Exploding Air Vent

I walked into our apartment the other day and set some stuff down on our megadesk, the one that sits under the large window in our apartment. 

Blake using the left side of the megadisk at some point last semester

Right side of the megadesk, last year during finals

I sat down my stuff and noticed that the color was off.  YES, the color of the desk was off!  Not only was the desk the wrong color, but the little lanterns, baskets, and candles sitting on our desk were also not the right color! They were all black instead of white!

After blinking a few times, I realized that the black was a fine layer of dust coating much of the surface of the desk, floors, couch, dining room table, lamps, etc. It obviously came from the vent underneath the window... it looked as though the vent had burped up black soot!

I put in a maintenance request, and they came and changed the filter or something in the vent.  They also wiped down some of the surfaces.  Our floor needed a good hands-and-knees-scrubbing though, which Blake provided!

The weirdest thing about the soot-- it was so fine, sometimes you couldn't even see where the dirt was until you wiped it!  The picture above is the perfect example.  The area around it hardly looks dirty, but Blake did just one swipe and got this much black from it!

Hopefully our vents will refrain from regurgitating anything onto our apartment for awhile.  My socks are still picking up black from the floor and rug!  Has this happened to anyone else??
--Catie