The things you learn . . .

So, since we acquired Cuda (pics of her are here) I've been doing a little more vacuuming than normal. Make that a LOT more vacuuming. I think our carpets are actually cleaner now with a dog living on them than they were before. Sad, I know, but I'm trying to be honest here.

The other day I noticed the vacuum just didn't seem to be working quite as well as it should be, so I of course called up Seth who said it was probably the filter. Sounds reasonable, right? Today, I took out the filter. Wish I'd taken pictures of it because it was awesomely filthy. So, while I'm standing in the kitchen with a trash can and this big plastic filter thingy that I'm not entirely sure how to clean, I notice the little sticker on the vacuum, the one that has the directions for how to take the filter out, did not stop at the point where I did. Inside the plastic filter thing is something that looks an awful lot like the filter I used for my fish tank. Kinda like this.

After a few more minutes of poking, prodding, and twisting, I managed to open up the plastic filter. Inside I found something cylindrical, but otherwise bore no resemblance to the filter in the link. Dark grey, fuzzy, and apparently solid, I 'tapped' it forcefully against the side of the trash can as the sticker instructed, which resulted in a dust cloud rising from the trash, and not much else. Being the resourceful person I am, I thought 'hey, how about a lint roller?' and tried using that to peel some of the fuzz off the filter. It worked better than you would think, but only for about two minutes, at which point all the surface fuzz was gone, and then it was next to useless. On the bright side, I could now make out where all the little ridges were, even if they were still flush with all the dirt and fuzzy lint packed into them. I then proceeded to find a pair of tweezers, and run them down every little v in the filter to clear out the fuzzy dirt. Time consuming, but rather effective.

Happily, I can now say that our vacuum filter is now a somewhat whitish color and the vacuum is doing well. :) The sad part here is that we've had our vacuum for about a year and a half and I didn't even know that filter was in there until today . . . who would have though you'd need to clean it out? lol