I tried the best new cleaning gadgets to find out which are actually worth the money
Humans have long devised ways to make household chores easier. Victorians may not have rejoiced at cleaning clothes on a metal washboard, but it was, at least, an improvement on the Medieval practice of pounding them with a wooden paddle. Washing machines transformed laundry again. The cycle, quite literally, continues, with the quest to reduce the strain of domestic tasks now gifting us more options than ever.
We are restless for the next device, and so is capitalism. Why do something with an old sponge when you could spend money on doing it slightly better with a brand new gizmo? Whole corners of social media are devoted to sharing home chore hacks, many of which involve gadgets we never knew we needed.
Ever found it too arduous stirring food in a pan? Me neither. But for those who would rather save a precious few seconds (if not a precious few pounds), an automatic pan stirrer can be yours for £8.99. For a mere £300 or so, the bother of holding a dustpan in your own hand can be avoided too. And so on.
One could spend a small fortune this way. But do these hacks make you happy? And, more fundamentally, do they work? Despite suspecting I’ll never find fulfilment in a sparkling floor or shower screen (and a fear of what it would say about me if I did), I agreed to find answers to these vital existential questions.
Dusting
Radiator/nook and cranny duster
It’s not the sexiest confession, and it comes with the usual First World Problems caveat, but I suppose I’ve always been troubled by the near-impossibility of dusting between the bars of my vertical kitchen radiators. They’re designed to look nice, to fit in a limited space – and to break your fingers off when you try and clean them.
It takes me three minutes to poke a duster around their recesses, but the end result wouldn’t pass the tradwife test. The gaps are still thick with dust and cobwebs, largely because my fingers have not ergonomically evolved to fit properly between them.
I try with a Lakeland Flatmate (£10.99), which bills itself as the ultimate flexible duster. The job still takes three minutes, but the end result is perfection. It makes me so happy I immediately become addicted, and start shoving it into every conceivable space that’s never been cleaned before. This is most spaces in my kitchen. I never knew I could have so much fun with a duster.
Success level: 10/10
Satisfaction level: 10/10
Ease of storage: 10/10
Overall rating: 10/10
Blind duster
My slatted sitting room shutters have also been designed to create maximum difficulty when dusting them. With a regular duster it takes a couple of minutes to do one shutter. But it’s tedious using my own hand to rub the duster across them. Shouldn’t there be more to life than this?
Yes, says Lakeland, there’s our microfibre blind cleaner (£4.99). It takes me the same amount of time to run it over a shutter as with the old-fashioned duster, but it’s far more satisfying because – and I realise this makes me sound like a toddler – it has a handle. It turns out handles are fun and I like them. This is one thing I have learned about myself today, if not about cleaning.
Success level: 8/10
Satisfaction level: 8/10
Ease of storage: 10/10
Overall rating: 8/10
Putting clothes away
Folding board
You’re supposed to put clothes away? They are currently everywhere: on the drying rack, piled on a chair, on the floor and in a suitcase awaiting unpacking after a weekend break. I know, I know. Of course I aspire to put them away eventually. It’s just that life is what happens when you’re busy making plans to sort laundry.
On the occasions when I do, my folding technique can best be described as perfunctory. I’m not someone who needs my t-shirts to look like they belong in a display in Zara. Life’s too short, and frankly I lack the patience, time and inclination. Would a big plastic folding template (£13.99) change this?
I give it a go with a shirt. It takes less than a minute and gives me a fleeting feeling if not of joy then at least of, “oh, I see, that’s neat.” I then fold a long-sleeved t-shirt without the aid of the template. It takes the same amount of time. Is the end result less neat? Yes. Do I care? Not really.
It doesn’t seem to bring enough benefit to make it worth acquiring another piece of plastic. No wonder Earth is in such a state when we’ve reached the point where we’re buying – and presumably eventually discarding – plastic clothes-folding templates. I contemplate this lofty thought as I survey the jumble of clothes in my bedroom and resolve to continue doing nothing about them.
Success level: 8/10
Satisfaction level: 6/10
Ease of storage: 6/10
Overall rating: 6/10
Drawer organisers
Judging by the spaces in these, they seem designed to separate socks and undergarments from other socks and undergarments. But…why? Does it make it easier to get dressed? Perhaps. But isn’t it more thrilling to introduce an element of jeopardy in the mornings, where failing to locate matching socks can result in you missing your train?
I try sorting socks into a drawer organiser, but it turns out all the socks I currently have available are odd ones, and surely placing odd socks in compartments is the first sign of madness?
