For some time now I have noted that my vacuum cleaner, a wedding gift from Dorothy in 2004, wasn’t picking up things like yarn bits and threads like it should. I don’t know how long this has been going on, but a while.

Yesterday when I spilled a huge amount of dirt and dust from an area rug on the bare kitchen floor, I decided it would be easier to vacuum it up than to sweep it. When I ran the vacuum over it, though, it didn’t really do the job, so I upended the thing to find the beater bar wasn’t spinning.

I disassembled it to find that the belt was broken, and as it happened, I had an extra belt hanging on the handle.

While I had it open, I noted that it was super-filthy inside, so I got a smaller vacuum and vacuumed out the vacuum.

When I put it back together today with the belt in place, it was like a brand new machine. I vacuumed the living room until the canister got full, about a quarter of the way across the room.

I find this episode personally embarrassing, since I should have realized long ago – although I don’t know how long ago – that the belt was broken.

In the end, though, I’m glad I got it fixed, because I am getting rid of a huge amount of household filth.