Cleaning Makes Me Feel Good.


I’m starting to wonder if my hoover is just a token gesture.

This morning, after arriving home from a trip into town for breakfast (decadence), I was hit with the sudden urge to hoover my flat; sometimes it takes a little time out of the house for me to realise just how much it needs it.

As soon as I'd extricated the device from its lair beneath the kitchen work surface, my cat disappeared behind the sofa; the hoover is my cat’s nemesis. This is slightly ironic, as she is the sole reason my flat needs hovering in the first place; she expels more fur in a week than a bear with alopecia.

(Do bears suffer from alopecia? I must Google this.)

I set to work on the floor of my front room, but all I seemed to be doing was pushing Millie’s fur around the carpet. Try as I might, I couldn’t pick any up. This was very frustrating: I wasn’t looking for fur-displacement, I was looking for fur-removal.

(I'm fully aware that this makes for riveting stuff.)

I emptied out the hoover but it didn’t make much difference. Then I noticed the little blockage light glimmering away: it was time to call out the big boys.

I opened up the inner-workings and had a good jab around with a charity pen (God bless Help the Aged). After a few minutes of stabbing in the darkness, I felt something dislodge out of sight – and all at once I knew I’d hit the dusty jackpot.

I fitted everything back together, but it hadn’t made much difference. The time had come to face facts: I needed to get myself a new one.

My burst of late-morning housework wasn’t entirely wasted, however: lifting up the hoover to attack the hard-to-reach cobwebs on the ceiling made me feel a bit like a budget Ghostbuster.

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