Leah Petersen: Owner of Rector’s Vacuum Shop

When did you start getting into vacuum repair?

I was 8 when I got into vacuums. I’ve always been mechanically minded. I come from a line of people who are mechanically minded as well, and they basically just taught me that if something is broken, you can fix it yourself … It started with a family member of mine handing me this ancient Dyson, saying, ‘This doesn’t work. You can play with it, just do whatever you want to it, it’s yours to keep.’ And so about a week later, I brought it back to them in completely working condition. And they were speechless.

… And turns out there are people who, not only repair vacuum cleaners, who also collect them. I also happen to be one of those people. We have a Discord server with over 500 members. So there’s more of us than you’d think.

When you're collecting vacuums, what are you looking for?

Just anything rare, anything unique. You can collect all sorts of vacuums … but I really like the European brands, Lindhaus, Sebo and Miele … and then a couple in my personal collection that are no longer available in the states.

How did you go from coming to the store frequently, to working here and to eventually buying it?

I was about to graduate from high school and I told Steve the owner, like, ‘Hey, I’m looking for just a summer job because I’m about to go away to school’ — and then COVID happened — but yeah, ‘I’m about to go away to school, but I would like a summer job, are you hiring?’ … And then the summer came by and [he said], ‘Hey, if you want to work part-time here, like, you can absolutely do so.’ And I think it was a week after that when he was like, ‘You know a surprising amount about vacuums, and we should probably get you more hours here because you’re actually helping us a lot.’ So that that was really, really nice. The majority of my experience would actually come from here, just being taught the ropes of different vacuum cleaners and the majority of my repair skills.

What interests you about vacuums?

That’s such a simple question, but there’s no simple answer … I think that complexity alone is what fascinates me, because there are a lot of things that are pretty straightforward, but straightforward is boring. When it comes to just the household vacuum cleaner, there’s a lot to it. I mean, there’s physics involved. There’s mechanics and there’s electricity involved. It’s all sort of all-encompassing. And I feel like, as I gain more knowledge on repairing vacuums, it can translate to other things, too. So gaining that knowledge is really priceless.

What are you interested outside of work?

Outside of work, my other special interest would be clocks … Outside of that, I like music. I like to play the piano. I love cats. I have two fur babies.