4 ms·

> stopped vacuuming years ago because of my health issues. Did a sealed vacuum with a HEPA filter not work?

DoreenMichele 6y ago
That doesn't prevent it from spreading germs and I probably couldn't afford something like that. We kept a hand vac for a time and emptied it and washed the little bag thing immediately after every use. We also tried a few other things. I'm happy with my wood floors. I don't plan to go back to carpeting.
p1mrx 6y ago
Even with imperfect filtration, I imagine it's better to kick up some dust a few times a year, than let it accumulate and kick it up with every step.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  If your condition is serious enough and incurable, not allowing dust to exist and wiping down wood floors instead of vacuuming is a better option than either of the two options you posit as the only possible outcomes.
  - mafuy 6y ago
    How do you deal with skin waste etc.? Reducing dust is certainly possible, but I thought it is just impossible to bring it even remotely close to zero to make vacuuming unnecessary.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - p1mrx 6y ago
    There's a narrative difference between "I stopped vacuuming" (surprising) and "I replaced vacuuming with wiping" (mundane).
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      Maybe from your end it looks that way. It doesn't from my end. I've done a lot of "surprising" things, healthwise, over the years and there seems to be no means whatsoever to make people on the internet happy with how I talk about it. No amount of bending over backwards to signal "this was something really, really, ordinary, I swear!!!!!" is ever enough to protect me from people reacting with animosity and I almost never know if it's because they do recognize me and know something about my back story or if it's because they don't recognize me. For me, it's a no win situation and it's not possible for me to guess what the magic words are that will keep everyone happy and get me out of the corner with the dunce's cap for the crime of not dying years ago from my serious medical condition because I'm so incredibly rude like that.
      - joefourier 6y ago
        For the sake of your own mental health, you should stop caring about what makes random internet strangers happy. There will be always a minority reacting with animosity to even the most milquetoast of content, and responding in frustration will only make it worse.
        DoreenMichele 6y ago
        When animosity reaches a certain threshold, ignoring it is actually dangerous and not merely to one's mental health. I didn't respond in frustration. That's one of the issues here. Other people act weird, tell me there's something wrong with how I phrased it, I engage them conversationally and now some other random stranger replies with a comment that can be interpreted to mean I'm merely neurotic and oversensitive. That boils down to "When other people react weirdly to your prosaic observation, you cannot engage them. You are required to try to somehow rise above it and not speak to them. And when this becomes an entrenched pattern, it's somehow your fault for existing." That fundamentally doesn't work.

That doesn't prevent it from spreading germs and I probably couldn't afford something like that. We kept a hand vac for a time and emptied it and washed the little bag thing immediately after every use. We also tried a few other things. I'm happy with my wood floors. I don't plan to go back to carpeting.

p1mrx 6y ago

Even with imperfect filtration, I imagine it's better to kick up some dust a few times a year, than let it accumulate and kick it up with every step.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
If your condition is serious enough and incurable, not allowing dust to exist and wiping down wood floors instead of vacuuming is a better option than either of the two options you posit as the only possible outcomes.
- mafuy 6y ago
  How do you deal with skin waste etc.? Reducing dust is certainly possible, but I thought it is just impossible to bring it even remotely close to zero to make vacuuming unnecessary.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- p1mrx 6y ago
  There's a narrative difference between "I stopped vacuuming" (surprising) and "I replaced vacuuming with wiping" (mundane).
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Maybe from your end it looks that way. It doesn't from my end. I've done a lot of "surprising" things, healthwise, over the years and there seems to be no means whatsoever to make people on the internet happy with how I talk about it. No amount of bending over backwards to signal "this was something really, really, ordinary, I swear!!!!!" is ever enough to protect me from people reacting with animosity and I almost never know if it's because they do recognize me and know something about my back story or if it's because they don't recognize me. For me, it's a no win situation and it's not possible for me to guess what the magic words are that will keep everyone happy and get me out of the corner with the dunce's cap for the crime of not dying years ago from my serious medical condition because I'm so incredibly rude like that.
    - joefourier 6y ago
      For the sake of your own mental health, you should stop caring about what makes random internet strangers happy. There will be always a minority reacting with animosity to even the most milquetoast of content, and responding in frustration will only make it worse.
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        When animosity reaches a certain threshold, ignoring it is actually dangerous and not merely to one's mental health. I didn't respond in frustration. That's one of the issues here. Other people act weird, tell me there's something wrong with how I phrased it, I engage them conversationally and now some other random stranger replies with a comment that can be interpreted to mean I'm merely neurotic and oversensitive. That boils down to "When other people react weirdly to your prosaic observation, you cannot engage them. You are required to try to somehow rise above it and not speak to them. And when this becomes an entrenched pattern, it's somehow your fault for existing." That fundamentally doesn't work.