Off to update my resumé.
Career counselors at high schools and colleges have it rough. Gone are the days when the only options were “named” careers like doctor, lawyer, mechanic or teacher. Now there are not only a jillion jobs out there with questionable descriptions involving the words “quality,” “manager,” and “services,” but there are a bunch of vague industries as well. And who knew, back in the day, that computer training would be imperative if one wanted to be an animator?
This is all a long introduction to the fact that my high school career counselor could never have guessed that I would one day write more than one review on mops. That’s right. Mops.
So it turns out that “green” design may not always equal “the best” design. The omop has been getting some pretty mixed reviews, which can’t be that great. I mean, we all have some pretty basic expectations for a mop’s performance. Mops should wipe the floor of a reasonable degree of excess dirt and not fall apart in the process. And if a mop fails in either of these requirements, that’s not so awesome.
Which brings me to some omop alternatives. If you want to stay green, do what ellipsisknits and Lynn in Tucson recommend: Attach a rag to the end of your old Swiffer and/or (for the craftier sort) knit a new head for it. Beth (our home mopping expert) has tried the former, and reports that it gets the small jobs done. And its cheapness factor enables you to save your pennies for adorable mopping apparel.Â
But if you want a MOP, a mop that doesn’t take any backtalk from dirt and spills and the like and that Beth describes as the “best mop in the history of mopping,” you’ll want to go with the Super PVA Mop from the aptly named Super Cool Products. It may seem pricey at first look, but I have personally witnessed its fantastic dirt-picking-up abilities, and it has lived in our heavily mopped household for three years with only two replacement heads and no wear on the main part of the mop. And while this mop is none too biodegradable or green (other than its color), its excellent mop abilities require less use of cleaning fluids and back-breaking scrubbing. Heck, you don’t even have to sweep that well beforehand.
Perhaps I’ll be invited to be a speaker at career day next year as the “mop evangelist.” Fingers crossed.
I just bought an omop, and love it. It’s survived one mopping and washing so far, so I haven’t really given it the acid test, but my floor WAS nasty and no longer is so it must be doing something well enough.
The head part did come off once when I dropped the whole thing, but it snapped right back on. I had to really push to get the handle pieces together, so I don’t expect them to come apart any time soon. And I love the velcro they use to attach the mop part….it’s so tiny that it doesn’t catch the carpet when I tried to get it to do so.
Overall, I’d say I like this mop a lot better than the nasty sponge one I had before (and certainly better than the rag-like one before that). It may not be perfect, but it will certainly do for our small space.
I, too, have bought the omop and I’ve, happily, made a discovery that is forcing me to reverse my first thought that I probably wouldn’t purchase the sweeper cloths. The sweeper cloths work SO well on my wood floors that I’m finding that after my initial sweep-then-squirt-then-mop my floors, I not only didn’t need to immediately wash the mophead (it was still very clean), but also when I cleaned the floors the following week, I needed to only use the sweeper thingy. No mopping needed. Floors still gleaming. So, YEA FOR THE OMOP!
the super pva mop gets RAVE reviews from me! i was hit by the end of hurricane ivan (i live in pa) and had nasty mud on my tile first floor. trying to hold back tears and avoid becoming overwhelmed by the mess was difficult until my aunt picked up my mop that had sat in the corner for months, still in the plastic. using only fresh water from the sink and the super pva mop she drew a WHITE LINE on my floor and giggled, saying, “just like eating an elephant…one bite at a time.” at that moment i knew i wouold survive and that i would never ever need a different brand of mop.
xoxo