Spring Cleaning

The Warehouse's occupants naturally build up a lot of static electricity as they sit on their shelves, hang from their hooks, wait in their boxes, etc. This electricity will sometimes lead to ball lightning flying across the shelves until the energy is absorbed or dissipated. For the most part, Agents have been able to avoid being electrocuted by situations such as that. However, the Warehouse’s potential electrocution hazard every few weeks is nothing compared to the all-out electromagnetic mayhem that occurs during Spring Cleaning.

Spring Cleaning in the Warehouse means that every single spare electric charge that the artifacts have built up over the year are dispelled all at roughly the same time. Agents are required to wear rubber or other static-halting materials (and avoid the hazards of hairspray) until at least a week after the cleaning.

Artifacts that build up charge quickly are used as much as possible, and artifacts that absorb electricity are 'emptied', so to speak, constantly throughout the year. But the static build up is still pretty high, and to leave the artifacts alone while an insurmountable amount of electricity courses through the Warehouse (until, thankfully, it finds its way into the Warehouse cell battery - Spring Cleaning is an easy way to alleviate the electricity bill, thankfully) is extremely irresponsible to their well-being. Agents are required to stay on hand to make sure nothing catches fire, nothing explodes, and nothing gets frightened and runs away into a corner of the Warehouse (and finding a wall alone is a hard thing to do).

During this time many artifacts will activate simultaneously and force half, sometimes all of the agents to abandon their field missions to fix the chaos at home. It is notoriously difficult to neutralize the artifacts when the electrical surges render the Gooery inoperable, forcing agents to use artifacts to neutralize the ones ‘acting up’. When this happens, they not only have to wear mandatory safety gloves and goggles, but also find the right combination of artifacts to cancel out any of their downsides.