Landlady: Hoover-Mania

I’ve long been a fan of the cordless vacuum cleaner and have subscribed to a certain brand for almost twenty years now. As I now have two communal hallways to clean every month, my cordless vacuum cleaner has become an indispensable part of my cleaning kit. As the Hastings hallway has no electrical sockets – although you’d think the national grid was plugged into it by the size of the electricity bills – there is no way I could clean it without using a cordless vacuum.

I am going to Turkey this Friday and am working all week, so, with both hallways to clean, had little time to do so. Yesterday, I worked for seven hours at The Supermarket then, with barely time to change my clothes, dissected the vacuum and stuffed it in the basket on the front of my bike. The Basket is a new addition kindly bought for me by The Cuban Boyfriend, who is master of all bike parts and appendages, useful or otherwise. The Basket is not, however, really designed with cordless hoovers in mind and mine rattled around like an angry prone snake, often threatening to leap out and crash onto the road.

The Basket is not, however, really designed with cordless hoovers in mind

When hoovering the communal hallways there are many things to consider. Although as an early riser it would suit me much better, hoovering at 6.30am does not necessarily suit everyone who lives in the flats and I would probably find myself beating a hasty retreat before one of the residents found another dark, quiet place in which to insert the vacuum, if you catch my drift? I therefore always hoover between the hours of 9am and 6pm for minimum disturbance.

Then there is the charge on the battery of the vacuum to worry about and, because it’s more time-efficient to vacuum both hallways on the same day, I spend my time vacuuming the first and largest hallway (in Hastings) in a state of extreme anxiety in case there is not enough charge remaining to hoover the smaller Brighton one on the way back. I’ve even considered plugging in the vacuum to charge on the train on the return journey, but that would be truly weird.