Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The Universe Is Mocking Me Via Dirty Carpeting

For evidence I submit this photo of a freshly vacuumed carpet
 (you can see the vacuum in the lower left-hand corner of the photo)
and you can clearly see carpet looks pretty icky.
Jack and I live in a trailer.  Apparently trailers, or at least the one we live in, are not built to last through the ages (to put it mildly).

The counter-tops are a thin laminate glued over pressed particle board stuff, and the laminate layer is slowly peeling off in spots.

Nothing is made out of REAL wood - all the cabinets and fixtures are made from more cheap pressed particle board stuff but this time with a fake wood finish, so anywhere there is often steam (like, I dunno, in a BATHROOM or a KITCHEN) they puff up and warp.

And we also have gnarly trailer carpeting - even in both bathrooms because carpeting in a bathroom where it will inevitably get wet is such a GREAT idea.

Even though I regularly vacuum, it's impossible to really keep the gnarly trailer carpet clean.  First of all, Jack got this trailer secondhand so who knows what the carpeting went through before we ever lived here (I prefer to not think about it).  Second of all, we have two dogs who shed all over the place and track mud and clay inside, etc.  Vacuuming gets the surface crud up, but doesn't touch all the other ground-in mess.

This has really been on our minds as we prepare to bring a baby home.

Now, in the NEW house we will have NO CARPET ANYWHERE EVER and it's going to be AMAZING.  But until that happy day we have to live with our gnarly trailer carpet.

So that's why we rented a carpet cleaner right before we leave for our last pre-baby trip to the beach.  I figured this would give me a whole day to really clean all the carpets and they could thoroughly dry over a few days while we're gone.

The plan seemed perfect!

So this morning I jump out of bed, ready to start pushing furniture around and really cleaning the bejeezus out of the carpet... when the power goes out.

Huh.

I wait a few minutes, expecting the power to pop back on any moment.

After a little bit I notice that the crew of guys working on the house have broken out a generator to continue their work.  Hmm...

After some investigation it turns out that a construction project further down the street has shut down the power to the WHOLE STREET.  My neighbors were told that only a few houses were going to be affected, and were just as surprised as the rest of us when the power went down for everybody.  Oops!  Construction does seem to love to spring these little surprises on us.

Further, this construction project was going to have the power down for the WHOLE DAY.

So no carpet cleaning for me.

Ok, I know this could have been worse.  Not being able to clean my carpet after having paid the deposit to rent the cleaning machine is definitely a First World Problem.

It's still pretty irritating.  And now every time I look at our gnarly trailer carpet all I can see is how dirty it is.  It's like Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" except instead of the heart getting loader and louder my carpets seem to look dirtier and dirtier with every glance.

THE AGONY!

Oh well.  This will just make it that much sweeter when we can finally move into the new house.


3 comments:

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  2. On the plus side, the baby's immune system is going to get an awesome workout and shouldn't develop any autoimmune problems. :D Silver lining?

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  3. I hear you. The least you can hope for in that bind is for the carpet cleaning machine to work as well, or even better, than advertised. Also, maybe it's time for you to buy a new carpet, so you wouldn't be too tied down as much by time and situational constraints with cleaning the old one. Good luck!

    Larry Brannon @ Leonard Brush and Chemical

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