COVER STORY
Live your best life ever!Becomeyourown‘cleanfluencer’withthelatestbreedofcleaninggadgetsfor
the home, from stain-blasting steam mops to streak-free window vacs.TIDY UP YOUR HOME
If you believe what Marie Kondo says,
there is joy to be found in tidying up. But
we’re the first to say that cleaning isn’t
for everyone: after all, there are plenty
of things we’d rather be doing on a
Sunday than washing windows.
Apparently not everyone feels that way,
as there’s a growing number of people
who find cleaning to be strangely
therapeutic and beneficial to their
general wellbeing. Why? Positive
psychology has some answers...
In 2014, Indiana University associate
professor Nicole Keith studied a group of
998 people and found that those of them
with cleaner homes were generally
healthier than people with messy
homes. Before that, in 2011, researchers
at Princeton University found that
clutter can make it more difficult to
focus on a task, lending weight to the old
adage of ‘tidy home, tidy mind’.
Cleaning is a de-stresser for some and
can provide a sense of accomplishment,
especially if you’re into making your
own cleaning products.
For those of you who do find cleaning
to be therapeutic, get hands-on with
Dyson’s latest cordless vac, the V11
Absolute ($1,199,www.dyson.com.au). It
has interchangeable ‘heads’ – one for
hard floors and one for carpeted surfaces
- with smaller attachments for cleaning
sofas and stairs, and vacuuming into
cobwebby corners and cupboards.
A steam mop is another good
investment for your home’s wellbeing.
How? The Shark Klik n’ Flip Pocket
Steam Mop ($129,www.sharkclean.
com.au), for example, eliminates 99.9%
of common bacteria from hard floors
and lino.Sofreshandsoclean
For every one of us that enjoys cleaning,
there’s another who loathes it, so let’s
now take a look at some house cleaning
tech that pretty much gets the job done
for you...
The fun starts with a brilliant robot
vacuum cleaner, and right now one of
our favourite smart vacuum cleaners is
the iRobot Roomba 960 ($1,299,www.
irobot.com.au). It’s designed to clean
deep into corners and can follow a map
of your home, so it won’t vacuum into a
room or space you don’t want it too. Best
of all, the 960 even empties itself and
automatically takes itself back to the
charging base whenever it’s low
on batter y.
Next up is tech to tackle everyone’s
most-dreaded house chore: cleaning the
windows. Let the Karcher WV6 ($199,
http://www.kaercher.com) take the sting out
of it for you. This handheld water-
fuelled vac for cleaning windows, glass
doors, mirrors and tiled floors and wallscreates a streak-free finish with shine
for days. A full charge delivers 100
minutes of power – just imagine the
cleaning marathon you could have.
Dirty dishes cluttering up worktops
can make any kitchen seem overrun.
Instead, stack them inside the Bosch
Serie 6 Dishwasher ($1,031,www.
appliancesonline.com.au), a smart
freestanding dishwasher that’s big on
energy saving; it uses AquaSensor III to
automatically assess how much water is
needed for what you’re washing. It does
the same for your dishwasher detergent,
helping it last longer, and thanks to an
EcoSilence brushless motor it’s Quiet
Mark accredited. That means you can
clean up at night without disturbing
anyone else at home.
Finally, a high-quality air purifier is
one of the greatest allies for maintaining
a cleaner home, as they actively reduce
indoor air pollution, which is especially
important for those of us who spend a
lot of time indoors. The Scandinavian-
looking, ultra-quiet LightAir IonFlow
Signature ($1,034,www.lightair.com)
air purifier not only removes harmful
particles, it also eliminates viruses
while they’re airborne. A must for winter
germ management and for improving
the air quality of your main living space.