Ever walk into a play date or a friend’s house and think to yourself, ” Damn, how does she keep this place so clean with kids?” Me, neither. Just kidding. It happens all the time. I immediately ask her for the name of her cleaning lady. If she denies having a cleaning lady one of two things happens 1) I am amazed by her domestic goddess abilities and ask her to teach me her ways or 2) I decide we can no longer be friends because she either neglects her children or is a liar, liar, clean, pressed pants on fire.

I thought that I had it all figured out, this home business. No, I don’t mean working from home or my blog, I mean keeping my house from looking like a cyclone hit it while working from home and parenting smallish children. It’s hard, people. I don’t know how they do it but my kids can really mess up a house. I feel like I’m constantly cleaning and I am going to be completely honest with you, I don’t like it. In fact, I pretty much despise domestic labor.

My girls are not toddlers. It’s not about Cheerio crumbs and Cheez-it dust anymore. I can’t blame it on tiny hands and squished up puffs. This is all the damage of two semi-sophisticated young ladies who simply cannot get the concept of food actually making it into their mouths and can’t (or won’t) be bothered by picking up toys and clothes which leaves my floor looking like the toy box and their closet exploded, add to the mix crumbs and dirty plates on tables and I am ready to burn the house down. I feel like I need to go through the house with a leaf blower just to clear a path sometimes. Did I mention I don’t like mess.at.all?

My husband says its because they live in excess and simply have no room to put it all away. He blames me. I say they are just the cutest little pigs around. I blame them. They blame the dog.

I do my best, in between deadlines, appointments, errands, cooking dinner and keeping little people alive, I clean the house but it never seems to be clean enough because as I clean one room, I swear, they are making it their single mission to destroy the rest of the house. It truly is maddening so I decided to hire a cleaningcompanydublin to get help with cleaning the entire house.

I want to hire a maid to come once a week but then I realized that I don’t have a schedule that permits me to scrub my house down once a week and how could I ever let a stranger see my house in such a state? It’s bad enough that my husband sees it. Who has time to do all that cleaning before the maid comes? And if I didn’t, she would surely double her prices and tell all of her other domestic engineer friends about how dirty my house was and the next thing you know, I’d be blackballed by all help…everywhere.

What’s worse than what I see…the mess, is the stuff that I can’t see. The things that I can’t even begin to consider like dust mites and such.  The thought of it makes my skin crawl. I try to pretend that they don’t exist but I know that they do so I basically stay at a defcon 1 stress level about my house at all times. You can learn how to prevent mold from building up in your home here. In fact, I am wondering just how many dust mites can live on a single dust bunny (like the one under my sofa) at this very moment. Oops, I may have just vomited in my mouth a little bit.

Then, I received an unexpected gift in the mail. Not something that I would normally get excited about but hey, I like it when the FedEx guy brings me goodies so I tore into it and I have to say, it is quickly becoming one of my favorite pieces in my house.

Behold the Shark® Rotator® Powered Lift-Away® . Yes, it’s a vacuum cleaner. I used to be the girl who swore I’d break my husbands kneecaps if he ever gave me a vacuum, iron or weight loss machine as a gift. In fact, I swore it. These are not gifts in my mind, these are necessities and commentary on the state of how I handle things. So thanks, no thanks.

But Shark sent me this and so there was no husband to be offended by. I have to be honest, I have a Dyson and after emptying container on the Shark, I can tell you that my Dyson has been doing a piss poor job. Maybe it wasn’t all the kids’ fault. Maybe the Dyson was failing to do its job and the kids weren’t habitual offenders…at least not where the floor was concerned. They are fully accountable for the toys and clothes on the floor but maybe not the crumbs and enough hair to create an entirely new dog or child.

Here are some of the features:
• Rotator® power nozzle with motorized brush that deep cleans and reaches further under furniture than any other vacuum (as evidenced by said hair and dust).
• Powerful LED headlights on the nozzle and handle to improve visibility under furniture or in dark, hard-to-see spaces (this is amazing but be warned vacuuming in the dark is scary).
• Fingertip Controls for easy transitions between hard floors, carpet and area rugs (I love not having to bend over to switch the height).
• Designed with a HEPA filter and Shark’s Anti-Allergen Complete Seal Technology™ to capture and hold 99.99 percent of dust and allergens (this is a must in our house because 4 out of 4 people who live here, suffer from allergies and fear of dust bunnies.)

• Additional features include:
o Hard Floor Genie™ bare floor attachment picks up large debris and fine dust in one easy step (easy enough for a 7 and 9-year-old to use).
o Extra-long 30 foot power cord provides maximum range for cleaning large spaces.
o Specialized tools to offer versatility in cleaning include a premium pet power brush, upholstery tool, flexible crevice tool and canister caddy.

My Shark is awesome and that is saying something because up until now, I was a die hard Dyson fan but the dust don’t lie and now, maybe, I can get that maid I’ve always wanted and deserved without the shame of her judging my domestic abilities.

Disclosure: I was provided a Shark Rotator Powered Lift-Away for review purposes but all opinions and clean rooms are mine, all mine.