Some Domestic Advice

Make sure you regularly inspect your canister vacs. Especially if they are very expensive.This here is my excellent Miele vacuum cleaner. I got my vacuum before I got my dog. My vacuum used to suck in a good way. The way vacuums are supposed to suck. Since I got my dog, my vacuum has been sucking in a bad way. I would go over the floor thoroughly, then walk a little down the basement stairs where my eyes would be on floor level. I would still see a fine carpet of white hair. I would go over the whole house and still find pet hair in the corners a couple of hours after vacuuming. I thought my dog was just a never ending shed machine. And she is really. But she would have to be going into corners and intentionally dropping hair for it to accumulate that fast. I could see my cat doing that, but not my dog.

Anyway, today I was in the laundry room with my trusty Miele turned all the way up to 1200, and it was kicking kitty litter at me, and pushing hair into the rug. If you know how expensive these canister vacs are, you would know how hopeless this made me feel. So I took her apart. I cleaned the brushes of strings and such, and made sure nothing was stuck in the handle end. Then I looked down the long metal tube.

There was no light coming through.

So I stuck my finger in, and it felt all soft, and kind of fuzzy. So I turned it around and looked in the other end. I went to the closet and got out a long dowel rod and pushed it through the tube slowly. Oh! A little clump of hair! So I blew in it. With some force, about three meters of compact dog hair in the shape of a long cylinder came out the other end.

Now my vacuum sucks in a good way again.