Melbourne, Florida- Herb and Lucille VanCamp are beginning to wonder if they'll ever be able to move out of their Lake Washington home. After two years of trying to sell, they feel like they've had the life sucked out of them, literally.

According to Herb, their problems began back in 2003 when they purchased what they thought was their 'dream home.' "The people we bought the house from left a lot of stuff here, including a real nice blue vacuum cleaner. We were thankful at the time because we practically spent our last nickel getting in here." 

"But right after we moved in, weird things started happening." Herb said. "One night we was just sitting here watching TV when that dag-gummed vacuum cleaner walked itself out of the closet and started vacuuming the floors all by itself.

"Our dog, Buddy, about came unglued. He barked at that thing until he was blue in the face, no pun intended.  I looked at Lucille and said, am I seeing things or is that vacuum pushing itself around the living room?" 

"It was right then and there that she named it her "magic" vacuum cleaner.  Lucille felt like she was the luckiest little gal in the world.  Like "Queen For A Day."  And from that day forward we had the cleanest floors in town. That dang thing would turn itself on, clean the floors and go back to its closet every single day." 

"But when we put the house up for sale, things started to get a little ugly," Lucille mused.  "People would come to look at the house and my magic vacuum wouldn't stay in the closet where she belonged.  She would come out and stare at people, almost as if she was daring them to buy the house. We even tried to lock her in the closet.  But that didn't work.  Somehow she managed to get out, every time."

The VanCamps aren't sure what they're going to do. They've had no offers in spite of several price reductions. "I guess people are turned off by my magic vacuum." Lucille said.

Disclaimer: This "News Item" is a work of (comic relief) fiction written by Ralph the real estate dog. Only the MLS photo is real. Any resemblance between the characters, persons or Realtors® is purely coincidental.