Well, that was just nasty. We really didn’t expect to read so many horrifying tales of mess-making and cleaning gone awry. Judging all the stories entered into our “Talk Dirty To Me” Story Contest was very difficult, so we had to devise an elaborate scoring system in order to be fair. We judged based on sheer disgustingness, difficulty in cleaning, and uniqueness of situation. And we finally came up with one winner. The winning story had it all: feces, blood, garbage, rotting food, vermin and more. Congratulations Tabitha, for not only writing the winning story (and winning the $100 GoVacuum Gift Certificate) but for surviving that disaster. Tabitha’s story is below, for your reading horror. We appreciate everyone else’s stories, which were all really quite horrid. Thanks to everyone for sending them in!
The most disgusting cleaning ever was when I helped my current landlord clean up another house he owned. He had just evicted the family of four that was living there.
I thought it would be standard cleaning, but I realized when I stepped into the front door I was wrong. There were literally piles of rotting garbage, pizza, beer cans, dirty diapers, bloody tampons, the most disgusting things ever all mixed in with dirty clothes, newspapers and bills stuck to the wood floors. We spent the first 3 days shoveling out the rooms, just getting the “debris” out. Then it was time to start cleaning, the bathroom had become some sort of otherworldly outhouse from hell. There was human feces smeared all over the floors, the walls, and the bathtub. The kitchen was home to maggots and flies like I’ve never seen. The bedrooms all had their fair share of nastiness, more human feces, a dried puddle and a yellow stained wall that I’m sure was used as another “toilet” for someone.
Two weeks later, and a lot of bleach, power washing, and sanding, and we finally had most of the filth out. There were still walls that needed to be replaced, and the appliances were all replaced, but we did eventually clean it until it was worth living in.
That is without a doubt the grossest thing I’ve ever done.
Since I just realized that not all of our blog readers are newsletter subscribers, I thought I might as well post a snippet of our latest newsletter that got a lot of positive feedback. If you’d like to subscribe to our monthly newsletter, please click here or email ShaliniGoVacuum@gmail.com.
Since the deep-cleaning and gift-buying season has now arrived, we’ve seen a sudden increase in the same kinds of questions around here. On the phone, through our website, and in our stores, everyone wants to know: What IS the best vacuum, really?. The simple answer? In canisters, we recommend Mieles. For uprights, the SEBOs. If you’re tired of messing around with a mediocre or downright frustrating vacuum, check out the Mieles or SEBOs, and finally experience what a REALLY clean home feels like.
Best Canisters
Best Uprights
— End Newsletter Snippet —
Of course, every home is different, every situation is different, everyone has different needs, and no one vacuum will suit everyone’s needs. But, when money is less of a concern and you want the easy answer, there it is. If you have specific questions, feel free to leave them in the comments, email me, or call one of our knowledgeable sales staff at 1-866-468-2288 (9am - 7pm, Monday - Saturday, EST or 9am - 6pm on Sunday, EST).
If you haven’t already seen this clip, you really should. The kid is adorable and his vacuum knowledge is uncanny. What an admirable thirst for cleaning in someone so young! And, if you just MUST have the Bissell Flip-It that he was so excited about, feel free to check it out on our site.
Believe it or not, this kid reminds me of someone who frequents our Herndon store. How is there more than one of these vacuuming wunderkinds?
Recently, I was reminded of an incident in college (story below) that I’m not proud of. But, it inspired me to hold a contest for our readers. Share your grossest cleaning/dirtying story with me! Writer of the most revolting story wins a $100 GoVacuum Gift Certificate. Stories will be judged solely on the icky-ness factor (so don’t worry if your writing isn’t perfect) and will be chosen by all us folks here at GoVacuum. We might have a little poll on our site, if the competition is particularly fierce. You can leave your stories here in the comments for all to read, or email them to me directly at ShaliniGoVacuum@gmail.com. All entries must be received by December 1st, 2006. We’ll announce the winner shortly thereafter.
My story:
When I was in college, my housemates and I had a long drawn-out prank war with our neighbors, that involved (among many other things) a house lockdown via rope, re-wiring of routers, and some switching of salt and sugar containers. They stopped responding after we erected a wall of snow in front of their only exit, and we took that to be their admission of defeat. It should have been a warning sign that they seemed to be losing gracefully.
Less than a month later, we were having our own household problems. Simply put, our house stank. This wasn’t entirely unexpected; we weren’t the cleanest bunch. But this reeked. This was beyond anything we’d ever experienced and we couldn’t handle it anymore. We finally tackled the house with force one beer-fueled Saturday. The house was from the turn of the century, and probably hadn’t been cleaned like that in its entire life. But alas, the kitchen still had that unholy funk. We were baffled; there wasn’t anything left to clean.
Fast forward several smelly months later: it was time to deal with our landlord and the security deposit situation. Knowing that we were apprehensive, our oh-so-clever neighbors came forward with their confession. There was a slight gap between the tops of our kitchen cabinets and the ceiling. They had stuffed some three pounds of raw meat in there after we snowed them in months ago. That’s right: raw rotting meat, hanging over our heads, festering in our kitchen for months. Would it even be possible to describe the maggots, the blood, the weird rotting meaty juices, the ghastly stench? We didn’t think any amount of bleach, vinegar or baking soda would be able to destroy the bacterial wonderland they had created. We eventually had to replace the entire cabinet top.
In the latest issue of Wired Magazine, Scott Taves went on a search for the cleanest clean he could attain (he sounds as anal as me). He tested a slew of air cleaners and found his favorite to be the IQAir Healthpro Plus (also my favorite!). It’s not the prettiest or the fanciest, but damn if it doesn’t get the job done right. As he mentioned, it was used in hospitals in Hong Kong during the SARS outbreak, and effectively squashes any hypochondriac tendencies (at least while you’re sitting in the comfort of your own so-fresh-and-so-pure home). Yay. Now, if I could just squish my procrastination tendencies and get some damn work done.
