Freakishly Clean

I recently moved into a new apartment in Brooklyn. There’s a lot of cleaning to be done. Naturally, instead of doing it, I’ve taken to having long conversations with myself about the nature and history of cleaning.

Retired UCLA championship basketball coach John Wooden gave a great TED talk in which he asserts that keeping things neat and clean is a key to success in any aspect of life. He’s not speaking metaphorically; me means actual, physical cleanliness, and he leaves its connection to success implicit, which is, after all, the whole point.

Barbara Erenreich wrote elegantly, if someone critically, of the house-cleaning industry in her autobiographical exploration of working-class life, Nickel And Dimed. Erenreich worked for a franchised cleaning company that did not allow her to use water, and required her to clean on her hands and knees as a way of demonstrating to the customers that real work was being done (when the opposite was true).

Cleaning for customers who are watching you is different from cleaning for yourself. In the latter case, it’s yourself that you’ve trying to impress, and that’s harder. You could wear yourself down, and feel the honesty of your own work in your aching muscles. Or you could take a more modern point of view and validate the cleaning by getting interested in, perhaps even fetishizing, the cleaning tools.

Which is to say, cleaning is a visceral activity. We are suspicious when it seems to get done magically; we need validation that there is a process actually taking place, whether it involves chemicals interacting, machines whirring, or a poor old lady panting as she scrubs the floor. Which could explain why some people anthropomorphize their vacuums.

It’s telling that we like to use the word vacuum as a sort of abstract synechdoche for vacuum cleaners. The vacuum is not the thing itself; it is the absence of everything. You don’t actually own a vacuum, which is an empty space, but if you strive for complete cleanliness and purity, then you may in fact be striving to make the space to be cleaned as close to a vacuum as possible. “Vacuum cleaner,” taken most literally, suggests not a cleaner that uses a vacuum, but rather a device that is used to clean a vacuum. This, again, is perhaps what the person doing the cleaning actually wants:  a “clean, well-lighted space.”

Hoover, to promote their new Platinum series of (vacuum) cleaners, is sponsoring Clean Freak Confessions, a chronicle of anecdotes and ideas around cleaning from famous bloggers. Hoover positioning itself as a seller of more than just vacuum cleaners is as old as the company itself (they used to be Hoover Harness and Leather Goods). But what’s more interesting to me is the culture of Hoover worship that has manifested itself outside the company for over half a century. It’s a bit like the cult of Mac, except that the early Hoovers have been around a lot longer, and are also much more likely to still work.

Also of interest: The Vintage Hoover Emporium

vacuum car image by jaglan

video is a commercial for the Hoover Satellite, a hovercraft vaccuum cleaner that floats on a cushion of its own exhaust.