Domestic annoyances

Little improvement since!

We live in an age of technology, or so we are led to believe, where exploration into the outer reaches of the universe is almost customary, we communicate at the speed of light via many and various gadgets, what used to be major surgery is now relegated to a day procedure and 'in home' entertainment now exceeds anything our forefathers could ever have imagined.

Why then I wonder, do the basic and long accepted as necessary,domestic appliances residing with apparent innocence in my kitchen suffer from something bordering on bi-polar disorder? Each one seemingly has it's own peculiarities and foibles, I have a washing machine (barely a year old) that has to have it's door prodded in a very specific manner to encourage it to spring into action (something the manufacturer considers 'normal' incidentally......what I wonder is the definition of 'normal' in this case?). I have a fridge freezer that hums something less soothing than 'Pie Jesu' at night unless I change the temperature setting and the piece de resistance, that has prompted this outpouring of annoyance, a vacuum cleaner that despite much investigation won't perform a task as inherently important as create a vacuum and suck!

This wonder of domestic engineering is a Dyson look-alike, a handsome and very efficient looking bit of kit and to give it it's due it was,for maybe 3 months impressively efficient, at which point, despite constant emptying, cleaning of filters and battles with the belt drive it's suck degenerated to something closer to a blow. No lurid jokes here please this is serious stuff!

So yesterday I had reached the end of my well tested patience with this apparently Heath Robinson contraption and as is my way (I'm too impatient to take it back and go through the inevitable returns battle with DRG) took it out into my field and began dismantling it in an endeavor to discover why it just won't damn well do the job. And discover I did. Please bear in mind here I am not an engineer and I don't have to hand the correct terminology.

In the top of the main housing I found a filter, this has a helpful little device attached called rather uninspiringly a 'filter wipe', a trigger like affair that when rotated should clean said filter.........it patently doesn't! This filter, a contraption with fins similar to a fan, was completely blocked with now solidified dust and debris. Having, on further investigation, discovered that the offending part refused to be removed I mustered the appropriate female tools,a nail file and crochet hook (I 'do' tools, but nothing traditional seemed suitable) and set about cleaning activities. This thing has, it would seem, a massive capacity for storage, two hours later, hot, somewhat miffed and looking like I had been dusted unsubtly with grey icing sugar the task was complete, the object of my annoyance reassembled and the moment of truth upon me.

Plugged in and ready to go the excitement was almost palpable if a little underwhelming........

My battle was won...........my handsome but formerly useless domestic delight could suck a golf ball though a hose pipe!!!!

All this begs the question........who on earth conjured up an appliance with such an inherently basic design fault?? I could go there but I won't....for now!