I’m not a big fan of housework. In a perfect world I would wave a magic wand and all those little chores that need to be done would somehow take care of themselves. I’m not a slob, mind you. I like things tidy and neat, and clean is always better than dirty, but the work involved to maintain a household can get overwhelming.

I know there are methods, solutions, organizational systems, and tools to help with this never ending process. I know that I’m not the first person in the history of the world to dislike housework, and I will certainly not be the last. I have some nifty tools, I have learned much from the wildly popular Flylady, and I keep a certain level of clean at all times. It’s just not the same level that is needed to make your house look anything like a model home.

Normally this wouldn’t bother me too much, but currently I’m striving for the model look.  I want my house to look ready to move into at a moment’s notice. I have to tell you, it does look pretty darn good. The thing is, the better it looks, the more things I notice. This is sort of a double edged sword. I like the clean, but when I clean up area X, area Y suffers by comparison. It feels endless.

One of my all time least favorite chores is cleaning the floor. I vacuum. I swiffer, I use paper towels to wipe up spills. I do. But mopping? Ugh. I avoid it like the plague. The problem with this approach is that I have light colored tile floors and a family that includes a dog. Truth be told, the floor was looking a little dingy.

The last time that it got a good cleaning was right before I moved it, more than two years ago. Gulp. My sweetheart brought over his nifty steam cleaner and did the floor. Honestly I’m not sure how much impact it had, since the house was pretty darn clean when I bought it. Still, I was glad he did it, and very appreciative.

As we were preparing the house for sale he mentioned that he would do the floors. All of them. Hooray! No nasty mopping for me. I hate mopping. You swirl dirty water all over your floors and hope that when you’re done it looks better. I don’t get it. Long story short we got to the very last day before the listing went live, and finally he brought out the steam cleaner. At last!

He plugged it in, and lo and behold, it died. Seriously? He had been wanting a new one. He had one in mind. We looked for it but couldn’t find it in stores. We meant to order it online. It never happened. Phooey. Guess who ended up on her hands and knees washing the floor with rags? So gross.

It helped, but it wasn’t a great solution. I also gave up after the most critical area was done. My knees were killing me!

Fast forward a few days, and we looked at the floor in the daylight. An intervention was needed. Off to the store to pick up the not quite right version of the steam cleaner and give the floors the attention they deserved. He set it up, plugged it in, and went to work.

It looked pretty good. It even looked pretty fun. I wanted in on the action. He showed me how to set it up (it takes an IQ of about 12) and off I went. Wow. I liked it. I liked seeing the instant results and not swilling filthy water around the floor. I also like that it just used water and not a whole bunch of expensive chemicals.  I’m a convert. I have a new favorite gadget, and it can even help me with my formerly least favorite chore. Now to find a gadget to remove poop from the yard.