Carpet beater
A carpet knocker or knocker (also known as Pracker in Austria ) is a household appliance for cleaning carpets , made of wicker or rattan wickerwork that is worked in a loop shape and resembles a tennis racket or, in its smaller version, a clover leaf. More modern carpet beaters are also made from hard plastic .
To clean a carpet with a carpet beater, the carpet is carried out of the house and over a carpet rodhanged. First, the carpet should be knocked out vigorously from the back to loosen the deep-lying dirt. It is best to have a second person hold the carpet a little away from the carpet rod to allow the dust to escape better. When too much dust can no longer be knocked out, turn the carpet to pat and brush the front. In the case of carpets that have been lying down for years and have only been vacuumed and not beaten, this procedure should be carried out several times, as you cannot knock out all of the dust the first time. The carpet is not only cleaned by tapping, but also aired and the colors become more intense again.
Alternatively, you can lay the carpet upside down in the snow in winter and then work it with the carpet beater. The emerging dust is immediately bound by the snow. With this cleaning, house dust , mites and other dirt are mechanically loosened and removed.
The upper Frankish Neuensee was a particular focus in the production of carpet beaters. The production was called "pulling" and not "braiding".
In the second half of the 20th century, the carpet beater became increasingly out of fashion because carpets can be cleaned more easily with a vacuum cleaner . Carpet knockers are therefore only available in specialist shops, as well as in many antique shops and flea markets, and carpet rods are no longer installed in newer residential areas .
Until the late 1970s, the carpet beater, however, was mainly in Germany but also in Italy and Austria next to the cane a widely used tool for physical punishment of children and adolescents in the family . Less painful than a cane, it was considered very effective, especially on the bare buttocks ; if it was used on the trouser seat, it was colloquially - analogous to its use as a household appliance - often referred to as knocking out or dusting .
This is shown humorously in the old stories from Duckburg , in which Donald Duck punishes his nephews with the carpet beater.
Due to its typical knocking noise, the Bell UH-1 , a helicopter, is also jokingly called carpet beater among soldiers .
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literature
- Ingrid Müller-Münch: The battered generation: wooden spoons, canes and the consequences. 3rd edition, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-608-94680-2 .
- Volker Wieprecht, Robert Skuppin: The lexicon of things that have disappeared . Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek near Hamburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-499-62517-6 . Page 180
