Patent ID: 7962066

Claim:
A cleaning unit comprising: a cleaning housing having an opening portion opposed to a cleaned member; and a cleaner which is disposed in the cleaning housing correspondingly to the opening portion and which cleans toner on the cleaned member, wherein the cleaner includes: a support member supported by the cleaning housing; a toner scraping member which is fixed to the support member and which comes at an leading end portion thereof into contact with the cleaned member against a moving direction of the cleaned member so as to scrape off the toner on the cleaned member; and a toner storing mechanism which stores temporarily the toner scraped off by the toner scraping member, the mechanism being provided upstream of the leading end portion of the toner scraping member in the moving direction of the cleaned member, wherein the toner storing mechanism includes: a toner catching member which is provided in a vicinity of the leading end portion of the toner scraping member so as to catch the toner scraped off by the toner scraping member; and an attachment member which is fixed to the cleaning housing or the support member, and a swingably supporting mechanism which is fixed to the attachment member supporting swingably the toner catching member with middle portion of the toner catching member as a swing fulcrum, and wherein a free end portion of the toner catching member protrudes from the toner scraping member with respect to the swing fulcrum as a boundary, and a portion opposite to the free end portion of the toner catching member with respect to the boundary is set between the attachment member and the toner scraping member.