My lovely Aircraft mop has an intermittent fault. It's out of warranty, so I was debating whether to try and get it repaired or to buy a new one. I faffed about for ages.
I saw them in Costco (my first visit in.... I don't know how long. So long that I hadn't renewed my membership (although I thought I had. Maybe I decided to wait until I next went in? I don't know). I resisted the temptation.
And then an online friend, who also owned an Aircraft (and got his after me), posted about a new electric mop he'd got. They had them at his place of work, and he'd been really impressed. I was interested enough to investigate further, which involved watching a few videos, reading some reviews...and I decided to just buy one.
I rarely make large purchases on impulse. I have done so before and, mostly, they've worked out. (I'm trying to think of a large impulse that was a fail, I imagine there must have been at least one, but I can't. Maybe I've just seared it/them from my memory). Anyway. I did it.
I would describe it as working on the damp cloth dusting principle, which is how I do my dusting. . It uses a slightly damp roller to pick up stuff from the floor, and then it washes where it has just swept. It separates the debris into one chamber, and the dirty water into another. The dirty water has no bits in so it can be put down the sink or in the toilet without causing any problems.
It can be used with plain water or the proprietary cleaner (no other cleaners are permitted, it voids the warranty). I tried it out on the kitchen floor, just water, no advanced preparation, and I was quite impressed with the result. Our floor is heavily trafficked, and we are in and out of the garden all the time. I hadn't vacuumed for a few days. I's a hard floor, so we don't require people to remove their shoes. And I'd had an accident with a bird feeder.
I'm mentioning all this because I wasn't horrified by what it picked up, and how dirty the water was. I know that if I manually mopped and wrung the mop out, the water would be gross. It was.
I photographed the "bin" and the water to record it, and actually I did subsequently did that after every room, just so I could see what was going on.
This morning, I tried it in the living room, our bedroom, bathroom, and landing. It was very quick - and I was a bit concerned about whether it would be doing any good. I had ignored the instruction to make sure i picked up any electrical cords etc, and wished I hadn't. Hidey had a good go at trying to swallow one. I was more careful after that. I'd also like to apologise to the Cats for running Hidey over one of their dangly toys. It was passed its use-by date anyway. Honestly.
It was reasonably good at lifting some stubborn marks (there is a second setting which uses more water, for this purpose). There were some marks it couldn't remove, and I wouldn't have been able to remove them with a manual floor mop either.
I guess a better test would have been for me to vac and wash the floors first, and then use it. What I did do, was send Roberto out to vacuum after I'd been through with the new mop. In the bedroom, Roberto picked up a bit more debris and cat hair, but that was mainly because he'd gone into places that I hadn't.
I tried again in the living room, which was a better test as both machines had the same access to the same areas. Roberto had a little bit in his bin, but less than I anticipated - and I need to do a better quality controlled test net time (like checking Roberto's bin is completely empty first, and making sure I'm as thorough with my Hidey mopping as Roberto would be with his vacuuming.
It did OK at edge cleaning. Not perfect, but I've yet to find a vacuum cleaner or mop (even a hand mop) that meets my requirements in a kitchen with a lot of inside corners.
I'm actually quite pleased with how it has gone so far. Pleased enough to (a) not regret my decision, and (b) to move the upright vacuum cleaner upstairs!
And pleased enough to want to take him to show my justifiably house-proud BFF to see what she thinks.
