Nasty HVAC blower vibration after dealer oil change and service.

Had my 2010 Prius to the dealer for it's annual oil change and inspection. The guys seemed to have done their usual good job of changing oil, topping up all fluids and inspecting filters and such.

A few miles from the dealership, I turned the AC on high and cranked the blower near full speed.
Suddenly the dash and HVAC blower was viberating like a top loader washer on spin cycle with a bad load. My first thought was OH OH!!, something has fallen into the blower wheel and has it a ton out of balance. I wonder how hard it is to access that wheel ?? First thing that came to mind was the horror stories I have read about some late model cars / trucks, that need the front seats and entire dash removed to access a broken $5 plastic HVAC part, adding up to as much as $1400 labor charge.
We turned around and drove back to the dealership and asked the shop forman If he had any idea what was going on. He said yeah, thats pretty common in a Prius when a very dirty cabin filter is removed. Pulling the filter out will allow any big chunks of crap on the cabin filter to drop into the blower wheel that is located right below it. He called the young tec who did the oil change and filter inspection. The guy pulled the glove box and cabin filter cover right in the driveway( it's so easy , pulled the filter partly out and said," oh oh you got a mouse problem". I saw a small handfull of dry catfood stars on top of the filter, along with several moths, grasshoppers and lots of moldy looking dirt.
My thoughts, my fault for feeding the cat in the garage and giving a little mouse, food to store for the winter, and I knew exactly what the young tec had done. When doing the service, he pulled that filter partly out, saw the cat food and quickly slid it back in place, hoping none had fallen into the blower, as picking / vacuuming it clean took me an hour at home. I am sure he like most tecs, is paid flat rate for that oil change / filter inspection job, and any extra time spent cleaning out the cat food would come right out of his pay check.

After seeing where Prius locates the cabin blower, I am so happy to see it is so easy to access it from right in the passenger side footwell. I will happily use it as hard and long as I want to be comfortable, as replacing it looks to be a 1/2 hour job with simple hand tools. It also looks like it may be pretty easy to fabricate a little aluminum window screen cover to keep any more big chunks out of the blower during a filter R&R. And yes, immediatly after cleaning the cat food out of the blower, the cat feeding station got moved from the garage to the barn.

This little job also cleared up my mistaken idea that the cabin filter was only used when you push the filter button on the dash, in reality,it filters all air, all the time, and I suspect my allergy problems that I blamed on scotchguard upholstry treatment on the seats , was actually from that grody nasty cabin filter that came with the car 4 years and 35,000 miles ago. I also checked the engine air filter compartment and found another mouse food storage site .