A Broom for a Season

When our baby began eating by himself my husband suggested I get one of these Dirt Devil brooms. The commercials with the "Stomp" routine made it look like such fun, and my husband was making a nice gesture, almost like buying me a gift which he rarely does, I felt I had no choice but to get the vacuum. I picked one up the next time I was at Target. I didn't have a choice of color so I wound up with red - which is fine. Color doesn't affect performance anyway.

I'm 5'3" and the tip of this broom almost reaches my chin. The handle begins with a black cover that looks like a grip but I don't know who would grip it up so high. It also has a hole that could be used as a hook so perhaps the cover protects a wall from scratches. We never hang ours. The handle then has two metal sections which screw apart - much like a Swiffer handle but several times thicker. Where the handle branches out into the broom there is a black sort of coupler and then a bit of red plastic before it fans out into the broom shape. The head itself is a couple inches think and ten inches at the widest part where the bristles are. At the top of the broom shape, on the right side is a large power button that is easily pushable with your toes or shoe if you don't want to bend down or lift the unit up to your hand. There are a couple of vents on the side and then the red plastic turns into smoke colored plastic that allows you to see into the receptacle area and look at all the buggies and crumbs you've picked up. At the top of that smoke colored area, on the same side as the power button, is a circular button a bit larger than the tip of your thumb that is used to release the dirt cup and is even titled such on the button. Within the cup is a pleated filter about 2" x 4" that prevents dirt from going up and out the vents. The bottom of the unit includes an outer row of bristles on the front and back edges with the front bristles being longer. These bristles are soft and somewhat nylon feeling. Just behind each row of bristles is a foam strip with the front one again being slightly larger than the back. In the middle of the foam strips run a piece of black plastic with a hole in the middle about 4" wide. This hole feeds into a chamber that goes up into the receptacle and has a trap door at the top to allow only one direction of flow.

The first time I used this broom I swept our virtually unused foyer that had lots of little bugs in it so that our mobile child didn't eat them all. I turned on the broom and swept away. It took a few tries to get the hang of it - especially since this unit weighs considerably more than a regular broom and certainly more than a Swiffer. But I did like that I never had to bend over and get close to the little bugs - it got them all up in one pass. But the battery was just about drained when I was done. Then I read the instructions and discovered you are supposed to sweep first and then suck it all up. That works too although I think it is a bit more cumbersome to just sweep with it when it is off. It shouldn't make a difference. It probably just feels weird and I hear all the sounds of parts rattling so that adds to the weirdness. But it still saves me from bending over so that's a good thing.

I then went through a period of time where I used the broom almost every night after dinner to clean up around my child's chair. Thankfully that didn't last long and my child is now as neat as any other member of my family when they eat. (Notice I did not say he no longer drops crumbs...) But now that he's on par with everybody else his mess does not seem so overwhelming so I rarely get the broom out of it's recharging spot in the office.

When I do it may be for an occasional bug pick up. I usually find that the charge is drained and wind up doing it the old fashioned way anyway.

The broom comes with a charger which we leave plugged in. The plug has a thin cord coming out of it that ends with a round thing much like a cell phone charger. There are so many screw holes on the broom unit that I often have trouble finding which hole is for the charger. A red light glows on top when it is charging. When I was using it regularly I could do about 2 or 3 clean ups and then have to charge it. But now it seems that if I charge it and then leave it unplugged the battery drains itself so it's not ready when I eventually need it.