described as a '2 bedroom', my apartment is really a one bedroom with a main area that can be divided into two by a set of sliding doors. However, if another person were to move in and use half of that space, one of us would end up being tipped over the 9th floor balcony. 

This is why I played hockey.

So that person wouldn't be me.

Anyway, when free from homicidal notions, my apartment is perfectly sized for one girl and one cat but not large. It has faux wooden flooring throughout which is covered in one area by a large rug I brought across from Canada. 

Occasionally, I clean it. Which brings us to the point of this post.

Possibly because of the low voltage in Japan (100 V compared with the North America's 120 V and the UK's 230 V), finding a vacuum cleaner prepared to put in more work than an adolescent school boy on a paper round is a serious struggle. Initially, I purchased a second hand Electrolux stick vacuum. This had the advantage of being small with a built-in dust buster and worked reasonably well when whipping round the apartment's hard floors. However, it failed spectacular on the rug. Frankly, I did a better job with a pair of tweezers and the patience of a road runner with ADHD. 

So I then bought the robotic Roomba.

OK, perhaps this wasn't the most practical of choices but it had a high cat-chasing entertainment value and I could set it to clean and leave the building. It's like the feeling of efficiency I have when I do another task while my computer code is compiling. 

With an empty dust tray and clean brushes, the Roomba actually does a reasonable job on the rug, although occasionally needs two rounds of cat terrifying fun to get the job done. Like the stick vacuum, it also works well on the hard floor. 

This set-up was… hygienically acceptable… for an academic with pets… for about 18 months. 

The problems left really centred around the stick vacuum not pulling its insubstantial weight. For one thing, it spat out cat litter. The little elongated pellets could be sucked into the vacuum, but just fell out as soon as the power was turned off. Secondly, it had no hose extension so there were areas around my desk, fridge and washing machine that I couldn't reach. The Roomba --having a dalek's proficiency for steps-- also could only do the main open areas in the apartment. 

Note, it took me 18 months to notice this. 

In the end, we had an assessment of the contributions to the household and the stick vacuum didn't come up to speed. The cat barely did and one of the teddy bears is on probation. It was time to find a cleaning replacement. 

In a rather elaborate purchase, I selected the Dyson Pet Slim Stick vacuum in the hope that I wouldn't have to be the only apartment in the world with four vacuum cleaners. Traumatically, the product arrived broken causing both myself and amazon.co.jp pain as we arranged a return. (All credit to Amazon, they handled it quickly and largely in English but I'm sure we both lost hours sleep contemplating the communication that would have to take place). 

Once exchanged, my date with vacuum #3 began. As with any budding relationship, it is dangerous to judge too early, not least because currently I vacuum every new spot of dust I see. It does slide beside my desk, around my washing machine and down the side of the refrigerator and doesn't drop cat litter around the house. It even seems to work on the rug, but we need to wait for the cat to give a really good coat-malting roll to test that out properly.  

Could 3 be the lucky number or will this become a Henry VIII of household appliances? 

2 comments:

  1. I have 2 Dysons and love them. The upright to do all the big jobs and a dustbuster.

    I have wondered about a roomba. They seem all the rage here lately

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    1. The roombas are cool but I would say a bit of a gimic. They do a pretty good job, but they're noisy so it's not like you can easily have them cleaning the room while you get on with something else.

      That said, they are fun to watch and mine does a good job while I go and get groceries!

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