My vacuum cleaner is a good one. It’s really interested in getting everything out of the carpet. Dust. Fur. Small mammals. My vacuum cleaner will suck up a tennis shoe and spit it right back out again, all clean, no problem. When you change the bag, there’s no dust anywhere. It’s a tight system. As long as whatever I’ve vacuumed up is no longer squeaking, I’ll never hear from it again.
It’s not lightweight. It’s not quiet. Those would be nice qualities but mine stomps across the landscape like a starving ankylosaur and it means business. If it were lightweight and quiet, I’d have doubts. Can a pleasant and convenient vacuum really be doing anything? Plus, I paid a lot for it, so I have a vested interest in believing it is super-duper. The best ever, like you’ve never seen.
I’m afraid I love my vacuum cleaner the way people love politicians who promise to solve the border crisis by ruining the landscape, rounding up brown people like fish in a gill-net and setting them on fire on their way out of the country. Give me muscle, baby. Make it roar. I’ll believe in you, the way people believe who never question themselves.
My vacuum sucks. So that isn’t why I think it needs work. It’s that it got even louder. Super loud. Possibly it sucked up a howler monkey. Or a squadron of cicadas. I can’t rule it out. Nothing comes out of those bags.
Whatever it is, is unsustainable. I can’t be near that. I’d rather scare the dust out of the house with a leaf blower. Right away I tried to find a video online to troubleshoot but nothing was helpful. So I took it in to the store I bought it from. There was a certain satisfaction in that; I’ve become accustomed to the special torture of trying to have my magical devices repaired online or over the phone. Chatbox: My name is Ahmet. How may I rock your world today? Me: My ether is busted. There are holes in the plasma. I’ve unplugged everything including the toaster and sent it to its room but it never comes out. Ahmet: Have you tried unplugging everything? Me: STFU, Ahmet.
So I was whistling a happy tune when I rolled my vacuum cleaner into the store, where I would hand it over to a knowledgeable human with skills, just the way they did it in pioneer times. Sure enough, Hank was right there with a smile and an aura of competence and I handed over my machine, and he plugged it in and turned it on and vacuumed his little sample carpet square, and it sounded totally normal. What the hell, human? I took it back home. Figured there’d been a clog in the tubes and our municipal pothole collection had dislodged it somewhere along the way.
I plugged it in at home. Howler monkeys.
This time I flipped it on its belly and discovered there were sixteen screws on the thing, and, in a sign this was meant to be, they were all plain Phillips screws and they were all the same size. I flayed that baby right open. Rudely probed every hose and tube. Found no clogs. Took out the HEPA filter altogether and turned it on again. The monkeys were back.
This time I took it back to the vacuum store and a nice young woman named Bailey took it over. Hank looked surprised to see me. I explained the whole thing. “What does it sound like?” Bailey wanted to know, untangling the cord. “Sounds like an F-15 taking off while you’re standing on the tarmac,” I said, and she nodded and said “Fan,” and I was filled with hope. “We’ll get that fixed for you,” she said, and I pointed at Hank.
“Good,” I said. “Because if you can’t, I’m going to need him to come home with me and turn it on.” Hank was fine with that. Bailey flipped the switch. Cue the flying monkeys.
“How long do you think it will take?” I asked.
Bailey crunched her shoulders up under her ears. “A week? Maybe?” she said.
“A week? Maybe?” I said.
Well. The repairman was supposed to be there today, but he kinda sorta hadn’t shown up. Or called. Or anything. So.
I’ve got my fingers crossed. The repairman is probably in Ahmet’s basement playing Dungeons and Dragons but he has to come up for Cheetos sometime.
When my expensive upright vacuum died, I bought a different brand of cordless, stick vacuum, because with my arthritis I wanted something lightweight, easy to take apart to clean, and no cord to trip me up. I even brought in a baggie of the usual dirt that I have at home to try it out on: parrot pellets, hair, feathers, dried leaves. It worked great in the store. Even worked great at home. For a while. Now… not so much.
