Green’s Dictionary of Slang

shovel and broom n.

(Aus./US) a room.

1914		N.Z. Truth 31 Jan. 2/8: I went up the apples and pears [...] to the shovel and broom (to my room), put my lump of lead on the weeping willow [...] and ploughed the ocean deep.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May: Her Story in Hamilton (1952) 132: Shovel and broom – room.
1928		R.J. Tasker Grimhaven 180: ‘We took the chump for his Simple Simons,’ a man declares, ‘and made for the shovel and broom.’.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Shovel, living quarters; a room.
1938		D. Runyon ‘A Very Honorable Guy’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 418: My rent is away overdue for the shovel and broom.
1946		St. Vincent Troubridge ‘Some Notes on Rhyming Argot’ in AS XXI:1 Feb. 47: shovel and broom. A room. (Origin uncertain, American or English.) May be American. If British, it is much rarer than birch broom.
1948		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 25 Dec. 6/3: he Crow's idea .f high living was to pose in his shovel-and-broom with a Craven A [...] and a glass of sparkling Nell.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edns).
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.