It’s happened! Our poor vacuum just passed away…boohoo. We need a vacuum that picks up pet hair really well…2 cats and 1 dog…oh, and 4 children! Any suggestions?
Yes! We have a Bissell bag-less vacuum with a detachable canister and pet attachments. We have bought this vacuum twice because we love it so much. (The lock device to keep it upright without falling over broke after 6 years with the first one, but it was still working just fine! I gave it to my brother and bought a new one right away.) I found mine at Target for $179 with a $20 rebate. It’s easy to clean out and works well on hardwood, tile, and high pile carpet. In fact, I have used my MIL’s Dyson, and prefer my Bissell over that!
Lindsey, what kind of Bissell do you have? We have a Bissell Pet Hair Eraser (found ours at Target, too), and we are constantly changing out the belts, cleaning out clogs, undoing hair from the roller, and now something is broken inside that makes it sound like a lawn mower, which makes the belt fall off every so often because of the vibrations. Ours is about 4 or 5 years old – probably time for a new one, anyway, but I am tired of replacing vacuums (and belts) so often. I do like that it is bagless, but the “contour pet tool” never spins. I think it did for the first year maybe, and now it just sucks – no pun intended! LOL
Sorry I couldn’t help, mrsmccardell. I am in the same boat as you!
We had a Dyson for 10 years loved it and it finally broke. My dh installs carpet and he loved it for all the right ‘carpet’ reasons. We didn’t have the finances to buy one (broke around Christmas) so we got what was a good Hover in all the reviews. It was nothing compared to our Dyson. We started watching Craigslist and someone sold a perfectly good brand new barely used one for $80! WOW we snatched it up. The Dyson has the best suction, adjusts by it self for the floor hight and works wonderfully on tile for/wood/laminate (doesn’t shoot it out the back like most do), has a long wand. It is so worth the money if you can swing it or watch on Craigslist. We decided we will never turn our backs on our vacuum again! That’s my 2cents
Ours is a Bissell heavy duty with a Lifetime Belt. It has 9X cyclonic action. It is an upright with many attachments and option to turn brush roller off for bare floors. It is mostly black color with bright lime green accent color on the rollers and dust cup. It has a 5 year warranty. We have had it for 1 1/2 years. It cost $150 from Walmart online. I posted on here before we bought it. Most people recommended the expensive Dyson. That was not in our price range.
We have a Dyson too that I got as a combined birthday & Christmas gift from my mom a few years ago when she worked at a local store and got it for a really great price. I LOVE it and would replace it in a heartbeat. We had a super expensive Kirby we got sucked (pun intended) into buying and made payments on it (how embarassing, but we were young and very dumb back then). The Dyson is so lightweight and really sucks things up so well. Plus it’s bagless and had onboard tools when I love. Here is the one we have:
If you have friends locally that you can “try” out their vaccuum I really recommend it! I just knew I wanted a Dyson because of how my friends raved and for the price – they HAD to be the best right? …. I’m learning that price isn’t always the best indicator. Well, I borrowed one from a friend and I really didn’t feel like it was exceptional… I know LOTS of people like the girls above that just adore theirs!!!, but I just wasn’t crazy about it. I don’t remember the model of this particular one, but the attachments seemed cumbersome and it picked up fine, but I didn’t notice that it picked up any better than my current vacuum, it wasn’t easier to push or lighter to carry. After lots of research, I decided to STAY with the Hoover brand. Here’s the one we got…
Things that were important to me… LIGHTWEIGHT – we have three floors and I did NOT want to be lugging a heavy vacuum – this one truly is light and very easy to carry between floors. It adjusts between the wood floor and carpet easily. I also wanted something with easy attachments. This one comes with a separate shoulder strap vacuum and while I DO miss being able to just grab the hose off the regular vacuum to pick up something right along the wall, I really like having the separate one for other projects like cleaning out the car and doing window sills and for trips in the RV – those may or may NOT be relevant to you. It is also easy enough for my 5, 7 and 9 year old to use on the wood floor after dinner. I can easily use either one to vacuum the stairs – even the upright is so light that doing the stairs with it is no problem.
I would NOT get this vacuum if your whole house is full of shaggy carpet as the suction is so strong that it is rather a chore to push through the loose carpet. We have that in our basement and while I’m loving that there’s NOTHING left after I’m done vacuuming down there, I prefer a very heavy old self-propelled hoover that I keep down there because of ease of pushing… but it just doesn’t pick up like the new one.
I have to say–I keep passing this topic looking at other ones, and the same silly thought keeps occurring to me. Which is—if you love your vacuum, you are doing something wrong. LOL Just kidding, but I don’t know that there is a single piece of housekeeping equipment I love. Definitely not a vacuum. Now if it could also do all the housework FOR Me, maybe I’d change my mind. But, for now, nope, not a single drop of love for my vacuum. Or my broom. Definitely not my mop. Or toilet plunger. LOL
I like clean floors like everyone here, but just can’t seem to pay for an expensive vaccuum. So I just buy the cheap hoovers at walmart. they work very good for about year then they tend to loose their suck. So I then degrade it to the car & shop vac and then take the old car & shop vac to the dunp and by then, it is ready to RIP. Walmarts is about $40. So I spend about $50 a year on vacuum & bags. Prior to kids, that same vacuum lasted about 2-3 years!! LOL
I realize that I am adding more junk to our landfills, but I can not spend almost 500 on a vacuum. I haven’t heard from anyone that loves theirs after 5 years or that it works just as good after that long, where I always have a newer vacuum. I do not like the canisters unless they have water to contain the dust. My MIL bought one like that & it was awful!! HTH.
We have a Shark Navigator Upright Bagless. We researched for 3 months before buying it. We have 3 dogs and 2 cats + kids and we are a “shoes in the house is okay” kind of family. So the floors can get disgusting. I absolutely love this vac. I can take out the foam filters every other time I vacuum and clap them together to get most of the dirt out. The manual says do this 1x a month, ha!
My BIL owns a Dyson and said our Shark works just as great for 1/2 the price 🙂
Bookworm, that is because you don’t have a Miele! I can’t believe Miele hasn’t been mentioned as the most-loved vacuum cleaner. I’ve had mine for 11-12 years and it has not given me a lick of trouble. No repairs ever. The bags are expensive and it used a HEPA filter that I replace yearly, but I have a son with strong dust mite allergies and wouldn’t use anything else.
Oh gosh, forgot to mention we also have 2 dogs, 2 cats and 4 kids. We only have carpet in one room and I gave away the carpet beater attachment long ago thinking we’d never have carpet again so I just use the hard wood attachment on the carpet and it works. (Don’t plan to keep that carpet much longer…just came in the house.) But the vacuum works wonders on hard wood!
I LOVE MY MIELE! Goes under furniture and swivels and I use it for hardwood and carpeting with ease! Love the attachments. I can’t live without one now! lol
I’ll tell you what to stay away from! I have a Metropolitan Vac and I like how powerful the “suck” is. BUT, the attachments don’t fit right; the light went out on the powerhead; sometimes the powerhead power thing comes unattached from the cord that leads to the canister. It’s LOUD.
LIke I said, I LOVE how powerful it is – it’s a better picker-upper than my SIL’s Kirby. But I’ll never buy another one!