I switch to separating tights. Said tights have long been balled up in my drawer, in the lingerie equivalent of a fatberg, or one of those rubber band balls. There’s little excitement to be found in disentangling them. It takes me a minute or two to fill one organiser (which is a minute or two longer than the zero minutes I usually spend on them). What of the rest? I haven’t the heart to continue.
Success level: 6/10
Satisfaction level: 3/10
Ease of storage: 9/10 – but they are storage, and once you start storing your storage, you begin losing touch with reality.
Overall rating: 4/10
Making the beds
The best thing about staying in hotels is sleeping between clean sheets without having to change the bed yourself. In some heterosexual marriages (I can’t comment on my own), this can also be achieved by being the male partner.
Which is to say I’m glad to learn of the existence of the Clever Bear mattress lifter (£19.59) and Tiesome bed sheet paddles (£6.39 for two). The latter resemble something you might use for air traffic control, but they promise to make the backbreaking work of bed-making easier.
Unsure where precisely to insert the lifter, I consult a YouTube video for guidance. In it, an American woman takes some time to demonstrate that essentially you just stick it under the mattress and proceed with the job. Hmm. I don’t really see how it helps, unless you’re too infirm to lift a mattress with your bare hands. I don’t want to boast, but I am still just about physically able to do this.
The air traffic control paddles seem similarly redundant, since I’m also capable of tucking in sheets with my hands. It takes me five minutes to change my son’s bed with the aid of these somewhat superfluous plastic tools.
I then make my daughter’s bed without them, which takes six minutes once I have removed her 800 or so soft toys. I attribute the extra minute to the fact I’m growing tired. Amid the soft toy apocalypse in which I now stand, perhaps I was too quick to dismiss that Clever Bear. Since my daughter’s is a platform bed, the air traffic control panels may actually help, too, with tucking in the sheets in the tight space between the railings. In the interest of preserving the integrity of the experiment, I resist.
Success level: 3
Satisfaction level: 4
Storage level: 9
Overall rating: 4 (but come back to me on this when I’m more infirm)
Bathroom scrubbing
I’ve neglected my shower screen of late. OK – of always. I’d love to say I’ve been too busy achieving great things, but can find little evidence to support this. Never mind. It’s never too late to start thinking more about shower screens. As I start to think about them, my mind immediately wanders, and I fear it may in fact be too soon. But I have an electronic cleaning brush with multiple heads to try, so I drag my focus back to the task at hand.
The experience is similar to walking an exuberant dog. I feel more like it’s walking me. It’s certainly deciding where it wants to go and clearly has a mind of its own. It takes me a couple of minutes to clean the shower screen with it. I’m not convinced I’m doing it right, as it leaves suds afterwards.
In its favour, it again has the handle thing going for it, which in this case removes the necessity of donning Marigolds. If it doesn’t feel like it would enhance my time on this Earth in any meaningful way, perhaps that’s because I’m more willing than the average person to live with grimey shower screens.
Success level: 6/10
Satisfaction level: 6/10
Ease of storage: 5/10
Overall rating: 6/10
Removing stains from upholstery and carpets
It’s not that we’re not careful with our carpets, it’s just that we have two children, and they’re not careful, and carelessness can be contagious. There’s a tipping point, after which you think, “I don’t know why I’m going through the motions of telling them not to smear their hands down the walls. The walls are so far past redemption, I may as well smear my own hands down them, too.” It’s like the broken windows theory: once a certain amount of degradation has occurred, it simply encourages more.
So the Bissell portable carpet and upholstery cleaner (£99) couldn’t have arrived at a better time. If it takes me an age to work out how to use it, this is almost certainly due to my own technical ineptitude. (Although, note to manufacturers: it’s nice to have words in instruction manuals as well as slightly confusing pictures).
Finally I get to work. And my God is it worth the bother. I switch it on, and whatever chemicals I have poured in are sprayed onto the carpet, and a little onto my lip. They’re apparently not caustic so I only panic a bit. It was probably my fault for getting too close, in awe at the wonder of what was happening: it was working. Ancient marks and stains on my carpet disappeared before my eyes. In seconds. Hallelujah! I finally understand the life-changing magic of getting out damned spots.
It’s conceivable, of course, that applying carpet cleaner from a bottle and rubbing the marks with a sponge would bring similar results. But it would require the kind of elbow grease that by this stage in the day I am sorely lacking. Bring on the lazy solution. I can always remortgage the house, if needs be.
Success level: 9/10
Satisfaction level: 8/10 (once I’ve worked out how to use it)
Ease of storage: 3/10
Overall rating: 8/10