Sometimes I resort to a broom, although I could use a rake. (We have a lot of trees and a lot of house plants, so a lot of dried leaves make their way inside via our shoes.)
I bought a cordless hand-held vac by Shark on Amazon for much less than I spent on the stick vac. It provides SO MUCH suction that I sometimes use it on the floor, even though I have to stoop over to do that. It’s really loud, but I’m okay with that. If only they could make that vac with a handle, so that I could stand up to use it.
If any of your commenters have found the Holy Grail of vacuums, pleaseplease share the brand with the rest of us. Some days, I just give up altogether, and say “Meh… it’s not THAT bad” as I slog through the leaves.
We should also take our shoes off at the door like civilized people, but we don’t.
Who the fuck ever said that I — or WE — are civilized? I do NOT want to step on “water bugs” when getting up in the middle of the night to pee.
I said “like civilized people.” No implication of current status.
Either vacuum cleaners are flimsy or I’m hell on them. They never last long in my house. It might have something to do with me using steel wool to sand. The little fibers go right to the motor and BZAP! New vacuum time.
Current one works great on handheld hose mode, but the brush crapped out years ago. The belt burned out. I replaced the belt, still didn’t turn the brush.
You’re all probably old enough to remember the Ford Pinto. Shortly after they were recalled to fix the exploding gas tank issue, my dad was trying to drain down the tank (per instructions) before taking it down for the needed repairs.
He was trying to start a siphon by sucking on a hose inserted in the tank. I mean that’s how it’d been done forever, right?
He wasn’t having any luck because sucking on a hose in a gas tank means inhaling toxic gas fumes!
I suggested he use the vacuum cleaner. He’s an engineer and should have known that was a horrible idea. Did it anyway and by some miracle nothing went boom. Did drain the tank.
My mom’s vacuum cleaner reeked of gas from that day forward. Parents were frugal and lived with it. That thing is probably still running somewhere.
The Postal Service introduced Pintos as their standard fleet for a few years. Stripped down, of course, for delivery purposes, and pretty much bare metal with no floor mats or anything. They were spooky. Every time we’d pull up to a stop sign we could hear that ominous sloshing sound beneath our feet.
There was a cartoon about little Shmoo-like aliens I saw on Fazebook that referred to a vacuum as a “suck roller,” and now you can never call them anything else either.
You are correct. Thank you.
I bought my Hoover Preferred Upright in 1994, it came with a spare belt for the roller I have yet to have to replace! As much as I enjoyed your words and story here, I can totally relate to your love of your machine–I talk to mine sometimes the way people talk to their plants. 😊 Glad it’s fixable! 🙂
You should hear me talk about my carpet cleaner. I could not love it more.
Please, name that brand and model!
Doug- my friend goes to an annual national convention of vacuum cleaner collectors—– just saying- a lot of people love the machines…….. altho a convention seems a bit strange
Miele. Word.
My stick vac is Miele. Worked great at first….
Dyson “pet” model. (It’s purple). It has outlived our last 4 dogs.
Yeah, that was my previous one that died. Got it for $20 at a yard sale. Lasted a couple years. Was out to get another when I was seduced by the Miele. I think that at this point, I will just wait for another yard sale.
Bruce Mohn should look into industrial vacuum cleaners for his sanding waste.
Both my parents were smokers back in the day when us kids were little and we had a dog, too, and a bunch of cats (Sally had kittens, another story).
My mother would take out her Electrolux and while she was doing the carpet and floor, she would vacuum out the ashtrays.
My god, that house smelled like dirty ashtrays every time it got vacuumed.
Only once that I know if did she vacuum up a burning cigarette butt, and had to have an emergency bag removal.
Sally’s kittens were all named after cleaning products. Comet, Ajax, Brillo and Pink Pad.
My friend loves vacuums and belongs to a group that sponsors a national convention of several days length each year. It causes him immense pain when he must miss convening.
