Cleaning House

Saturday morning, we rented a Rug Doctor The once-beige berber carpets had a blackish hue thanks to Diesel vomiting one too many times and to heavy foot traffic. Not to mention the old-lady-living-with-twenty-cats smell that permeated the front room and hallway. We normally shampoo the carpets before New Years Eve, but without people coming over, we decided to let it go for a time, and finally, with my cousin and his husband flying over from Spain for a two-month long visit, the dirt couldn't remain.

We lugged the machine up the back steps to the apartment and set it in the bedroom so we could move furniture and vacuum. The coffee table, chairs, the church donation box serving as stand next to the front door, and the smaller pieces of furniture were whisked away without any problems. Then came my tall DVD stand. We tilted it, maneuvered it around the corner and into the kitchen, then I twisted to get a better grip and twinged something in my back.

What a way to start the holiday weekend.

My lower back pinching and throbbing, we managed to clear the room, vacuum and being the two-hour shampooing process. I thought the 4 inches of cat hair, kitty litter, dirt and dust sucked up by the vacuum was gross; you should have seen the blackened water that Caesar poured from the machine after every few minutes. Gross does not even cover it! How does that much gunk get into the carpets?!?! And worse, why did we wait longer than usual to clean it??!!

Two hours later, the carpet looked much more beige, brighter, less like skid marks on the street. We laid a few sheets down between the front door and the bedroom so we could return the Rug Doctor and run a few more errands before returning the furniture to its proper places.

And maybe my back would begin to feel better after downing a few ibuprofen.