I adopted my cat ~4 months ago from a shelter, he was a stray before. About a few days in, I did the terrible mistake of cleaning my room with a vacuum cleaner. In my defense, in the shelter they told me he's probably deaf because they didn't see him react to sounds. But soon it became very obvious to me my cat has normal hearing ability since he reacts to sounds in different rooms, outside, coming from my computer etc. Anyway, after I vacuumed my room, cat was acting very weird, he did not walk over the part of the floor I vacuum cleaned for about a week and residual anxiety was still present even after a month. He's doing perfectly fine now as far as I can tell, none of that anxiety remains. Clearly vacuum cleaner traumatized my cat and I don't want him to experience that again.
In the last few months I've been cleaning my room manually by sweeping etc. But it's essentially impossible to maintain it like this. My bed is covered with cat hair. It's affecting my social life because I'm embarrassed to invite anyone to my house since my carpet is covered in cat litter and hair and dust. I do sweep it manually, but it's not enough.
Unfortunately, my cat loves my room and he barely leaves my room. So there is no way to lure him out of my room and close the door. Even though my bedroom's door is open all the time he goes out very rarely. Also my housemates do not allow me to have litter box outside of my room, so my cat cannot be locked out of my room for extended periods of time.
My current plan is to lock my cat into bathroom with some food for about 30 mins-ish. Vacuum clean my room and take him back. I do not know if this is a good idea. I don't want to scar him again. Is there a better way to vacuum clean my room without scaring my cat. There is no other room in the house my cat frequents like my room, except the kitchen he walks around occasionally, but there is not way for me to "lock" him there since it's a big, open area.
Any tips are appreciated.
