Okay, long story, which will still be a long story. Could've ended badly, but didn't.
About a month ago, I decided that I was tired of living in my pity-party of "I can't get my act together, and my house is wreck", and decided to hunt out the book I read when I was a teenager- "Sidetracked Home Executives- From Pigpen to Paradise". So, I jumped on the net, and found someone who turned that great book, and it's principles into a Get Organized, Get out of CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) program complete with email reminders, and a starting point. If you're like me, you need someone to hold your hand, and step-by-step directions, and www.FlyLady.net did it for me.
Anyhow, FlyLady is a blog by herself, but that's not the point of this blog. The point is what she motivated me to do, and what I found out as a result.
See, everyday- Monday through Friday, she'll email a special task to focus on, in whatever that week's rooms are. This week, we're focusing on the bathroom, and the Laundry Room. Yesterday, she said to clean the mirrors in the bathroom, and clean your dryer vents and hose. Well, I thought, my mirrors are clean, and I just cleaned my dryer vent about a month ago, thanks to one of those frightening emails about the dangers of NOT cleaning the vent properly (you need to remove it, and clean or vacuum the lint UNDER it too). So, I thought I was off the hook.
However, today, the email conversation still revolved around the infamous dryer vent, and hose. They said you need to go outside while your dryer is running, and check to make sure that your vent has good output. Now, THAT I hadn't thought of. And, it nagged at me, and since I didn't want a potential fire on my head, I decided it was worth checking out. Even though Mason was home from school, and it wasn't really convenient with both kids.
So, I pulled the dryer out from the wall, marveling at the fact that FlyLady had now motivated me to use my muscles, AND a power tool ALL IN ONE WEEK. (I actually drilled the curtain rod into the wall the other day- thanks to Anti-Procrastination week).
WOW!!!! You wouldn't believe the sight that greeted me. I'm almost embarrassed to air my "dirty laundry" over the internet. Under my dryer, I found thirty cents, 2 crayons, lots of trash, a golf tee, and, I kid-you-not- about an inch of dryer lint. Now, I'm really embarrassed about this, so please don't use this as an opportunity to rag me.
I got out the handy-dandy new Bissell, and sucked up most of the lint. I noticed when I pulled the dryer out, that either the hose came off really easily, or it wasn't hooked on to begin with. And, all that lint couldn't be normal. After getting rid of the mess under my dryer, I was ready to hook it back up.
Hmmm. This would be a challenge. I noticed that the elbow thingy in the wall seemed loose, so I grabbed a Phillips head screwdriver (once again patting myself on the back for being so handy), and set out to tighten that round brace thing around the hose. Ooops. The whole elbow fell INTO the wall. Down into the dark abyss that houses two-by-fours, pipes, creepy-crawlies, and Lord knows what else. "Martin's gonna kill me", I thought. I grabbed the flashlight, and shined it around in the hole, hoping that whatever critters are in there, would run off before I stuck my hand in. EWWWWWWWW. I reached in, and grabbed it as quickly as possible. Then, I had to try to feel around, and see if there was a hose in there that I'm supposed to hook it up too. I couldn't feel anything, but noticed the huge pile of lint INSIDE the wall. "Just how long, exactly, had this thing been un-attached?" I thought. Well, I called Martin, and he said to just leave it until he got home. He wasn't mad, he was impressed that I had made the discovery.
Once he got home, it took him some time, but we were finally able to attach the hose. We will never know how long that thing was unattached, but, in retrospect, it always seemed a little odd that the coat closet (directly behind the laundry room) was always a thousand degrees (the air was blowing into the wall, not the vent), and we're thinking it might've also thrown off our thermostat.... who knows how much money we'll save, now that it's done right.
I learned a valuable lesson today- It stinks to be the guy. He had his hand in the wall up to his elbow, and there's NO WAY I'd do that.
And, when checking the flow in the backyard- lint was FLYING out of that vent. Probably for the first time in 7 years. I wish someone had told me before that you're supposed to check that yearly. But, now YOU know.
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