How not to maintain your AC

[dreamshark]

As temperatures soared to close to 100° yesterday I noticed that the big air conditioner on the landing (the one that cools the whole downstairs) wasn’t exactly putting out cold air. It was still running but the air coming out of the vents was at best lukewarm. Looked this up in the troubleshooting section of the manual and it said, among other things, “When was the last time you cleaned your air filter?”

Hmmm, I said. Never? Turns out you are supposed to do that every 2 weeks. We bought this unit in 2018. And judging by the unbroken tape on the sides, nobody has ever even looked at the air filter. It was just a little tricky to get the front grill off (less tricky once I noticed the tape holding it on). And this is what I found.

Gross.