What was the strangest thing you found stuck in a modern vacuum

[mieles5380leo]

I found a hair curler in a Miele S7 Twist once. I’ve also found a clothes pin in a Riccar Vibrance right behind the little door you open to add an extension hose. I’ve found many things in many other vacuums like an entire bag of screws in a Kirby G6. A bunch of screws and confetti were on there including the bag that the screws came in! It’s crazy what I’ve found in machines that have come in for service.

 

[huskyvacs]

I ordered a Kirby Sentria off shopgoodwill.com. Opened it up in my hallway, everything good, all fine. The next day walking through the hallway had a slightly rusted brown sewing pin that got slightly stabbed into the bottom of my foot! It likely fell out of the nozzle and hid in the carpet. Ran under cold water and drenched in hydro peroxide and all was well.

Oh and the other time I ordered a Oreck Halo from a Brooklyn apartment slum and it had cockroaches crawling in it! Luckily I caught them in time before they could get into my house, they were just chilling inside the wheels and light area and I'm sure the rest of it. It's been sealed in a bag in my garage for a year and I do not intend to bring it back inside until it's fully dismantled and cleaned and fumigated, that is for sure.

And I am still not sure yet but I possibly might have a Kirby 500 series vacuum with asbestos drywall/concrete dust in it, not certain on that yet, want to have it tested just to be sure.

So far that was the "craziest" thing found in a vacuum, in terms of a story anyway.

I am sure once I get working on my own vacuums I will find a lot more, I am betting.

I dream of someday finding a diamond ring or some jewelry in one of these so I can get rich, lol

 

[ben770]

The best story lol

So ... as I am said before my Grandfather owned a department store but was obsessed with cleaning and never threw anything away.. So in like..1950 he bought my grandmother a nice huge fancy diamond ring with some red stones. and it went missing a month later. I heard this story when I as a kid, I heard when I was growing up, I heard it when got married, I still hear my mother talking about it years after my grandparents had passed away. I inherited their old house when they passed away, and ... maybe 4 years ago was going through the junk in the basement. Some had been sitting there since 1950. In the corner were two vacuums, an Electrolux and a kirby. My mother said, "I remember the day we bought them. The Electrolux broke and by chance a Kirby guy came to the door and he bought it. So fast forward.. I opened the Electrolux and the bag has disintegrated and wrapped up in some ...the only way I can describe it is....black ancient tar like dirt, was something hard. Bingo... The ring. I can still hear my grandfather, with his Eastern Accent saying, "my god, my god, remember that ring I bought you? and you lost it? And I can hear my grandmother saying with her European accent, "shut up, my god, it's 50 years ago I think you gave it to your other girlfriends.. stupid old man..go have another drink."

 

[ben770]

The best story lol

I don't even know if the Electrolux had a bag. It was .. a chamber like thing.

 

[huskyvacs]

oh wow, what a find! I guess i'd have it tested and appraised - they might be looking out for you, that's for sure.

 

[mike811]

I was wondering why my Dyson DC40 mkII kept clogging.
After some troubleshooting I found phone sim card adapter inside the tube in the ball.
That tube is very narrow so no wonder it got stuck.

 

[thevacuumbarn]

Ive found lots of interesting things in vacuum cleaners, including rubber bands, pennies, torn up dollar bills, Crayons, Legos, and even a Barbie-doll shoe lodged behind a cranny in the cleaner head of some sort of Hoover wind tunnel bagless with dual clean, I forget the model number. I have a couple of stories:
I was cleaning out my parents vehicle with my Kirby G3, and I stuck the crevice tool down a crack between the seat and the console, and a second later I heard a very loud thwack! At first I thought my Kirby fan was going to break but it didn’t. Afterwards I checked the emptor, and there was a dime in it that had been bent! Moral of the story, don’t use your Kirby to clean out a car! Chuckle
However, the best one was: A family friend sucked up a hot ember with their central vac. A little bit later, they smelled smoke and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. They went room to room, and when they got the utility room, they opened up the vacuum cleaner, and lo and behold, the bag was on fire! I think it took them at least a week to get that thing fixed and cleaned up, but it still worked fine afterwards.