Who knew cat vacuuming was so popular? Certainly not me. I thought Peter’s question would be a rare one, but some people have practically made a sport out of it! Check out the YouTube video below; you can also watch the video on YouTube’s site, and check out other cat vacuuming videos while you’re there. (Yes, there are more.)
I would like to get a small vacuum to use on the cat. I have used my big vacuum with a long hose and a soft brush on the end on the cat and that was acceptable to the cat so I would like to get a small QUIET hand held one that wouldn’t freak the cat out. I tried a Shark? one that was advertised as quiet but it was everything except quiet! Obviously I only need one with fairly low suction, don’t want the cat stuck to it.. /Peter
Dear Peter,
Well, believe it or not, you probably already found the best handheld vacuum for your needs. There are a few quieter ones, but they are also somehow much stronger, and would probably only serve to anger your cat. As an alternative, I recommend something that is sort of an in-between option: the Sanitaire SC3683A. It’s not a full-sized vacuum, and is meant more for quick and easy kitchen clean-ups, in the car, etc. That means it won’t be as loud as a full-sized beast, nor will it be as strong. It has a very light touch, especially when used with the brush attachment. Plus, since it has a longer hose than comes with most standard uprights, you can place the machine on the ground away from the cat and bring just the hose and brush attachment near. That’s gotta be way less intimidating than even a small and quiet handvac (the loud motor is that much further away) and less suction and noise than a full-sized vacuum. Especially useful is the variable suction control — if kitty starts complaining, you can just turn it down a notch and keep cleaning. After you’re done, it’s actually useful as a regular vacuum for cleaning around the house, around the litter box, in the garage, in your cat’s car, etc. I hope that helps! Let me know how it goes with Princess.
And for the other readers out there who don’t believe Peter is actually vacuuming his cat, Peter was kind enough to send us a link to a video of Princess being vacuumed. Enjoy!
We just got our shipment of Blueair AirPods in, and I’m way more excited than I should be about something as boring as an air purifier. They’re way cute and they’ve even managed to coax out a girly squeal or two. They make me want to decorate and clean at the same time. Anyway, they’re useful too (of course) — they make breathing in an otherwise stale and musty environment (I work in the warehouse, where all the vacuums are) more pleasant, and I bet they’ll make sleeping easier too. I’ll take it home and let you know. They’re kinda like smoothies — supposedly healthy and good for me, but fun! Also, I was happy to discover (as you may be) that it’s the filters themselves that are the decorated part — those waves and paisley-designs and stuff are what you replace every 4 months. So, if you get bored of the blue wave, you’re not married to it. Dump it and move on to another scheme. Maybe Blueair will come out with some new designs as well, to keep up with the times?
Howdy blog-readers! Did you miss me? I was on vacation and neglecting my blogging duties. I hope to make it up to you with a helpful answer to an interesting and quite common question. On to your favorite column: Ask GoVacuum! Bum-Ba-BUM!
Are there any vacuum cleaners that can deal with lots of long human hair? I have fairly long hair, and apparently the need to shed it all over the house. Every vacuum I’ve used quickly ends up with a brushroll clogged with hair, and taking apart the vacuum every two minutes and cutting all the hair off is really getting to me. So, do you have suggestions for a vacuum that wouldn’t have this issue? For use mostly on low-pile carpet. Cost isn’t a big issue (the Dyson Animal would be fine if I didn’t suspect it only works on short pet hair), but I want to do regular carpet vacuuming without needing to anything more than empty a dirt vessel.
- Long Haired Lady
Dear LHL,
Rather than a suggestion for a specific new vacuum, I’ve got a simple solution. It’s slightly more complicated than just a once-over with some miraculous (read: non-existent) vacuum, but way easier than stopping to pull out your hair every two minutes. I could just suggest any vacuum without a brush-roller, but any experienced vacuum-er knows that won’t leave you with a very clean home.
So, what should you do? If you have an upright (which I assume you do, since you’re talking about a brush-roller at all), get some attachments to plug into the straight suction of your unit. Pick one that you think will be easy to run over your carpet (probably something with a wide base, and no bristles like this Miele Rug/Bare Floor Nozzle — use the “Rug” setting to prevent future scratching of your hard floors), plug it into a hose, plug your hose into the back of your upright and go to town. Suck up all the hair you can find with that, and then follow up with a quick and painless “regular” vacuuming with your upright and brush-roller on.
If you have a canister, simply make sure you’re not using an attachment with a roller, like this Powerbrush from Miele. You can, of course follow up with a regular deep vacuuming with a roller-using attachment.
Either way, you get your wish. You only have to empty that one dirt container in your vacuum — and no more long hair everywhere.
Miele launched its new S5 Series of canister vacuums this week. They’re even more sophisticated than before, with a huge focus on increased usability. As always, they’re designed to minimize escaping dirt particles and ease daily life for allergy-sufferers and neat-freaks. And the German brand design style means they’re sleek, shiny and impressive to have around.
I’m impressed that Miele actually seemed to take the user experience to heart and spent considerable time and effort improving their products. Check out the new S5 series and see for yourself. Also, for your convenience, I whipped up a little chart that compares all the new models, so you can see which one has all the features you need (and none of the ones you don’t).
so I would like to get a small QUIET hand held one that wouldn’t freak the cat out. I tried a Shark? one that was advertised as quiet but it was everything except quiet! Obviously I only need one with fairly low suction, don’t want the cat stuck to it.. /Peter
