Life Fright

This is a PSA to check the suction power of your vacuum. If you have been feeling like you have a constantly runny nose, are having trouble breathing, or are just sneezing a lot, you should consider the state of your carpets.

When I was a kid, my childhood home was equipped with a HVAC (home vacuum unit). This was what was used to vacuum spaces and on the surface it seemed to work fine, it was picking visible surface-level debris up. Over time though, we’re talking the span of more than a decade, I started to get instant cold-like symptoms after vacuuming. I attributed it to all the dust (correct!) and after informing my parent, they dismissed it (bad!) since the house was vacuumed at least on a yearly basis.

More than a decade later, the HVAC breaks down and my parent buys a corded, portable vacuum. You would not believe the amount of dust that thing collected! The dust canister was filled to the brim after vacuuming only one room. Now multiply that by the many wall-to-wall carpeted rooms in the house and you can imagine the situation I was dealing with. And the vacuum continued to collect a horrifying amount of dust the subsequent times the house was vacuumed so all that time when the HVAC was used, so much was left behind accumulating over time. I felt vindicated after so many years of suffering at home with constant colds and just an overall inability to breathe through my nose. My immune system did its best to resolve the issue and it eventually adjusted to the point where I didn’t suffer constant colds after 2 years of dealing with this horrifying issue.

Make sure you are not dealing with the same problem! Nowadays it is more popular to have wood floors instead of carpet so that is a plus. However, don’t forget other dust collectors like rugs, pillows, and blankets!