I just got a new vacuum. It’s a cordless vacuum, and I like it a lot in some ways, but it’s not perfect.

I own one cordless stick vacuum, one cheap normal vacuum, two shop vacuums, a combo vacuum-mop, and a carpet cleaner (that has been indefinitely loaned to my sister-in-law). I’ve also owned a car vacuum. That sounds ridiculous.

But I’m not alone in my vacuum struggle. As I was in the vacuum aisle, I had an acquaintance–our daughters were in preschool together–come up. She had a nice vacuum, but it didn’t have enough power to clean her house. Vacuums break easily and don’t work as well as we want them to.

But with all my appliances, my floors aren’t clean. My kids go in and out all the time, tracking in dirt. We spill food and stuff. I don’t clean as often as I could–I feel like I need to do it multiple times a day to keep up on it.

How do you keep your floor clean? How often do you clean it?

I’m thinking back to the days before vacuums existed. They would sweep and take rugs out and beat them with a stick. I think maybe they were probably just more tolerant of dirty floors back them?