Although its usefulness in clearing out scary haunted houses would later prove invaluable, the invention of the Poltergust 3000 ghost vacuum was an accident. Professor E. Gadd spent most of the 1970s trying to invent a bagless vacuum cleaner. By 1981, he had finally created a working prototype, only to find out that rival inventor James Dyson had recently patented the same idea.

Demoralized, Gadd filed a separate patent application for the vacuum prototype’s ability to also capture undead spirits in haunted locales. To his surprise, the patent was approved, though the market for such a device was extremely limited.

Given the choice, Gadd will tell you today, he would have gladly chosen to have been known as the inventor of the E. Gadd It Sucks! bagless vacuum cleaner rather than the inventor of the Poltergust 3000.