When we moved to our Victorian terraced house I used the hoover to suck up lots of soot disturbed when the workmen blocked off a real fireplace in one of the unfinished bedrooms. I promptly took the hoover downstairs to the finished part of the house with pristine light coloured carpets and got a black bin bag to empty the hoover in, of course I should have done it in the kitchen, and of course I should have asked someone to hold the bin bag, but you know what is coming next, I emptied the hoover contents which missed the bag and landed on the beautiful carpet. We managed to clean it up by hoovering all over again, several times, but was quite shocking.