Way OT... vacuum cleaners

[OakLeaf]

Just FWIW, I'm allergic to just about every inhalant there is, and I was a little worried about getting a bagless vac, but actually I've found it to be MUCH "safer." Yeah, there's a minute or two of emptying it, but you do that outside (and if you put the filter deep into your garbage bag during emptying, which you want to do anyway, hardly any dust escapes). There's definitely no "dust cloud" unless it's really windy AND you're being sloppy.

Every vacuum we've had with bags, even with the supposedly HEPA bags, just spewed dust all over the house after it was a year or two old, because there's always an unfiltered unwashable exhaust channel, plus the flexible bags just don't filter as well as a much thicker exhaust filter.

[xeney]

Nothing sucks like a Dyson. Heh. But ours has not held up well at all. It's about five years old and we've had to replace a couple of parts that broke, including that fabulous long hose -- and the replacement hose is awful and comes off all the time. It's pretty much unusable. We have to clean that filter that you are only supposed to need to clean once a decade or so at least once a month, and we've replaced it three times (it is never supposed to need replacement, which begs the question of why they sell replacements). And the Dyson is ruining all of our rugs because it pulls the fibers out ... we should not vacuum those rugs with the beater bar, but without the beater bar it does not pick up dog hair.

It is still a thousand times better than the Hoover piece of junk it replaced, and at twice the price it has lasted five times as long, so I guess that's a bargain. We are going to replace it soon and even with all the problems will probably buy another Dyson.

(We have three dogs, two cats, a man with hair down to his butt, and an extraordinarily dusty house ... but also hardwood floors that we mostly sweep, and only two big area rugs.)