Making Light Work of Clearing up After our Kitty Quartet

Hello,

With our little beauty Freya joining us recently, the fight against cat hair, litter, bits of food and now tiny pieces of chewed paper courtesy of QSL, has become a daily task. I’ve never been a big fan of vacuuming – all that hassle of dragging out the machine, unwinding that long cable and then finding a socket to plug it in (usually taking out a calming plug-in). Why can’t it be easier? I’ve tried mini cordless cleaners but found they were just about good enough to pick up a little bit spilt litter from the kitchen floor. So when out of the blue, someone got in touch and asked if I want to try out one of their cordless cleaner, of course I said yes!!! So here’s what happened when the Hoover H-Free HF18CPT 100 turned up…

As with any box that comes into our place – it’s subject to a full cat scan;

Another box of toys for us?

Are there any treats in here?

And any contents have to be inspected;

Look at all these accessories. And this is a basic model!

Is this a giant cat wand?

Yes, everything seems to be in order.

Now that the inspection iOS over we can get down to business.

One thing I’ve never liked about non-upright hoovers is the fact that you have to drag the motor behind you attached by a hose. Not so with this type of cleaner. The Hoover H-Free has a lightweight motor which is so light you can hold it with one hand even though the pole to the cleaning head is made of sturdy metal. You can see that it so easy to hold with the had on the floor taking some of the weight.

Unlike a lot of handheld cleaners, this model has a motorised head which means all the bits of liter and other dirt is agitated out of the carpet before being sucked up in to the tank.

Larger pieces are easily picked up by the motorised head.

The head is very flexible as can easily steer round corners.

With bright LEDs at the front, you can easily target the dirt in low light areas.

Now, I’m probably not the only who hates cleaning the stairs. With our normal vacuum cleaner, I usually end up either tangling myself up with the power cord as I stretch to get the last few stairs or the cleaner topples off the landing onto my foot. With theis cordless, handheld Hoover, both of these oblems disappear. I found it easier to remove the long tube to connect the head to the body. The Hoover still had enough power in it’s battery to clean the stairs (this particulatar model can carry on working for up to 25 minutes on a full charge)

“Come on Rennie, lets see what this Hoover can do with all our hair on the stairs”

Again the head is very maneuverable and can get get right into the corners and up the the skirting boards.

It’s really dark on on our stairs so the LEDs on the front really come in useful.

The Hoover’s motor is quiet enough not to scare off Freya. She’s enjoying watching me work.

The HF18CPT 100 model comes with a Pet hair attachment as standard. And what better place to try this out than on one of our hair-covered scratch trees

One of my tests is to see how a cleaner copes with picking up spilt litter on the kitchen floor (I never seems to get out all when I use a dustpan and brush). The Hoover was able to make light work of rounding up all those wayward granules (you can turn the brush off for smooth floors).

One thing I particularly liked about this Hoover was the method of turning it on and off. There are two options, a trigger to keep pressed in and an actual on-off switch which gives you really good control at your finger tips.

Trigger action for instant off and on

Thumb switch for turning on and off

One problem I always have with vacuum cleaner and cat hair (as well as Marc’s hair) is the fact that it gets wound up around the brush head. Looks like someone at Hoover realised this and designed a brush that can easily removed from the head.

Hmm, this is a strange cat brush but I’ll give it a go.

So, I’ve had my ideas about cordless vacuum cleaners turned upside down. They do have enough power to clean carpets thoroughly. This Hoover model has a motorised brush (similar to an upright model – not air driven like some handheld models I’ve seen) so it has real agitating power to release dirt from carpets. With up to 25 minutes use, you get enough time to clean at least a couple of rooms (depending on the sizes). They are lightweight (theHF18CPT 100 weighing about a couple of kgs), and are really easy to use.

You can see the model here on the Hoover website.