Tis’ the season for a new vacuum!

December 04, 2009 | Jill | Comments 957

Thank you to Mandy from JackandMandy.com for the button!

About a month ago, after another unsuccessful attempt to suck up all the dog hair and filth from my floors, I tweeted something like, “Vacuum, oh vacuum. Why don’t you suck?” because that’s what I do with random vents and frustrations about mindless things like household appliances when there’s no one to voice them to but the toddler, I tweet them. Later that day I got an email from Dyson’s PR folks. They wanted to send me a vacuum, promising I’d never complain about lack of suction again.

I mulled around my wishy washy stance on product reviews as of late and how I’d been thinking of giving them up altogether because I was sick of worrying about becoming “that mommy blogger”, then I tossed it aside with the quick reminder to myself that, “HELLO!! This is a DYSON!” and I promptly agreed to accept the offer.

The next week I came home to my husband, sitting in a pile of cardboard and Dyson D25 vacuum pieces, assembling it with a look of Christmas morning plastered on his face. “It came!” he exclaimed (and suddenly this blog of mine just got really serious for him). He put it together with lightening speed and proceeded to start vacuuming. I had to stop him, “Hey, wait! I’m the one who’s supposed to be reviewing it. Hang on!” “But I’m just going to do one room,” he replied. We were arguing over who got to vacuum. Cue Twilight Zone music.

After I managed to wrestle it away from him I got our old Hoover out to do a little experiment. I ran it over the living room floor and it pulled up a ton of stuff. We’d been gone over the weekend and hadn’t had a chance to vacuum, so there was a lot for it to suck up. Looking at the amount of hair and debris in the canister, it looked like the Hoover did a pretty decent job. Plus, it left such pretty track marks that always make me feel like my house is a whole extra level of clean.

Then I brought in the Dyson and ran it over the same area. O….M…..G…. gross. It pulled up just as much as the Hoover did on the first pass, and it somehow even managed to suck up a small feather. I don’t know where the feather came from, still haven’t been able to figure that one out.

I handed it back over to my husband since he was itching to put it to the test. He ran it in every room of the house, and it’s like our carpet changed colors, which was both exciting and made me want to gag. When he got to the hallway, I stopped him and asked what the attachment on the handle did. He pulled it up and showed me that it was the Quick-Draw Telescope Reach wand. I looked above us and noticed the vents that needed cleaning, like, 6 months ago. We put it to the test. That bad boy sucked every last speck of dust off that vent, and it was a beautiful thing.

Since then, we’ve used it several times, both on the carpet and on our kitchen and bathroom tile floors. You can turn the brush bar off and on, so I think it’s safe to use on hardwoods, but we didn’t test it on that surface since we don’t have any. It does a great job of quick cleanup on the kitchen floor, though, which makes it even more useful for me.

So here’s the official pros and cons list, let’s start with the cons because, yes, there are a few.

Cons:

1. Price- Yeah, that’s a big one. We’ve always wanted a Dyson, but that’s a hefty chunk of change that we haven’t been able to justify spending, especially since the Hoover wasn’t exactly dead yet. At full retail price, this model costs more than my washing machine does ($499.99). That being said, I saw them on sale during Black Friday, and I’ll bet they go on sale again. Also, I will say that if you have the $$ to spend and are in the market for a new vacuum, I would consider it a wise investment.

2. Noise- In comparison to our old vacuum, this seems to be louder. Not that that’s a huge issue for me, but just an observation.

3. Cord- The cord is shorter than my old vacuum, meaning I have to move the plug to three outlets to reach the whole house instead of two.

4. No cool looking tracks- Weird, I know. I think I’m just so trained to feel the house is “clean” when I see those vacuum tracks in the carpet. Oh well, I’ll get over it.

Soo… that’s pretty much it for the cons. On to the pros.

Pros:

1. It works!- Holy cow, it really works, tracks or not, this thing sucks everything up. Even better, the lazy homemaker in me loves that it seems that I can go even longer in between vacuuming. See, I’m not one of those vacuum every day type of people. I vacuum when it reaches a certain level of gross. It seems I can go longer before reaching that level.

2. It moves!- It’s really very easy to maneuver. So easy that I was able to vacuum all the way around my tantruming toddler as he laid on the floor, kicking and screaming.

3. It’s lightweight- It’s easy for me to lift up and over baby gates.

4. Cleanup- It’s easy to empty the container, and the debris doesn’t seem to start oozing out before you open it up. That happened with our old vacuum.

5. Filters- No need to replace a filter, just wash the filter that’s in there every three months. Comes with very clear instruction on how to do this.

6. The Quick-Draw Telescope Reach wand- It’s really so much easier to just pop this thing up and use it than what I had to do with my old vacuum, which meant disconnecting a dirty hose.

7. All floors!- I love, love, love that it cleans up my kitchen tile floor better than I ever could with a broom and a dustpan.

8. Style- Hey, it’s a good looking piece of machinery.

So this is the part that I’m most excited to write about. They not only were kind enough to send me a new vacuum, but they agreed to giveaway a brand new D25 to one of my readers, too! So exciting! So I’m going to run this more like a traditional giveaway to give everyone a few chances to enter. Here’s what you need to do (do any or all of these things, your choice, just leave one comment for each thing you do):

1. Comment below telling me why you want a Dyson D25
2. Subscribe to my feed
3. Follow me on Twitter (@BabyRabies)
4. Tweet about this contest
5. Blog about this contest and link back to this page
6. Make a donation to your local food bank

(To answer some questions, if you’re already following me on Twitter or already subscribe to my feed, that’s cool! Still eligible to enter, just leave me a comment saying so. Also, any donation to any organization giving food to the hungry this season counts.)

That’s it! I’ll use Random.org to draw a winner on Friday, December 18th sometime early-ish in the day, just in time for the holidays!

(Only open to residents of the US and Canada due to shipping.)

And in case it’s not already clear, I received the Dyson D25 for free to review.

Comments are now closed. The winner was drawn on December 18th.