 

[human]

Small screw...

Re-reading this thread brought back something I had forgotten. Shortly after I acquired my Kirby G5, which has evolved into my 'frankenkirby', I shook out the emptor and found a small screw. It was brass, with a short shank and a wide head. It appeared to be one that would have held a wire in place on an electrical outlet or light switch. While it's a pretty mundane thing in and of itself, what made it so odd is it was a perfect substitute for a missing screw on the machine itself--the one that goes at the bottom of the plastic trim plate on the rear of the machine, just above the Tech Drive pedal and frequently goes missing. I can only think that a previous owner/user had put this screw in place of the original but it had worked loose and been vacuumed up. I screwed it in nice and tight, check it periodically and so far, it hasn't fallen out.

 

[hoover300]

A full bottle of children's Disney princess nail polish. Yes it was a bypass vacuum lol

 

[tolivac]

CarpetPro vacuum from a burger place----someone who worked there picked up a WHOLE burger with the vacuum.Took a few hours for Bill and I to clean the vacuum out.Sanitaire vacuum from another eating place-A WHOLE mouse!!!Half in the bag-other half in the discharge from the fancase!Folks ----DON'T USE vacuums to clean restuarants!!!!!!!!!!!Use a Bissel type sweeper or call in a truckmount carpet cleaner for the job!!!!

 

[tolivac]

WEIRD---Dyson the machine was clogged-hose contained a slender bottle of nail polish-spilled on the workbench when pulled out!!!Nice BRIGHT RED!!!Carpet on the bench had to be replaced.

 

[amtraksebo1997]

About a year ago, my school held this sort of "giving Tuesday" thing, which basically consisted of packing up clothes to send to the needy, making gift bags of toiletries for veterans, etc. At the end we were instructed to help the janitor do various cleaning tasks if we didn't have anything better to do. I jumped on the opportunity to vacuum the stairs and stuff with a Shark Cordless stick vac they had. My school also has this "student lounge", which a couple of kids were vacuuming with a Shark Navigator they also had. I walked in on them vacuuming a chair with the wand, not in Lift-Away mode, but rather with the powerhead and body sitting on a sofa. Eventually they stopped what they were doing and let me take over, but when I did, I discovered that one of them had sucked up a Twix bar, a pen, and some wet grass. Worse yet, it clogged the handle.

Why are teenagers like this?

 

[eurekaprince]

My friend bought a cheap bagless upright many years ago. The vacuum’s plastic bin seemed to be a sign to her that she could use the machine to suck up spills in the kitchen and bathroom. She called me one day to come over to see why her vacuum was no longer working. The bin was full of sopping wet dirt! I am surprised she did not get electrocuted! She was really lucky!!!

Footnote: I threw out the vacuum, recommended a retro Hoover Constellation (which she bought) and taught her that regular household vacuums are not meant to be used on wet surfaces!

 

[justjunque]

I don't know if it really qualifies as strange, but it was a first for me.
A while back, I picked up a super clean looking Oreck commercial upright. It was only a couple of years old, and it was being sold fairly cheap, because it wouldn't run when you hit the switch.
Having just enough knowledge of Orecks to get myself in trouble, I figured it was the wires inside the handle, and I was about to get myself a steal.
Turns out, the wires were fine. The reason it won't run is because the motor is toast. The culprit? A sock, all jammed up inside the fan housing.

 

[human]

When I was in high school, back in the early '80s, my dad rescued an Electrolux 1205 off of a neighbor's trash pile. It had no suction through the hose and he quickly deduced there was a blockage. It turned out to have a significant amount of commercial grade carpeting, the kind that unravels by the yard when you pull one strand, was stuck up inside the hose. Of course, it still didn't have much suction through the non-electrified hose because it leaked like the proverbial sieve. Of course, I didn't understand that at the time. It was not until I effected its second rescue from their attic in 2016 and hooked it up to a proper electrified vinyl replacement hose and a power nozzle, probably the first time in its existence, that its true cleaning potential was fully unleashed.