...occurred a couple of days ago. When I decided I should run the vacuum before P. came back to town. Sadly, the person who finds housework so distasteful the floor has not been cleaned since there was a dog here several weeks ago, let the dog hair/guilt pile up to the point that a bit of cleaning was necessary. The vacuum had been sitting there in that room where the dog resided for weeks, patiently awaiting inspiration and motivation to collide or collude. So I plugged it in and did a quick job of the room where the dog was spontaneously shooting out hundreds of hairs from her double coat of fur.
But it just did not seem to me like it was looking much better. So I peered down in the flexible tube on the back of the machine that goes from the bottom, where the brushes pick up trash, to deposit in the container that you have to empty when it gets full of stuff you did not even know was there making your house, car, life nasty. And could not believe how clogged up the tube was: obviously not able to send what it had picked up on down the line to the reservoir to be emptied into garbage can. Looking like a giant hairball, full of dust, skin particles, lots and lots of unique frizzly dog hairs, cat hair (from the cat that has been deceased since last year), cosmic fallout. Plus the stuff that has been accumulating on the window screens for some time (about five years?) since I last cleaned the screens and washed windows.
Screens on the inside of the windows. That I vacuum when I have a notion to clean the glass. I've taken them outside and hosed down a time or two over the years, but not feeling nearly that energetic, or desiring that level of sanitation - thinking the vacuum brush is more than sufficient. But due to the fact that I don't think I have cleaned glass since we had the inside walls painted over five years ago, it was looking pretty rough. Partially due to the mow-and-blow guys and all the dust they stir up when they cut the grass at forty mph, then blow like maniacs to get finished and move on to the next job.
Some of that monster clog in the vacuum hose was all the stuff that had accumulated on the screens, some from my periodic cleaning of the carpet in my car. I can ignore the outside fairly well, when it looks like it has changed color from all dirt and road grime. But drag the vacuum out to the carport and clean the carpet and seats often, as I occasionally feel like I live there instead of in a house. So there was also dirt, leaves, straw from a bale of hay, paper, misc. living in the vacuum hose, clogging up the works.... which explains why, when I didn't think I was having much success with the vacuuming of the carpet, I was right.
I took a coat hanger apart, and fished all the clumpy/gunky/hair-ball-looking stuff out, but did not think it wise to try to vacuum all that nasty up. So took all the icky stuff to put in trash, and cleaned the filter, hoping that would resolve the problem. It seems to be working much better, but I am still sort of freaked out by all the stuff that had accumulated/congregated/clogged-up in there. And believe it would have eventually mutated into a new life form if left long enough.
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