Cleaning devices for hard surfaces are well known in the art. Such devices may be handheld or may be deployed on the end of an elongate handle, to extend the user's reach.
The head of the device may include bristles, sponge, microfiber cloth, terry cloth, nonwoven sheets, foam and other cleaning materials, as are known in the art. But cleaning material well suited for cleaning one type of debris from a particular surface may be poorly suited for cleaning different debris from that same surface. Or that material may be poorly suited for cleaning that same debris from a different surface.
For example, one may desire to clean a shower area. The shower area may have different kinds of tile, each with different surface characteristics. The shower area may further have glass, marble, synthetic solid surface material, grout, caulk, plastic and/or ceramic surfaces. Each of these surfaces may require different treatments to optimize cleaning. For example, a cleaning material which works well on glass or ceramic might scratch a plastic surface. A cleaning material suitable for flat surfaces may not work well for faucets or corners.
Complicating the situation are the various types of debris found on a common surface. A single surface may have soluble and insoluble debris, oil-based debris, soap scum, food stains, mold, etc. Or plural surfaces in a single area, such as, by way of non-limiting example, a shower, may have plural types of debris—further complicating the cleaning task.
Further complicating the cleaning task is the interaction between the cleaning material and any cleaning solution used therewith. Particular cleaning solutions may work more efficaciously with particular cleaning pads.
A single cleaning pad is not optimized to clean plural types of debris from plural types of surfaces in a single cleaning task. One solution to this problem is for the user to interrupt the cleaning process mid-task and exchange the cleaning device for another. But this solution complicates the problem by requiring the purchase and storage of plural cleaning devices/pads/cleaning solutions—as well as extending the time necessary to complete the cleaning task.
An attempt to improve upon this solution is to provide a cleaning device having plural cleaning surfaces. For example, a cleaning device having dual texture bristles are known in the art. A device having a separately usable scrubber and sponge, is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 7,624,469. Some cleaning devices have renewable surfaces, as illustrated by commonly assigned US D513,102 S; D522,201 S and D578,720 S. Another device accommodates a continuous liquid flow path, as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,712.
But these attempts in the art do not overcome the problems encountered when using a single device to clean plural surfaces having plural types of debris. Accordingly, a new solution is needed.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds