Difference between ◯◯を掃除 and ◯◯に掃除

Question

What's the difference between ◯◯を掃除 and ◯◯に掃除？

Trying to understand the following, which using "に"

引き続き執筆。合間のリフレッシュに掃除

@Dave Sorry. I edited the title. I tried to make it better. It was even worse. Please see the edit history if that makes any difference to your consideration.
It would be amazing what you would learn if you just opened ANY beginner Japanese textbook instead of "language hacking" using Twitter.
My question was fine the way it was. I'm going to fix it and then select a best answer before someone else can mess it up again. Thanks sawa (rolls eyes)
@language hacker: Rushing to accept an answer so as to protect a question is indicative of a complete misuse of the site and a misunderstanding of its purpose. Any question that requires such behaviour is clearly flawed, as any normal question should be able to sit indefinitely until the right answer comes along.

sawa · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-28 14:33:25Z

up vote 3 down vote accepted

I suppose you meant 掃除する.

In 部屋を掃除する, 部屋 is the object to be cleaned.

There can be sources of a ...に phrase that are not directly relevant to this predicate:

Time: 3時に掃除する
The subject of a causative: その人に掃除させる
An adverbial phrase expressing the purpose (can be translated as 'as'): 気晴らしに掃除する

edited Jul 28 '11 at 14:33

answered Jul 28 '11 at 14:21

sawa
29.5k12658

I saw this: 引き続き執筆。合間のリフレッシュに掃除♪( ´▽｀) – language hacker Jul 28 '11 at 14:23

@langauge_hacker The context you gave was insufficient. I changed the answer. Your example with リフレッシュ is the last one. – sawa Jul 28 '11 at 14:28

So Aに掃除する is the same thing as Aのために掃除する？ – language hacker Jul 28 '11 at 14:30

1

@langauge_hacker In this particular context, they are almost the same. – sawa Jul 28 '11 at 14:31

1 Answer