CarPet Capers!

When we moved into our house 6 months ago I was able to ignore the fact that it was covered in horrible carpets because I was so darn grateful to be out of that rented house.

(The short story is that when we moved last October we had to rent a house until our house purchase went through. While we were there the dog kept getting sick, Big son and Daughter were both sick at night and I had horrendous headaches. I hated the place. When we left we found out that there was a gas leak in the road outside the house and that the gas was escaping up through our drains and into our bathrooms. We were all slowly being gassed to death.)

So obviously given that we'd moved into this lovely place with all this room and NO GAS, I was ecstatic. The old mud-coloured carpet in the hall, stairs and landing wasn't even visible to me. The fact that each bedroom had its own unique coloured flooring that didn't necessarily compliment the wall colour or the curtains didn't even register. But weirdly after 6 months it's all I can see.

The dog is shedding again. This is an irritating thing anyway, as she has black hair, and it's hard to ignore. It falls out in massive clumps too. In our old house, the entire ground floor had either tile or laminate flooring. I'm very practical you see. With three children and a dog you don't want carpets on your entry level. Floors should be wipe clean and easy to brush. The dog still moulted. The hair still got everywhere but it was really easy to clear up. Upstairs we had a neutral-coloured woollen carpet that ran up the stairs to the landing and into all three bedrooms. The bathroom was tiled, or at least it was something that looked like tile. Putting a carpet in a room where people with penises have to take aim in order to pee, is about the stupidest idea anyone ever had. In this part of the world the carpeted bathroom is all too common. But not in my house. I am a practical woman, who lives with three penises males, (the youngest of whom has the worst aim in the world) so we had tile (effect?).

Mostly the dog wasn't allowed upstairs. Of course she still snuck up and of course her course black hair gave her away every time. Let's face it vacuuming pet hair is no picnic. That's why they sell those special brush attachments that beat the hell out of your carpet. I haven't got one of those. I just keep having to pull the hair off the vacuum brush and shove it up the hose. It's time-consuming but works well. When you have a good carpet that is.

When your carpets are twenty-years-old and well trodden, they get ornery. They grab hold of that dog hair and they don't let go of it no matter how good the suction on your Hoover is. You lunge that vacuum backwards and forwards, you change the attachments, you burrow and batter it with the crevice tool and the darn thing just balls up the hair and holds on to it for dear life. It's like battling with a Velcro covered octopus.

We have found a solution. If you run your shoe over the offending carpet the hair goes into balls but comes loose. Then you come along with Mr Hoover and suck those hair-bunnies up. It's quite labour intensive though. The thing is that I only ever do one or two rooms at a time. I alternate. It makes life easier.

Today I had a visit from a dear friend and her daughter from my old home town. It was their first visit to my new house and I wanted it to look nice. I was like a woman possessed with the housework. Quite unrecognisable really. I left the vacuuming till last. With my hand, I went over every square inch of carpet in two reception rooms, the hall, the stairs, the landing and the bedrooms…with a trainer (that's a sneaker to you American folks)…followed by the Hoover. It took over three hours and I felt like I'd run a marathon by the end of it. It was the best workout I'd had in years.

Then some time around mid-afternoon it started. It was just a dull ache at first but then it soon developed into actual pain - in my lower and upper arms and my shoulders. My body's behaving like I've been benching 100. From vacuuming!!!!

Ow!

I have always said that housework was dangerous. Now I have the proof.

Ow!

Oooh! I just remembered - my Breaking Dawn turns up tomorrow. I think the Pooch and I will have to retire to my bed and do some reading. She has her own special throw to lie on which keeps her hair off my duvet. And if she's on that she's not shedding on the horrid carpets. Which is good coz I'm not vacuuming again till I get another visitor. Or possibly when T gets back from Beijing.

Or maybe I'll just roll them up and chuck them out.