Steam mop - friend or foe?

I absolutely hate cleaning with a passion. If there is anything else that needs doing I will be involved in that instead. 

My floors seem to perturb me the most as they are magnets for dirt and always need maintaining so having seen a YouTube demonstration on steam mops I thought great, this will make the work much less tedious and slow.

I was not going to pay a fortune to purchase one so I shopped around and saw that the supermarkets had the best rates and would arrange delivery for me also.

I couldn't wait for it to arrive and transform me into a cleaning wizard. The day arrived finally and panic set in as I saw the different parts that need assembling. 

The mop head. Two parts of the handle and lastly the velcro cleaning pads. 

I skimmed through the instruction manual with their vague instructions and even more general illustrations and then set to work putting it together.

Firstly I managed to jam the mop head on to the body of the steamer in about five minutes of twisting, pulling and gritting my teeth. 

Next I attached the velcro pad and that was straightforward enough. There was even actually a spare pad included. 

The final challenge was attaching the handle which first needed to be connected together, only it was unclear which frigging way it was to be affixed.

Trying out all the combinations possible and nothing working was starting to vex me. My own steam mop was mocking me. Sitting there all smug and superior will all the answers as to how it was supposed to be arranged. 

Finally I gave up and used it without the handle which was a real pain. It did a thorough job but it was really awkward bending down to use it.

I had a brainwave and decided I would use good old fashioned sellotape to seal everything together but within seconds, the handle came off in my hand, so then I decided to look for the stronger masking tape that had a better grip.

Only suddenly it was nowhere to be seen and things I had thought of as forever lost were turning up as though they were part of a scavenger hunt.

I was determined to use my steam mop as intended so I kept looking until I found it and then used it on the two handle pieces to further cement them together and then as I was holding the handle over the slot that it refused to click on to..  

The damn thing magically just slid in and clicked into place. Typical grrr!!

At least now it's mostly all correctly attached together and I can use it with the handle to make my life easier.

Moving on to the actual usage. I prefer to fill the water tank completely and that way I get 10-15 minutes of use. It leaks everywhere though and that is frustrating.

It doesn't take long to get steamy but I leave it an extra few minutes to get really piping hot. All the better to tackle the floors. The cord seems really long but when I am mopping the bathroom it barely reaches.

Are cordless mops even available? If I were shopping again. I would invest more and get something more powerful and less leaky.

I know that you are supposed to sweep first and use the mop more as a polish but when you are sick, you need a one stop solution. I just use the mop as a general cleaner because it takes it out of me.