The use of mops and water buckets for use in cleaning floors and the like is a concept as old as cleaning itself. And as long as there are persons around to clean up after, the use of mops and cleaning buckets is likely to continue for a long time to come. In the experience and observations of the inventor of the present invention, the modern day cleaning bucket has been modified in many ways to make it much more user friendly" and practical. For example, modern cleaning buckets now include rollers or casters upon which the bucket may be rendered highly mobile and readily movable from one dirty location of a floor to another. Modern cleaning buckets also include a wringer mechanism mounted immediately above the reservoir of the clean mop bucket such that the head of a mop may be inserted into the wringer and thus substantially emptied of the water held within the mop head. The water falls back into the bucket reservoir and may be recycled until it is too dirty to be useful.
In the experience of this inventor, the wet-mop method of cleaning is effective but has a significant drawback--the drying time which is necessary to insure that passers by will not fall upon a wet floor is fairly substantial. Most times, particularly in a busy shopping mall or any other place where large numbers of people need to move through, the drying time is simply too long. And the wet floor in such a situation simply creates too great of a risk of harm to those passers by. It is thus advisable and, in fact, quite desirable to have the user of the wetting or washing mop carry around a second drying mop which can then be used to remove the excess water and puddles of water which tend to remain on the freshly cleaned floor. In the experience of this inventor, however, a user faced with two almost identical mops one for wetting and one for drying--soon tends to confuse the two and begins to use them interchangeably. This innocent oversight completely frustrates the purpose behind using the two mops in the first place. And once the drying mop is mistaken for the wetting or washing mop, and becomes completely saturated with water, its usefulness as a drying device is ended. The only solution to this is for the user to find another drying mop to work with.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds