I have long hair. If you or anyone in your family does, too, you already know what this has to do with vacuuming. Long hair and vacuums are not a good mix. The hair on the floor gets tangled in the beater bar as it spins and quickly accumulates to a big hairy mess. You need to periodically tip the vacuum over and wrench, yank, cut or otherwise force the strands off the bar. This isn't pretty. There is a lot of dust down there and depending on the design of your upright, it may be necessary to unscrew a plate or two and temporarily remove the beater bar in order to do a good job.  The trick is to make sure you perform this maintenance before your house smells like burnt rubber.  Too much hair impedes the spinning and wears on the rubber belt, which causes that awful smell so many of us know and loathe. 

It was that time again.  I gathered my tools: a pair of old scissors, a screwdriver, gloves (you’ll understand later), a small garbage bag, and one spellbound audience.  Watching Mom “fix” the vacuum is better than TV.  Once I had the bar cleaned to the satisfaction of my audience, I put it back together and prepared to vacuum.  Unfortunately, I must have put the belt on slightly askew.  Only a minute later came that familiar smell as the bar stopped turning.  The belt was now a straight line instead of the necessary circle.  Phooey.

I checked the part number on the back of the vacuum and quickly ordered a replacement.  So far this wasn’t really a problem, just an inconvenience.  I was just frustrated that I wouldn’t be able to vacuum for a few days.  Or at least not vacuum well.  I still used the hose to pick up some bits, which was a lot of fun.  Have you ever tried to use the hose on an entire room?  If you have long hair, maybe you have.

My vacuum “issue” was upgraded to “problem” when the new belt arrived and it was clearly not the same size as the one that had fallen off.  The part number printed on the belt matched the one on the back of the vacuum.  I was at a bit of a loss and sent an email to customer service, my first mistake.  A one-line reply came a few days later which I will paraphrase as: “The belt is supposed to be tight, you idiot.”

Annoyed, and not sure what else to do, I checked out the vacuum part section the next time I was at Target.  They had one other belt by this manufacturer and I decided to spend the few dollars to see if that one would work, even though it looked roughly the same size as the one I had received in the mail.  When I got it home, it turned out to be just a bit shorter.  Now what?

I knew the belt they had sent me wouldn’t work.  I decided to prove that it wouldn’t work.  I took apart the vacuum, again, and put that belt around the bar.  Then I stretched and pulled and strained it back into place.  It was tight, extremely tight, and I knew it would be too tight to spin.  But I figured the worst that could happen by turning on the machine would be more of that burnt rubber smell.  This was my second mistake.

Almost as soon as I flipped the switch, there was in fact a terrible smell, but there was also smoke.  Enough smoke that for about thirty seconds I was afraid I had actually caught the stupid thing on fire.  How do I handle that?  There were two babies watching from about ten feet away.  Should I scoop them up first, grab the vacuum and run it outside, or just point the fire extinguisher away from the little ones?  By the time I decided to haul the vacuum outside, the smoke began to subside and it looked like we were safe.  At this point, I briefly considered dragging it out to the driveway anyway and setting fire to it on purpose.  I’m pretty sure this would not have gone over well with our homeowners’ association.

I thought about finding some help.  Should I try a few more rounds with customer service?  Would it be worth it to look up vacuum repair in the yellow pages?  We’d already had this vacuum for a few years and it was a lower end model to begin with.  Also, I might have to explain the slightly melted plastic. 

I decided to buy a new vacuum.  First I attempted a bit of research, looking to see if anyone has addressed the problem of long hair and vacuums.  Maybe they made one specifically for this purpose.  No such luck.  I did find several intended to help with the issue of long pet hair, which is not the same thing at all.  I bet no one has ever sliced a finger open rending pet hair from a vacuum.  (Hair is thin and stings like a paper cut, but bleeds a lot more.  Now you understand about the gloves.)  Eventually, I found a few other ways people choose to deal with the hair on their carpets.  One person claimed to go over the floor with the hose first (which I already knew was tedious), then the vacuum.  One person said the best method is to go over the carpet with a broom first, twirling it in circles to make the hair stick, and then pull it out of the bristles.  Another actually gets down on her hands and knees with a lint roller before vacuuming. 

Since none of these methods sounded like less work than occasionally cutting the hair off the roller, I simply bought a similar vacuum, ready to start over.  But I went with a different brand this time.  Here’s hoping I don’t have to find out what their customer service is like.

Mandy appears weekends on TriangleMom2Mom.