"The 'smart home' is getting smarter by the day, soon prophesying and providing our every want and need. Cleaning will be no exception. But before the robot revolution arrives, we are already eliminating cleaning dread. The kinds of small, highly efficient motors our engineers are developing give versatile cordless vacuums the power of their tethered counterparts, making a quick clean achievable, no matter the moment. And those robots? Eventually they'll take on all the household chores, predicting our undetected needs and adapting to the environment around them. They'll clean up autonomously, invisibly, completely hygienically and far more effectively than old-fashioned elbow grease."

More at source: Wall Street Journal 

James Dyson, inventor and founder of Dyson Ltd.

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Keywords: Cleaning Robots, Cleaning Robots Vs. Humans, Cleaning Forms

 Mr. Dajnowski could be found more than halfway up the Obelisk, cleaning a hieroglyph for the “s” sound in a cartouche reading: “User-Maat-Re, beloved of Amun.” A few levels down, Robert Zarycki was passing a laser beam over a bowl-shaped hieroglyph representing a basket and the sound “nb,” or Lord. Together with a cartouche below, it read: “Lord of the two lands, User-Maat-Re, chosen of Re.”

User-Maat-Re is known today as Ramses II. He followed Thutmose III by about 200 years and added his own inscriptions to each face of the Obelisk, flanking those of his predecessor. A later pharaoh, Osorkon I, squeezed in short tributes to himself. (“Cleopatra’s Needle” is a misnomer for the Obelisk. She had nothing to do with it.)

Though the conservators wore bulky respirators and greenish goggles, the scene around the Obelisk did not look like something out of science fiction. The laser did not produce a ruby-red beam, but a white pinpoint. It did not hum eerily. It crackled.

The cleaning is to be finished in a week or so. After that, loose surfaces will be stabilized with a consolidating agent that binds stone particles at a molecular level. All the work should be finished in the fall, when the scaffolding will come down.

The $500,000 project is paid for by the private, nonprofit Central Park Conservancy, which manages the park under contract with the City of New York.

More at source: NY TIMES

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On a steaming day in Hoboken, a blonde woman stands outside of her home washing baby strollers with a toothbrush. Cloudy water sits in a bowl besides her, and as she scrubs the upholstery, her head bobs to the beat.

Just a year earlier, Hoboken mom Anna Stanin was working at a high-profile job on Wall Street. She quit her job in October 2013, and shortly after, began a stroller-cleaning service from home.

"People thought I was absolutely insane," said the entrepreneur with a laugh.

Less than a year later, Sudsy Buggy has a large returning client list and is in the early stages of making it a franchise business.

Based out of her Park Avenue apartment, Stanin cleans strollers, car seats and other kid-friendly items with organic products and kitchen concoctions. 

"At first I was buying off-the-shelf stuff," Stanin said. "The store stuff is crap."

She said she found the best way to clean mold, sunscreen stains and baby fluids is with items she already had in her kitchen and bathroom.

"The parents feel good knowing it's all natural," Stanin added.

She also has some first-hand experience. Stanin, along with keeping up her business, 

More at source: NJ.com

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Humble, Texas (CBS HOUSTON) – A Whataburger employee says she was “humiliated” at work for her weight, and that her manager at the fast-food restaurant made her get on her hands and knees to clean the store floor with a “toothbrush.”

Whitney Clark says she has heard insults and fat jokes for years, but the way she has been treated as a cook at the Whataburger off the 1960 bypass road was completely humiliating, KHOU-TV reports. Clark says the insults from her managers at the fast-food restaurant finally culminated when she was “humiliated” and forced to clean the restaurant floor with a toothbrush.

More at source: CBS

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Published in the Journal of Consumer Research,Delphine Dion (Sorbonne Business School), Ouidade Sabri (Paris-Est University), and Valerie Guillard (University of Paris Dauphine) set out to understand why we’re so finicky about our personal space. 

IKEA (or The Container Store or Real Simple) may have elevated organization to an art form. But modern fantasies of tidiness reach back into the nineteenth century, and the idea that messiness presents some kind of danger. A neat home yielded social recognitionundefinedand a messy home, disapprobation. (Of course, mothers and wives stood at the center of this order, guardians of the domestic sanctuary.) Today, we have a dizzying array of brands, products, services, and ads that insist mess is dangerous 

More at source: New Republic

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“Something tragic has happened in these people’s lives,” says owner Matt Paxton. “So we go in very delicately and help them through the process of cleaning up.”

The company won't disclose specific revenue, but their extensive experience working on both small jobs, like cleaning out and organizing a garage, to larger-scale assignments, like those contracted by the county to completely gut and sanitize a home, can rake in $30,000 to $40,000 or more. Big projects like these typically involve someone who has a mental disorder that causes them to compulsively collect items -- particularly those that are worthless, hazardous or unsanitary. And after eight years of specializing in this type of work, 

More at source: Yahoo

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A big challenge is convincing people to forgo the fragrance of traditional cleaners. For many, a scent of pine, lemon or tropical breeze is a lasting payoff for their efforts and a bragging card to others that a room has been recently cleaned.

The target audience for the new products is people concerned that chemical cleaners could pose harm to their families, pets and the finishes of wood floors, countertops and appliances. Increased scrutiny of household products' ingredients, including the Food and Drug Administration's current safety review of triclosan, which is found in antibacterial soaps, has prompted consumers to rethink how they clean their homes.

More at WSJ

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Genuine Parts Co. of Atlanta has agreed to buy Impact Products LLC. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Impact Products was founded in 1963 by the late Jim Findlay. It has distribution centers in Toledo and Walnut, Calif.

It will become part of S.P. Richards Co., which is Genuine Parts’ office products group. The deal is expected to close in early July.

Impact Products has 130 employees in the Toledo area, said company President and CEO Terry Neal. He said that number is not expected to change, and the firm will keep operating as Impact Products.

Genuine Parts said it expects the acquired business to generate about $85 million in annual revenues.

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