A good vacuum for someone with pets

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here’s the thing about attempting to research vaccuums: there is all kinds of information that contradicts other information, tons of claims made by marketing companies that seem unreliable, and not a lot of clear answers. Thus, here I am.

So, I’ve been using my $50 Walmart Dirt Devil that I bought to use in my very first apartment. Six or seven years later, I now live in a 2500 square foot house with two dogs and. . . well, yesterday my attempt at vacuuming the living room and the frustration that resulted has made me realize I need to buy a big girl vacuum.

Some relevant notes:

I do have a housekeeper that comes once every two weeks to do the heavy duty cleaning, but I still like to be able to make the carpets lovely a few times a week on my own.

I find black dog hair everywhere. So, something that specializes in this would be lovely.

The house does have stairs, so if it’s got some nifty feature to deal with that, it’d be great— but the truth is that the upstairs goes mostly unused, so easy stair navigation isn’t exactly a necessity.

I’m not the most handy person. So, ideally, this vacuum would be pretty self sustaining (ie: not needing a lot of crazy upkeep or things of that nature).

Price: I’m willing to shell out some dough if it’s worth it. In my mind, I’m not sure I can rationalize more than a few hundred dollars for a vacuum, but I am a cheapskate, so the better deal the. . .well, better for me. I do realize that there is often a trade off between quality and price, so I’m willing to explore that.

Ok, phew! So! Dopers, help me find a vacuum please.

2

They ain’t cheap, but they do work:Dyson animal. Keep an eye on Woot.com and they show up about once a month for around $300.

I got one in November and it pick up the dog hair really well.

3

Yep. I belong to a breed-specific dog message board, and there are many people on that board who love this machine.

I personally have a Miele, and while they aren’t cheap either, they do an outstanding job of picking up hair too (mine is actually worse than the dog’s since it’s a lot longer).

4

My Shark Navigator does a great job with cat hair for a fraction of the price of a Dyson, but cat hair ain’t dog hair, so ymmv.

5

I, too, have a Shark Navigator. Works wonders. The Eureka RiverVisor 71b is a handheld that works surprisingly well on hair, with a limited capacity.

Hardwood floors, of course, help.

6

I used to have a bunch of cats. At one point in my life, other than my car, my Dyson vacuum was the most expensive thing I owned, and it was worth every penny. I had the base model, it was cheaper than the Animal, and I don’t miss having the fancy attachments at all. Sucker is heavy, but the hose is stretchy enough that I can leave it at the bottom of the stairs and alllllmost get all the way to the top.

Dyson, hands down!

7

Yeah, I frequently see the Dyson’s on Woot but am never sure if it’s a good buy. $300 isn’t too awful if it really is worth it. Do they Dyson’s hold up pretty well without having to need too much tweaking?

You know, I think it was a different Shark I was looking at recently for other things— about half of my house is tile, the whole steam vacuum thing would be helpful to get the dog hair off the tile. I realize you didn’t link to a steam one, but that’s actually something else I was looking at.

8

I bought my Dyson Animal in 2004. That thing is still working as well as it did when it was new. I currently have two dogs, a white Siberian Husky and a lab mix. The Husky sheds ALL the time and the Dyson works wonders.

Before the dogs mentioned above, I had a lab mix who was a prolific shedder; I had black hair everywhere. He was the reason for purchasing the Dyson. Again, it worked wonders.

9

Funny you mention that: a lab mix is the source of all the hair in my house, too.

10

Yes, yes, absolutely yes. Dyson’s hold up great. Fantastic suction that lasts for years. I’ve had my current Dyson for 7 years and it still works as good as when it was new. I’ve had a host of other vacuums, both bagged and not, and I would only get a year or two out of them. The non-Dyson clones worked great at first, but they quickly lost suction. I think it’s because the places where the hoses come together would develop leaks. The Dyson has not seemed to fail at all.

The things I don’t like about the Dyson is that the extendable hose is a little wonky and it’s a bit of a pain to remove hair from the beater brush. In my other vacuums it was easier to pull the beater brush out of the vacuum and remove all the hair. In the Dyson, it’s a pain to put the brush back in. What I do now is take a razor blade and slice the hair along the brush and pull it off without taking the brush out. Other than that, it’s by far the best vacuum I’ve ever owned.

I would not recommend getting the Shark. I don’t know anything about it other than it’s an infomercial product. Those companies cut every corner they can to make the price low and still make a profit. It may work when you pull it out of the box, but I’d think it would start to lose effectiveness quickly.

11

So cute!

We have a Dyson Animal too and love it, practically sucks the carpet off the floor. It does leave vacuum tracks though, I can’t regret the Animal but I do wonder if we might have been happier with one of the ball models which are also a bit lighter.

If you do go with Dyson, I wouldn’t fuss with the attachment kit. We played with all of them once and now they just moulder in the closet next to the second leaf for the dining room table and some tragic hot pink jackets from the early 90’s.

12

I just broke down last year and bought a powerful wet/dry shop vac to deal with the cat hair. Works like a charm.

13

Dyson.

14

I have had great luck with my Kenmore Progressive. I purposely went for a bagged model because I got tired of getting hair all over the place when I transferred the canister to the trash.

I have a very itchy and very sheddy golden and I’ve never had a problem cleaning up her scratched off clumps of hair (poor doggy). I think I’ve had it about 3 years now, using it 1+ times per week without losing suction.

The attachments work great too. I have a loose throw rug in my bedroom and I can sweep it with the floor brush attachment without sucking up the rug but still getting all the hair up.

I would have gone for a Dyson Animal if I had the money but this worked great for me.

15

It sounds as though this one could suck up almost any kind of pet–at least up to medium-sized dogs and regular-sized cats.

16

I don’t have carpets or a pet, but I’ve seen pet owners here post positively about their roombas–maybe one can weigh in? $300-400 depending where you get it, but I see a used one on Amazon for $235.

17

Be aware that if you get a Roomba, you need the special pet one - 500 series. Our Golden’s hair burned out our first, cheap one. You also need to do a really good job cleaning it. Every so often I open it up and clean under the brush cage.
They aren’t the most reliable vacuums on the planet, on the other hand we vacuum more often since after you pick up a room you can start it and forget it until it is full of dog hair.

18

Eureka Mighty Mite is a powerful and inexpensive canister vacuum. Think I got mine for less than $90. Very good for sucking up dog hair and no rollers or belts.

Take off the hose tip and it will happily gobble up marbles, quarters, socks, etc. Be careful! :wink:

19

I believe that the top-ranked vacuum cleaner in Consumer Reports’ rankings is the Hoover WindTunnel Anniversary Edition. It’s about $230 at Best Buy and about $190 at Amazon. My mother bought a refurbished one last year from Ocean State Job Lot for $100 and has been happy with it, although they don’t have any pets. (And note that there are several Hoover models that are all called “Anniversary Edition.” At least one of them comes with a pet-hair tool for removing pet hair from upholstery.)

20

We have two dogs and two cats, which means a fuckton of animal hair. I highly recommend the Dyson Animal – we’ve had ours for years and years and it still fucking rocks. Especially if you have carpet. It works well on wood floors but carpet and rugs is where you really get your money’s worth.

We also have a Roomba. I like it a lot, but it is hard to recommend, actually. Ours was a gift from a friend who (thankfully) bought at from Hammacher-Schlemmer, which has a lifetime return policy. Which is good because we’re on our fourth one. They last about 6-12 months and then die. While they work, they’re good for keeping the major hairballs at bay but they aren’t a replacement for a proper vacuum. And I’d have long given up on them if I was paying for new ones out of my own pocket.