Eww, gross!

[elfs]

My left control button on my laptop wasn't working right, so I tried cleaning it out with a can of air. A small twig or something stuck out from underneath it, so I reached in with a pair of lab tweezers, the kind with a long thin point at the end, and pulled it out. Out with it came a cat hairball a half-centimeter on a side. I started working my way around the keyboard, and sure enough every key was gummed up underneath with a substantial and disgusting volume of cat hair.

It took a while to clean all of the keys but once I had it done I was happy with the results and the keyboard feels springy and responsive again.

I can't pop the keys off as at least one has broken when I tried to do that. Fortunately, it was only the Windows key; I chose it for the experiment because it was expendable. This keyboard is so old that the plastic undersprings have become fragile, and I don't dare stress them too hard.

Off to take the kids to the library and look up books on La Belle Epoque.

Comments

[casualprofessor.livejournal.com]

that's right up there with the gummy hairy stuff that gets inside the mice.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[fallenpegasus]

I had to do that on a regular basis, especially with my 600.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

So I take it you have cats? :)

[dougs.livejournal.com]

autopope grew so weary of replacing laptop keyboards -- he does a lot of typing and was getting just a few months from each one -- that he now only uses external ones. It's a lot cheaper replacing an external keyboard than the built-in one. He's been heard referring to laptop keyboards as "consumables".