Take That, Swiffer!

In case you didn't have the privilege of growing up with excessively frugal parents, Depression-era grandparents, or (like me) both, I'm going to tell you the first rule of life with cheapskates:

If you throw away anything that still has some life left in it, you're in BIG trouble.

More on that in a minute. First, let me give you a brief rundown on the mop situation at Chez Cheeky. After working our way through a variety of really flimsy, really useless sponge mops through the years, we finally broke down about two years ago and got a Swiffer starter set to see what all the fuss was about.

The rag crate and the Swiffer at the
beginning of the process. And my
washing machine, which was the
scene of the crazy.

I have to say: Swiffer makes a great product. It really works. And the mop frame itself holds together better than any Wal-Mart special that I've ever bought. But, my cheapskate frugal self refuses to buy the proper refills of anything they sell-- once the little bottle of cleaner that came with it ran out, I mixed up Pine-Sol and water in a spray bottle to pre-spray the floor before mopping. (I wanted to put the solution directly back into the little bottle, but the directions say that can cause leaks.) Our starter kit also came with a massive box of the cleaning pads, and my plan was just to use rags once those ran out. Which took two years.

Here's where the never-throw-away thing finally paid off: I pulled out my crate of rags to find one that would work. The bottom surface of a Swiffer is Velcro-y, so things will stick to it a bit, but I was looking for something that wouldn't get too bunched up or slide off while I was mopping. I tried a long-sleeved t-shirt:

And I think that would work, but I would want to cut off the cuffs and probably use two sleeves, one covering each end of the mop head, with some overlap in the middle. But I was not done experimenting yet, so next I tried the a leg from a pair of Chad's old sweats.

Because this was the lower end of the leg, the entire thing wrapped round the mop head without the handle getting in the way. Plus, the Velcro stuck to the fleecy material really well. I cut it off and repositioned it on the mop head:

And then clipped it into place. All ready to go!

And if you've been keeping an eye on my washing machine timer, yes, it took me less than four minutes to do this. It's a good thing I recorded it for posterity, because I would have sworn it took longer.

So, did it work? Happily, yes. The material stayed in place, it picked up the dirt, and when one side got saturated with cleaner I slid it off, flipped it around, and then re-clipped it to finish mopping. Perfect! I'm sure the good people at Swiffer would prefer that I buy their approved refill sets, but I'm even more sure that my parents and grandparents will be very happy that I managed to learn something about reusing.

Do you have a Swiffer? Or, even better: Do you have a clever reusing story to share? I'm always looking for ideas!