1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a cleaning apparatus, and, in particular, to an apparatus especially suited for cleaning hard-surfaced floors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cleaning floors is a tedious and laborious task. Over the years, many devices have been designed for this purpose, including brooms, mops, vacuum-cleaners, and countless variations thereon. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,896,611 and 500,976 each discloses a device that utilizes a rotatable brush to accelerate debris into a collection container. These devices have the ability to pick up relatively large dirt particles, but smaller items such as dust and hair are usually left behind. Additionally, these devices generally are designed for industrial applications, and therefore, tend to be too cumbersome for household use.
Meanwhile, widely-used electret cloth mops, which utilize static electricity to attract dirt, hair, and dust particles, pose the opposite problem. These devices are effective at picking up small particles, but larger debris tends to collect at the front edge of the mop where the debris is pushed across the floor until a user manually removes the debris from the floor. In addition, using electret cloth mops is time consuming because the user frequently has to replace spent electret cloth. Other floor cleaning devices, like those depicted in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,092,699 and 5,372,609, attempt to solve this problem by providing a continually-fed cleaning cloth, but these devices are likewise incapable of picking up larger debris.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a cleaning apparatus that is capable of removing both large and small particles from a surface, yet is easily handled and operated.