Huntington, W.Va. — Five-year-old Aidan Adkins says his three favorite things are robots, bubblegum and vacuums.
But vacuums, he says, are his most favorite.
He loves them with an intensity that other preschoolers might have for superheroes or dinosaurs.
Aidan’s enthusiasm for vacuum cleaners is apparent in his collection, which is lined up in his parent’s basement.
He has 11 in all, including some toy vacuums he received early on. But those are old, worn out and literally toys compared to his bigger and newer Bissell brand vacuums.
He catalogs his inventory, can talk at length like a salesman about the positives and negatives of each model, and he imagines a future in which he’ll design his own.
Much as a child would name a pet dog or cat, Aidan — who can be described as cherubic, with a set of big blue eyes, curled eyelashes and golden hair — has named his vacuums.
A small Shop Vac is named “Shoppy.” His Bissell Pro Heat 2X, which is designed to scrub carpets, is named “Scrubby.” A smaller, thinner kitchen vacuum — his first “real” vacuum, he recalls — is named “Kitchy.” His Bissell Healthy Home, which the vacuum manufacturer recently sent him as a birthday present after hearing of his fascination, is called “Sucky.” Aidan’s adoration for vacuums started when he was learning to walk, said his mother, Jennifer Adkins. He was about a year old, she said.
He watched his older brother, Andrew, play with them and was immediately struck by their design and noises.
Now, instead of asking for toys for his birthday or Christmas, he asks for money to buy a new vacuum.
“Every time, that’s what he wants,” his mother said.
After saving enough, Aidan checks the sales fliers with the help of his parents. Sometimes he looks on the Internet and visits stores like Lowe’s and Sears before making his choice.
Right now the little boy is saving for a black Dirt Devil he saw in the weekly sales fliers. He has $35 saved up but needs about $5 more. He also would like to buy an Oreck XL.
He still regrets his decision not to purchase a Hoover brand Fusion vacuum the last time he made an investment.
“I should’ve bought that one,” Aidan said. Instead, he purchased a purple Bissell brand Velocity.
His mother, a columnist for the Huntington Herald-Dispatch, briefly mentioned Aidan’s love of vacuums in one of her recent articles, prompting attention by various media outlets.
A television station did a small segment on Aidan, and he even went on a Huntington radio station to talk about his vacuums.
Jennifer Adkins said her son’s excitement and knowledge of vacuums might lead to a commercial. His cute and innocent appearance doesn’t hurt either, she said.
Dress him up in a suit and tie, and he could probably outsell a department store’s top salesman.
“This vacuum is quite different from every vacuum in the world,” Aidan said, mentioning the Healthy Home model — his favorite.
Like the others, he knows its features inside and out.
He says it has a HEPA filtration system that traps allergens. It also purifies the air while vacuuming, good for allergy sufferers.
It also has a Turbo Tool — a small attachment used to clean stairs and furniture.
He demonstrated, sucking up a pile of small pieces of paper he had cut just before some visitors showed up at his family’s house.
“Look, I made a mess for you,” Aidan said, eager to get on with the demonstration.
“Now let’s hear the power in this thing,” he said as he flipped the power switch on the $300 model.
He explains his love of vacuums this way: He loves watching the dirt swirl up inside the machines, which have bright lights and lots of parts, and he digs those on/off switches.
His attention to detail and the growing excitement in his voice as he talks about them reminds you of those door-to-door salesmen of times gone by.
He already has plans for his own vacuum factory.
“I would say, ‘Come on in to Aidan’s Vacuum Factory,”‘ he said. “One step in the door, and look at all the vacuums.” His dream is to be a vacuum inventor.
His mother said she’s not surprised. She predicts he’ll be an engineer of some type.
He even has started work on his own vacuum prototype, which he calls a “jet vac.” Using a cheese grater, an Oswald the Octopus backpack and some rope, he explains its design. The main body of the vacuum can be strapped on like a backpack. The cheese grater is a stand-in right now for the sucking mechanism, and the rope represents the hose.
“It would suck up big things and little things,” Aidan said. “Things as big as a blue whale.”
In his factory, his vacuums would be the very best, top-of-the line, what he says might be comparable to today’s Dyson brand cleaners, and everybody who visited would get a vacuum for free.
Aidan has a lot of vacuums on his to-buy list. Right now he likes the robot-like Roombas, but his mom says those are out of their price range.
Most of his vacuums were bought on sale or given to him by friends or family members. His grandfather recently gave him a 5-gallon Shop Vac to add to his collection.
Aidan had fun using it while his parents remodeled their kitchen, Adkins said. “He was using it a lot.”
Aidan said he vacuums at least once a day, sometimes more.
He even likes to vacuum the car. That was his big plan one recent Friday afternoon, since he didn’t have school. He attends preschool in Huntington.
But after hearing the word “Sears,” Aidan quickly changed his mind, begging Adkins to take him to the department store.
“Mommy, Mommy, please can we go?” he said. “Can we go and look at the vacuums?” Adkins said they don’t go to the department store too often. It takes too long, she said.
“He has to try out every single one,” she said.
So what do his siblings say about his growing obsession with vacuums? His sister, Emily, 7, and brother, Andrew, 9, tend to ignore it.
“They don’t pay much attention to it,” Adkins said. “To them, it’s normal. They’re used to it.”
