Not using a vacuum cleaner

That might creates more dust...? Live with the sun 3/8

Photo by Magnus S on Unsplash

03: Not using a vacuum cleaner

I live alone and have a limited area (52 square meters because I liked the spacious room, but it was originally a 2LDK floor plan for small households), and I didn't have many things, so I didn't buy a vacuum cleaner to start my new life in my new room. Instead of that, I’ve been using just a broom, a dustpan, and a roller adhesive cleaner to clean my whole room. I have had a vacuum cleaner in  every single house which I've lived in since I was a child, but I remember wiping the tatami mats with a rag when I was a kid.

I think that after world war 2, home appliances that were said to make housework easier were imported one after another from the United States (including this way of thinking) to Japanese households, changing the scenery inside the house and the method of maintaining the house.

Before vacuum cleaners existed, well-ventilated Japanese houses were cleaned with open windows and brooms, dusters, and rags. Even in modern times, even if there is no vacuum cleaner, if you maintain it with a broom and duster on a daily basis, you will not harm your health (maybe). Because it's been that way for a long time. In other words, not using a vacuum cleaner means that the room or space is dirty and unhealthy. I think that the brain tends to think "without thinking" that there is some kind of harm unless it is done in a way that everyone is doing.

At the same time, dust never disappears because of the vacuum cleaner. In other words, it is not enough to drive out the garbage and dust that are harmful to life from the room, and the vacuum cleaner makes the garbage visible. The more you use it, the more garbage you create. I think it's better to remember that there is an aspect of being unconsciously addicted to such a cycle.

"In the end, it's a matter of balance." It's important to be clean, but there's no way a normal life would be a sterile room. If so, it's a tremendous gradation of what to do. I think the bottom line is not to harm your health. In other words, if that is the case, you should buy a high-end multi-functional vacuum cleaner, purchase consumables such as filters regularly, consume a lot of electricity each time you use it, and clean the vacuum cleaner. I suddenly wondered if the situation where it would not be possible was the correct answer.

I think that sometimes going back to basics, or thinking about how things were in the past, can open your mind.