Jackpot!!!

So...I've had the same cheap Eureka vacuum cleaner since I got my first apartment in college. That's been about 4 years ago. Anyway...it blows now. Or almost. Since we're about to get a house with 3 floors of brand new carpet, I knew it was time to break down and get one. Especially since my old one didn't pick up hair well at all. I've been doing a ton of research to try to decide which one to get. Of course Dyson was the first to pop in my head. I especially liked the ball. Since we have Bailey now, I thought it was a good idea to get the animal. I wanted this one. I did not want to spend $550 for a vacuum cleaner. I was trying to figure out if I was willing to sacrifice other things for the house if there were other vacuums out there that could do just as well. I didn't want to spend that much money on just a name. I did some research and talked to some people I know with dogs and I was starting to lean toward this Shark. I knew it might not last long but it's almost $400 cheaper. If it lasted 2 good years I would have been fine. 

I don't like to pay full price for anything. I've been looking around on Craigslist for a while, just to see what kind of deals I could find. There are a TON of things we're going to need to buy very soon and I don't mind getting some of them used. A weedeater for example. Who cares if it's new? Anyway, I saw THE Dyson! I was a little skeptical because it was only $100. The listing said the vacuum itself worked great but the wand attachment had no suction. I thought I would give it a shot as long as I tried out the vacuum & it seemed fine. I really liked the vacuum & I was confident that we could figure out what was going on with the wand for less than $400. 

We brought it home and the first thing I did was break out the Eureka then vacuum over the same areas with the Dyson. This is what I found!

Isn't that disgusting?!?! 

We played around with the wand. I was determined to figure out what was wrong with it because Dyson has some very awesome attachments that I want to get for it. So...what was wrong with it? There is a little flap that opens up when the wand is attached to the vacuum. When you remove it, the flap is supposed to close by itself. It usually doesn't. The flap open with the wand in place is circled below (excuse the thin red line). Right now we have to manually close it. Certainly not a big deal and definitely worth saving $450! We'll play around with it a little more to see if we can fix it so we don't have to worry about anything.

So...other than needing a good cleaning and having to close a little flap if I want to use the attachments, there's nothing wrong with this baby. A $550 Dyson for $100! Definitely the best deal I've ever found :-)