When we got a bed whose frame was too low for the ancient Hoover to get under, we bought a Roomba. I wanted to name it Portia, but Marsha insisted it would be Igor, so Igor it is. It goes under the bed just fine, but sometimes passes out under there and I have to lie down on the floor and shove it out from under with a broom handle. Its HEPA filter would require replacement at absurdly short and expensive intervals, but instead I take it outside, blow it clean with a can of Dust-Off and re-use it. That seems to be working. Marsha has observed that Igor doesn’t work as well as it used to, even after replacing the HEPA filters and the odd little rubber rollers that substitute for actual brushes. I, being nearly dust-blind (as my mother became in her old age), can hardly tell. (She frequently dusts the TV screen. A dusty TV screen drives her nuts, though I can’t tell the difference.) We’ll probably replace Igor with a younger model, name TBD. But we still hang onto the Hoover for tough jobs. The whole picture will change later this year when we get all the carpets replaced with wood (which my doc told me to do about thirty years ago, for my asthma), but I don’t know how that will go.
Oh, Jeremy! Yes, please! Replace the carpeting with wood! It makes SUCH a difference. My mom always had carpeting, and it was really difficult to get all the detritus out of it. She had the carpeting professionally cleaned once. We had a budgie… the operative word being “had.” He used to love rolling his bell-balls around on the floor. Then, shortly after a carpet cleaning, he started to get sick, and eventually died. One of the first things I did when I inherited her house was to rip up the carpeting with a crowbar and refinish the wood floor underneath. I also got rid of all the curtains, which are dust-sucks, and the upholstered furniture (ditto). We all gotta get out of this HGTV mentality where everyone “needs” window treatments and carpeting, and knick-knacks. I admit that it’s easy for me, as I am a minimalist and not at all sentimental, so it’s easy for me to part with all this stuff. Even books. If I’m sure I’m not going to re-read them, they are donated to a “little library.” Most of the books I read are library books anyway, so it’s a moot point.
A gal after me own heart. I have no carpeting, no curtains. I live in the country and I figure anyone looking in my windows deserves whatever they see.
What with the sleek minimalism, how is it you’re able to wreck vacuums at such a whopping pace? What on earth do you do to those suckers?
I have parrots and lots of houseplants. Both of which are messy. And, to be fair, my Dyson was purchased at a yard sale, so it already had some miles on it. I think that from now on, I may get all of my vacs from garage sales. They are cheap enough, last a couple years, then disposable. It’s planned obsolescence, folks!
Years ago I had to replace my vacuum. I bought an expensive Dyson. The housecleaner I had at the time hated it and said she would have to charge me extra to use it. Dang.
I got one for $20 at a garage sale. It worked great, but was very heavy to use and had a short cord, so I had to keep re-plugging it into other outlets and tripping over the cord. When it died, I got a Mielle cordless stick vac. Worked great at first. Now, not so much. My Shark hand-held vac works SO much better, but requires that I stoop over to vac things up.
We use a huge old shop vac…Unless one of the daughters comes over then they dash off to get their super fabulous expensive one that starts with the letter “m”… I think… We mostly keep shoes outside but still the twirling razor blades from the maples are all over along with loads of grass… and I am always lusting after some magical machine… although I do think those ones that are built into the walls with a big tank in a laundry room or ….. The Pittock Mansion has one of those….
I hated the sound of a vacuum so much that we pulled out the wall-to-wall crapett. Now, I sometimes set off the Roomba as I leave the house, but usually we just live with the dirt until I feel like sweeping. Bad eyesight and bad attitude makes for a lot less housework.
The only read that rival’s Murr for fun is the trail of comments by her fabulous followers. I’ve been putting off cleaning my new (100-year old) house and the ordeal of coughing that accompanies this chore. Loved discovering that I’m not alone with the quandary of vacuum choices. Still laughing at “Comet, Ajax,” and so on.
Thankyou to all!
I am reminded of one of David Letterman’s “Stupid Pet Tricks” episodes, in which someone sicced her little dog (Boston Terrier?) on a vacuum cleaner. The dog did its best to tear it bag from limb.