A WOMAN has issued an urgent warning to other Shark vacuum owners after accidentally replacing her fully working device.
Gem explained that she’d gone out and spent £299 on a new Shark because she thought her first was broken.
Sharing a video on TikTok, Gem called the device a “present to myself”.
But she then explained further, as she showed how she’d vacuumed with her old Shark, and then the new one – just to see the difference in how much dirt it picked up.
However, one person commenting on the video quickly pointed out that there’s a secret filter on the old vacuum, “under the grill at the front”.
“If you lay it back, it should clip off and a filter will be revealed which can also be washed,” the person added.
“No, I did not know this!” Gem exclaimed.
She then laid the appliance down, and unclipped the grate part at the bottom front.
“Shut up!” she shouted, as the grate came off.
“Oh my God!”
Gem then continued to remove things before uncovering the filter at the bottom, as she said: “Hang on, is it that colour?
“Should it be that colour? What’s all this?
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”I’m a cleaner and I’ve tested out every hoover you can imagine – my go to is the most affordable, and I’m not a fan of Mrs Hinch one” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6363863120112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]“I never knew this and I’ve had this over for five years!”
And in the comments section, Gem quickly found out she wasn’t the only one to be oblivious about the secret filter.
“Amazing! Mine’s FILTHY! Thank you for your service,” one wrote.
“I have never ran so fast,” another said.
“I have this hoover – OMG!”
“What???? I thought I was doing so good to wash all the other filters regularly and I have completely missed this!” a third commented.
“Not me running downstairs at 11 pm at night to go do this,” someone else said.
To which Gem replied: “I never knew this till someone told me half an hour ago on my previous post.
“I’m not sure what the original colour was supposed to be but id best get cleaning it at the weekend haha.”
In subsequent videos, Gem showed herself painstakingly cleaning each part of the filter – with an astonishing amount of dirt coming off as she did so.
Once she’d cleaned everything she could – including the pipe which had a “massive blockage” inside that was affecting the suction – she put it all back together.
And lo and behold, it worked!
“Oops, I didn’t need a new one after all!” she wrote over the top of the clip.
“Is the suction back to normal?” one person asked in the comments.
With Gem sheepishly replying: “ummm…. yes. So I didn’t need a new vacuum after all!”
