Vacuum: A Success Story

I've never understood why the word vacuum is spelled with two U's. It seems like it's more in need of two C's. It's the same with the words desert and dessert. Desert should mean goodies and treats because of the way the first E is pronounced.

Anyway, more about vacuums. On Wednesday last week I decided to vacuum. I knew that my heater vents were notorious for spewing dirt when the heat is on and I also knew I had Bounce dryer sheets I could use to thwart the dirt upchuck. So I set out to filter my bedroom vent and vacuum any dirt that managed to be blown out. I attended to this vent first because I had left it unfiltered last winter. I had supposed it wouldn't need it since it was only under the bed.
(Looking back I see that my though process didn't really make sense).

When I pushed the bed out of the way I found a sandbox. Ok, so it wasn't a foot deep like a real sand box, but it was probably 1/4 inch thick in a 4 foot by 2 foot rectangle just under the head of my bed. Ugh! No wonder I had a cold for several months last year always while the heat was on.
So I made that vacuum work hard. The problem was, it kept overheating on me. Every time I would use it in the past 6 months, it would overheat. I would have to do speed vacuuming. I think I must have looked like June Cleaver in fast forward.

Well, this time when I used my vacuum on my sand box was no different. There was so much dust, I think the vacuum was more successful in blowing it into the air than sucking it up. I had to give up the fight for a time because I had a book club meeting. But I quickly resumed my battle once home again.

This time I was determined to get to the root of why the vacuum kept overheating. I went to the source of all guidance: the Bissell Vacuum Manual. It didn't take long to find the bright yellow folded insert in the manual booklet. On the back of the electric insert I discovered that there are actually 3 filters on my vacuum! Ding! Once I figured out how to access them I cleaned them all thoroughly. These filters are the sponge kind that you can rinse and reuse. They, like my bedroom floor were completely saturated with dust! There was a whole layer to scrape off before I could even rinse them.

Now, I am proud to say my vacuum sucks! It is now powerfully luring yucky dirt things into it's non-bagged interior.