vacuum sweeper

I would see him on bended knee, a yellow measuring tape draped around his neck, a square of chalk for marking cuffs clinched in his teeth, measuring the inseam of a plant worker from Timken Roller Bearing or Hoover Vacuum Sweeper — he, a Harvard man, who, but for the call to duty of World War II, had set his sights on medicine.

Later he returned with a smoke gun and vacuum sweeper to clean up.

Replace those items of household equipment which keep causing unnecessary pain, labor, and irritation: that leaky faucet, that worn-out washing machine, that broken light switch, that asthmatic vacuum sweeper, that torn rug, that decrepit snow shovel, that ready-to-be-junked lawn mower.