I Finally Got a Vacuum Cleaner I Love — And It Made Me Actually Enjoy Cleaning

For what feels like forever, I have had a passive-aggressive relationship with my robot vacuum. Sure, it would do its thing around the house, sometimes locating the worst, most obvious areas of debris and make the messes neater without me having to do basically anything. Usually, though, it missed the everyday dirt entirely (and left behind so much dog hair — always dog hair). Its semi-efficiency drove me to my breaking point monthly, making me question the point of robots altogether. I am never getting in a self-driving car, I told myself as I watched the circular robot wedge itself under the coffee table and spin in a panic or shred an entire section of my rug. “Really?” I’d ask, looking at it. “This again? You have one job.”

“Why do we even still have this thing?,” my fiancé would ask as he would pick random pieces of debris out of its insides, attempting to get it to function again. Neither of us wanted to admit that the answer to this question was the same reason why we got the vacuum in the first place: We’re lazy. Neither of us wanted to spend time vacuuming or spend the money to buy a vacuum that actually worked.

So we stubbornly soldered on. Until, that is, my parents got us a wedding gift that will now go down as my ultimate dream gift: The LG CordZero Stick Vacuum. 

To put it simply: Using this vacuum felt like I was seeing the full, unbelievable range of filth in my home for the first time. When I first got it set up, I figured it would be like any other manual vacuuming I’d done in the past — not exactly fun, but hey, you’ve gotta do it. At least I wouldn’t end up on my back, unable to move or function efficiently and screaming, “Error. Error. Error.” into the void like the old robot vacuum. At the very least, I knew this. 

Still, right off the bat, I had to admit this vacuum was cool. It had a charging station that we could plug in anywhere (no need to adhere it to the wall — a major win for renters), multiple battery packs, and a filtration system that we could clean with water and reuse. Plus, it had multiple attachments for rugs, hardwoods, and harder-to-reach areas.

When I started vacuuming, I was both horrified and elated. I had barely gotten through two rooms in our house when I had vacuumed up enough dog (and human) hair to fashion a small (OK, medium) stuffed animal. I had finally found a vacuum that was actually satisfying to use — one that was really, truly working. Instead of fooling myself into thinking that it was making my life easier and my home cleaner, it actually was making my life easier and my home cleaner. My floors were hair-free. My rugs were intact. And I, for the first time, had learned to actually love cleaning my house. 

Now, if you’ve gotten this far you’ve probably looked up the price of this bad boy. And it isn’t cheap. We were lucky to receive this as a very generous gift, but after having used it for a couple of months now, I can confidently say that I would happily pay full price for this vacuum in the future. Even if it meant saving up or waiting until a great sale to hit, it would be worth it for just how efficient and effective it is. To put things in perspective, my fiancé and I live in a row home, meaning we have three (very narrow) floors of rooms and two very, very steep sets of stairs between each floor. Carrying the vacuum up and down the stairs when we clean the whole house each weekend isn’t the most fun thing in the world, but seeing how much debris it picks up is so satisfying that it makes vacuuming a thoroughly pleasant experience in a different way. My fiancé and I have literally argued over who gets to vacuum each week.

Most weekends I win the “who gets to vacuum” argument. I pop in my Airpods, put on a great cleaning playlist, and look forward to the odd satisfaction of watching the CordZero do its thing, leaving me with a pretty good workout (dancing while vacuuming is encouraged) and a much, much cleaner house. Would this bring me quite as much joy if we weren’t, say, in the middle of a pandemic with nothing to do? Maybe not. As of now, though, I’m taking all the joy I can get. The fact that my house has never been cleaner is just a bonus.