Site referrals again.

Somebody came by here looking for "toddler+scared+hoover+help". Well, in spite of having no parenting skills whatsoever, I do happen to know somebody who had this problem with their little boy and overcame it, by telling him this story. It honestly worked, and I hope it works for you.

Once upon a time there was a little boy called Luke. He liked helping his Mummy around the house. He helped her dust. He sang to her while she washed the dishes. But the one thing he didn't like was the nasty noisy hoover monster which lived in the cupboard. When it came out, Luke would hide his face in his hands and shudder at the big, loud noise, and would start to cry.

One day, Luke's Mummy cuddled him and told him a special story about the hoover monster. The hoover monster wasn't a monster, he was really a nice little hoover and his name was Marmaduke. He liked playing with his toy cars, and when Teletubbies came on TV, Marmaduke liked to sing along. He would like to be Luke's friend, but he knew that Luke didn't like him because he made such a loud noise. The nasty loud noise was actually Marmaduke laughing, but a hoover laugh is a lot louder than a human laugh. He didn't mean to frighten Luke.

The reason that the hoover monster made such a lovely laughing noise was because he was happy to be out of the dark cupboard. Because there was an even bigger monster in there which could roar and growl even louder than Marmaduke, with big yellow teeth and lots of smelly black hair, and this monster liked to bite people's faces off.

And if Luke ever made such a fuss again when Mummy hoovered, and delayed her getting to her nice afternoon gin and tonic, Luke's Mummy would let the big monster out, and Luke would find it very difficult to cry with his face all bitten off.

Luke never cried at the hoover again...

Hope this helps.

Oh, come on, I'm only joking!