Mopping It up in Spain

I bought my very first mop when I moved to Madrid.  Living in a tiny apartment near Plaza Mayor, my walls decorated with verb conjugations, a vacuum cleaner just seemed like overkill.  Not to mention, there were no closets to speak of, so I would have had to store the monster of a machine in the shower. But I didn’t really miss vacuuming because mopping is big here in Spain.  Really big.

In fact, the mop as we know it today was invented by a Spaniard and aeronautical engineer named Manuel Jalón Corominas. La fregona, was designed to get moppers (at that time, women) off their hands and knees thanks to a bucket with a plastic “wringing” attachment.

So, needless to say, everyone has a mop in Spain and they know how to use it... and they don’t confine their mops to the indoors.

Walk around Madrid in the morning, particularly at about 8:30am on a weekday, and it is important to watch where you put your feet.  Not because of uneven pavement or irresponsible dog walkers, but because of all the soapy water on the sidewalks.

And with good reason.  The area directly outside a building is a reflection on the building itself, and should thus be presentable.  So each morning, people head out the front door with mop and corresponding bucket in hand to scrub away at the area where the building meets the sidewalk.  And not just the few feet around the door, mind you, but the entire length of the establishment – whether it is a few feet in front of a panadería or an apartment building that takes up a half block.

Madrid surely has the cleanest sidewalks in all the land.  Times might be changing though.  Just the other day, I saw a woman inching out the front door with her vacuum cleaner.