Sounds like you resurrected the original potatoes. Just cut it into potato-sized bricks and start over.
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Freeze it. Vichyssoisicles!
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That should be a thing.
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Is sweeping carpets any use? Or is only vacuuming effective for dust reduction, insect control, etc.?
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Traditionally they were take outside, hung over something (a fence rail or similar) and beaten with the handle of a broom.
YMMV
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Well that’s not practical…
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I have actually done that. It wasn’t a very big rug, maybe 6’x8’ or so, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t been vacuuming it, but holy cow there was so much dust. Just big clouds of it, every time I whacked it, and for way more whacks than you’d expect.
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In terms of less noisy solutions? No, I’m pretty sure that anything that will effectively clean a nailed-down carpet, whether it’s a vacuum, a carpet cleaner (a.k.a. a Wet/Dry Vac), or a central vacuum system, will require suction, which requires a compression motor, which is going to be noisy.
I’ve never used a central vacuum system, but the compressor for that is usually quite a distance away, so that might be quieter. Unfortunately, getting one of those installed would probably be prohibitively expensive.
Sorry.
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Are you trying to avoid the noise of a vacuum cleaner? A carpet sweeper might do it. They don’t have a motor, but operated by muscle power. We had one when I was a kid, and it was good for crumbs and light soil.
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Frustratingly, many are advertised as “quiet” when they’re 70 to 80 dB. Which is louder/more painful than when I’ve been hit by a car but not as loud/painful as when I’ve been hit by some backup beaters or strobe lights. You have to pay thousands of dollars to get to … 63 dB.
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We have one. It keeps spilling whatever it collects, and it requires frequent repair.
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If carpet sweepers aren’t working, portable vacuums are too loud, and a central vac is too expensive, you may want to look into the possibility of going down to a hard floor, with maybe a few small carpets that can be easily beaten out. Personally, for any room not in use as a bedroom, that’s my preference anyway.
Your landlord/super might not agree to it, but, hey, it could be worth asking.
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That’s a good summary of the options.
The only other one I can think of is to do what some hotel maintenance people do, and wear noise protection while vacuuming. That gear ground crew wear at airports, which look like headphones but are just for blocking noise – that should do it.
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I can never get more than 1/4 the rated protection, so ear plugs + heavy ear protectors don’t do it for me. And the noise bombardment still annoys anyone else too. I try to limit any noise bombardment to short periods on weekday afternoons, but that’s still too much noise, and that forces me to overwork myself during those short periods, without enough breaks, leaving me with nasty post-exertional migraines and lymph node pain the next day.
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That doesn’t make any sense. Ear protection blocks dB from the outside – it doesn’t matter what your hearing range is.
Here’s some sample noise blockers such as are used at airports. They’re rated for 101dBA.
The average vacuum cleaner is 70-80dB loud when running. Those airport protectors should block them entirely. Again, your own hearing range doesn’t matter when discussing loudness (unless we’re talking about quietness).
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And for me, ear protection blocks about 1/4 of what it’s rated as blocking.
My plugs are rated for 26 nrr; they increase my loudness discomfort level by about 6 or 7 decibels. My protectors are rated for 30 and 38 nrr respectively, which is as high as civilian models go; they increase my ldl by about 8 or 9 decibels. The combination works out to 14 or 15 decibels. I’ve used a noise generator and decibel meter and measured this.
The best protection I can get only attenuates things by 15 dB, and it’s seriously uncomfortable itself.
I also tried Audio-Technica noise-cancelling headpains, but on their own they feel like they’re driving nails into my ears, and even with plugs underneath, they can feel like they’re pushing hard which hurts.
I suspect a lot of this isn’t made for my head shape, my ear anatomy, glasses, or something.
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How are you measuring this? Either the gear is defective, or it’s not being worn right, or that’s not a correct measurement.
dB reduction does not change depending on the user. Again, it’s a measurement of the outside of the gear compared to the inside, assuming it’s worn as expected. The physiology of the wearer is irrelevant if you get the ear-surrounding headphones like the kind I linked to.
We’re talking decibels here, not frequency. Decibels are not perceptual.
Yes I know there’s such a thing as perceptual loudness, but that’s not what’s being discussed here. What you’re describing isn’t how they physics works.
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I’ve done this several times, with different sets of gear.
I get a noise generator and a decibel meter.
I increase the noise until it is uncomfortably loud, and measure it-- usually 50 to 55 dB without protection.
I put on the protection, and up the noise until it is uncomfortably loud again, and measure it.
I turn down the noise, switch protection, and up the noise until it is uncomfortably loud again, and measure it.
I do this again until I’ve measured all my common equipment and combinations.
I try to keep the same distances for the machine, my head, and my decibel meter each time. I don’t have fancier measurement equipment.
Now maybe the plugs are “not being worn right” because they’re being worn in my non-standard ears, or the protectors are “not being worn right,” because they’re being worn on my non-standard head, and over my glasses, for my non-standard eyes, but that suggests that the standards are not being written right for the full range of people who may need to use these to exist in this fucked-up world.
(On the ear thing, regular plugs hurt like fucking pain, and do not protect against any pain. I think they’re designed for larger and differently-shaped ear canals. Only moldable plugs can protect and I have to use smaller ones or use part of the molding for larger ones.)
(On the head thing, if the protectors are large enough to fit over my ears, there tend to be gaps below and slightly behind the ears. I may have unusually low-set ears.)
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If your physiology is so special it defies the laws of physics, then nothing on this realm of existence can help you.
And again: I’m not talking about ear plugs. I’m not talking about the in-ear things you get at the local pharmacy. I’m talking about reusable, professional gear, which thousands of factory workers, airport crew, and military personnel wear with glasses around the world, every working day of their lives.
None of that gear is in-ear. I think I’ve said that three times now. Click the link I provided.
And BTW, the test setup you describe? That’s guaranteed to make you more sensitive to noise. You should be doing blind A/B tests like what audiologists use, where you don’t know if the sound is on or not for each test.
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I can just do what I can do to measure what I can measure to figure what I can figure to try to cope with what I can cope with of the pain-bombardment.
But how do my experiences violate the laws of physics? Why would ear plugs, or protectors, or the combination, always give everyone the same protection? I seem to recall concerns that nrr ratings don’t reflect mis-fits with unusual head shapes.
P.S. This focuses on glasses rather than head shape, but also points that that protection varies from person to person:
http://legacy.spa.aalto.fi/bnam04/webprosari/papers/o47.pdf
P.P.S. It’s frustrating when people insist my day-to-day struggles can’t be real. They are real.
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