Floor broom
The Floor Polisher , Bohner blocker , Bohner club , blocker , bloggers or Blocher , regionally Bohner (Saxon: Blogger lobe ), is a working tool for floor care. Until the early 1970s, household appliances were available in almost every German household. It consists of a cast-iron block, about 15 x 20 x 5 cm, about 5-10 kg, with a brush covering on the underside, via a ball joint at the top with an operating handle, for example. B. broomstick , is articulated. The sides of the cast block are covered with felt to protect the furniture . A ring or loop is often attached to the end of the handle so that the device can be hung up when not in use - if it is simply put down, the heavy weight will press the bristles on the underside flat over time. However, there were also special stands in which the unused device could be hung.
The floor broom is used to polish , for which floor wax is used. This means that by moving the heavy equipment back and forth, wooden and linoleum floors , and if necessary Stragula floors, are polished to a high gloss . Small children are often allowed to “ride” on the device, because the additional weight of the child improves the (high) gloss result. With large areas it is a sweaty affair and has to be repeated at regular intervals, depending on how the floor is walked, mostly weekly.
application
Today the device is being used more frequently again, as oiled and waxed wooden floors are in fashion. The existing floor covering must first be cleaned before polishing . The floor wax is applied with a cleaning rag and then, depending on the product, it is left to work for about 20 minutes. A floor broom or blocker is used for polishing, similar to shoe cleaning , until the desired gloss result is achieved. A disadvantage of the blocker is evident in old softwood floors : the hard bristles have sanded away the lighter, soft parts of the wood over time, so that the harder, dark wood parts protrude, with hardwood floors (e.g. made of oak or beech ) this effect does not occur.
equipment
In addition to the Floor Polisher, there is still the floor polisher or the electric floor polisher broom but hardly anything in common with the described Allerwelts-working equipment and was earlier used only for public buildings. These machines have round, rotating plates / disks that are provided with pads. They are smaller ones for household use, usually with three or two small discs or single disc machines with large plates / discs. However , these heavy and bulky devices are not suitable for wooden stairs .
Trivia
The device is described as Blocher by Elias Canetti in his autobiography The Saved Tongue . Canetti met Blocher in Zurich .
In Hesse there was a joke-pop, which the waxing sang: "The staircase with Schmierseif polish / do not like all residents of the building ..." The device is hardly known today. In southern Germany there were also caution and information signs in stairwells: “Caution - freshly waxed!” A very common indication at the time that there was a risk of slipping on the freshly waxed and polished floor. Today the word is almost not known in its original meaning.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Caution - freshly waxed! ( Memento of the original from October 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. This was also the title of a short film series with 13 episodes in 1978. Actor: Among others Günter Strack
