I bought one of those Bissel Bagless vacs at Target… brought it home to take it out of the box to have it dump someone else’s Christmas tree needles all over my floor. I found it noisy and underpowered when I ran it (after cleaning it out), and it got the worst CU rating. I then went to Sears and bought a $99 Kenmore QuickClean, also somewhat poorly rated, but it cleans well, not too noisy, and as far as dust goes, I empty the canister outside on trash night, when I take the garbage bags out. In a 950 sq. ft. apartment w/ 2 dogs, I vacuum about once a week and empty it about once a month.
Dyson baby, Dyson.
it sucks like, well, like a Dyson!
bagless and comes in funky colours!
Depending on the size and layout of her house, a central vac. system may be the way to go. If you have a basement or crawlspace to run the PVC piping, and are willing to do the work yourself you can do it for under $500.
No portable vacuum under 50lbs. will compare to the suction you can get from these systems. I put in a fairly complicated NuTone system in my new house for less than $600 and my father retrofitted one into my childhood home back in the 70’s. The capacity and suction can’t be beat. I know the NuTone my father installed 30-odd years ago is still working to this day.
Shark
(not the Shark to which AHunter3 was referring )