Vacuums that Suck

Because I own a parrot and live in the mountains, as well as being generally "neat", I find myself vacuuming perhaps a little more than your ordinary person. Or maybe not, I’m not really sure. The point is, I’ve owned a bunch of vacuums in my relatively short life.

I think my family owned maybe two vacuums that I can recall when I was a kid. Those Hoovers ran for years and years in a four bedroom house with four people and one cat. Until now, all the vacuums I’ve owned have barely lasted more than a couple years, if that.

A couple years ago, I listened to the advertising and bought a Dyson. And you know what? It really is as good as advertised, at least so far. It was expensive, yes, but if it lasts me even five years, it will have been worth it, easily.

As I mentioned above, I own a parrot, and owning a parrot means you pretty much have to own a little hand vacuum because they constantly preen themselves and pick little bits of down off themselves. Not to mention their somewhat sloppy eating habits. So I find myself vacuuming up parrot-related detritus from around Rina’s cage, and anywhere else she hangs out, on a regular basis. As nice as the Dyson is, it’s not convenient to drag it out just for that.

Until now, I’ve used a series of dust busters and dirt devils for these quick jobs. All of these handheld vacuums were pretty bad. They had a hard time picking up the food pellets that Rina tends to scatter around. If you saw one of these pellets, you’d understand how pathetic that is. They also don’t hold a charge for more than a few minutes even when brand new. But I didn’t know of any other option, except for the Dyson handhelds. But those are really expensive, seem like overkill, and I had heard they weren’t all that great anyway, and certainly not worth $150-200.

Several weeks ago I heard a guy on a radio show that focuses on computers and related products give a review of … a handheld vacuum cleaner! Huh? He was so impressed by this vacuum, he felt it deserved a review even though it was pretty far outside the primary subject matter of the program.

It so happens that my most recent hand vacuum had just completely died (battery would not take a charge at all), so this guy’s review was very timely for me. After looking into the product a bit, I decided to get one. FilterStream has several different models. I went with the top of the line Ultima. It’s only been a few weeks, but I’m quite impressed as well.

This handheld is about the same size as your standard DustBuster, a little bit bigger. It’s definitely heavier, which I think is largely due to the Ni-Cad battery, but perhaps also because the motor is quite powerful. Which would also explain why it’s fairly noisy. Then again, it is a vacuum! When you switch it on, it feels like a tiny jet engine. At $70, it’s more expensive than a DustBuster, but still considerably less than a Dyson.

How it performs over time I’ll have to wait and see. But it’s looking like a really good deal so far.