When we moved to our current apartment last October, we did not have a
vacuum cleaner. My sons and I are really grossed out by vacuum cleaners.
They are filthy things that essentially require one to store a bag of filth
in a machine in the closet somewhere. But I am not in a position to custom
build a home right now so, naturally, I am renting and my apartment has
wall-to-wall carpet. So what else are we supposed to do?

When we moved in, my oldest son was adament that he did not want a vacuum
cleaner. We agreed to get a Swiffer Carpet Flick instead. I told him that
as long as this worked, we would go with this solution. I told him he could
have time to try this experiment. After a week or so, I felt it wasn't
working. We all felt pretty bad that weekend and I thought it was probably
due to the carpet not getting vacuumed. So I went and bought a cheap vacuum
cleaner. Well, my oldest son found one excuse after another to not use it.
We couldn't assemble it because we lacked a screw driver. So I bought a
screw driver. He wouldn't use it because the bags that came with it were so
vile. So we threw those out and I bought new bags. Etc.

He kept stalling. Eventually, we started to feel better, even though the
carpet still had not been vacuumed. Then we talked about how this same thing
happened on a previous occasion: we moved to a new apartment, threw out our
old vacuum cleaner because we did not want to contaminate the carpets of the
new place with the toxins and crud of the previous highly toxic apartment (a
story in itself) and decided to go without a vacuum cleaner. As with this
move, after about a week, we felt horrible and went out and bought a vacuum
cleaner on the assumption that it was due to the carpets not getting
properly cleaned. So my son suggested another explanation: Maybe feeling
horrible after a week in both new places was some kind of purging effect due
to moving to a less toxic environment, rather than about the carpetting
being unclean.

It was an interesting idea and we *were* feeling better, without having used
the vacuum cleaner. I told him he could continue his experiment and not use
the vacuum cleaner for a while longer and see what happened. After a few
more weeks, we decided to get rid of the vacuum cleaner entirely. He still
uses the Swiffer Carpet Flick daily. He uses it so much, he has broken two
of them. (In fact, purchasing our third one today is what prompted me to
write about this experiment.) He loves it. There is no bag of filth
sitting in our home. There is no vile rotating brush distributing filth
evenly across the carpetting throughout the apartment. Instead of a
bag, there are small, flat, disposable refills which he pitches out
immediately after use. Instead of a rotating brush that can't be adequately
cleaned, there is a plastic "head" which he periodically removes from the
handle and soaks in a sink full of diluted peroxide.

It has helped us significantly raise our standards on having a clean,
non-toxic home. If the things you clean with are part of the problem,
avoiding them altogether is the best solution, IF you can find an
alternative that really works. After 10 or 11 weeks, this is still working
for us.

--
Michele -- Webmaster of Health Gazelle


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