I want a DustBuster. Very. Badly.
Jethro will not let me have one.
Before anyone starts hollering about partnership, Jethro and I have an unspoken agreement about bossing each other around when it comes to our personal quirks. Occasionally, Jethro needs a kick in the butt when it comes to motivation and keeping positive. (He’s my widdle Eyeore with sexy arms.) I, on the other hand, need to be reined in when it comes to my whims. Sometimes I get a bit….*ahem* overzealous when it comes to my brilliant ideas and why we need to buy something RAIGHT NA-OW. In the course of our marriage, if I had my my way, we would own a serger, two African dwarf frogs, a Prius, a Gazelle, one of each product in the Cricut line and every single puppy I’ve ever seen. It works for us.
And he’s not wrong. I used to ask for things when I was little and my mom would say, “Do you need it, or do you want it?” And, of course, I’d reply, “I NEEEEEEEEED IT.” I’m still a little like that. It can be annoying. But it’s fine. I have big boobs and make killer brownies, also. Things balance out.
HOWEVER, this is not one of those cases. I not only want it, I NEED a DustBuster. And I need your help, my moppets.
Growing up, I was spoiled in the vacuum-arena. My parents (probably my dad) got suckered into buying a Kirby which, in the mid-80’s, was FANCY. I think. It was expensive at least. And it was also sold door-to-door, so it was the Avon of vacuum cleaners. It also was bulky and a pain in the a** to clean, but it was a BEAST. At least to my tiny ears. And I think it might still be running…and if it isn’t, I can guaran-damn-tee that thing is still sittin’ in my parents’ garage. (15 more years with that man and my mother and I get to be on Hoarders. I’m already practicing my “I didn’t know it was this bad!!!” face.)
I should point out that I didn’t use said Kirby very much. My parents would make me vacuum my room, but I’d mostly just move it back and forth in one spot while I read a book. (WHAT? They never checked to see if actually cleaned, they just wanted me to stop talking for a little while.) But I think it is because of this highfalutin’ vacuum cleaner that I have been spoiled for all vacuums EVER.
Which leads me to this.
And this.
Sexy, huh?
These are the vacuums I would like. The Dyson DC25 and the Miele Leo.
The Leo because I’m a Leo also, which doesn’t mean anything but I was an child in the 80’s and habits like giving a sh*t about astrology are hard to break. And it’s yellow and makes me happy. Can’t you just see little bluebirds flying around that baby while you sing a song and vacuum up glitter and sunshine?
And the Dyson because they have good marketing and a pivot ball and bagless canisters seem to mean something when they are talked about by a velvet-throated British guy.
BUT, I do not own either of these. Because they cost a butt-ton and we only have about 30 square feet of carpet in our entire house as it is mostly hardwood floors. Floors that can be cleaned with a boring broom and dustpan. Or a Swiffer, if you want to get fancy.
In lieu of the sexy vacuum of my dreams, I decided that I could have something almost as good. I could have a DUSTBUSTER. Think about it! The baseboards could be cleaned in a snap! My crafting mishaps could be erased with no muss or fuss! When Jethro grooms Maggie, we’d finally be able to get the teeny bits of fluff that always seem to be left behind. I’d get so good at cleaning at I might even dust more often! I’d finally organize the bookshelf! The recycling would be taken out every week! We’d finally act like real grown folks! IT’D BE LIFE CHANGING.
Jethro, in his typical joy-killing fashion, says no. That we don’t need one. That it will languish in the closet, unused and unwanted, once the shine wears off. That I will find some other life-changing toy to hold my interest and the dust bunnies will continue to multiply.
He has a point.
However, the damn things are less than fifty bucks and even if it results in a week of massive cleaning, followed by intermittent spurts once a month when I find the damn thing again, I think that’s still a win.
This is where y’all come in. Who has a fancy DustBuster? Tell me how it’s changed your life and made you a better person. Remind me why I should just buy the damn thing and when Jethro complains, put my foot down and say, “NO, my love. This will NOT stand. The DustBuster STAYS.” Tell me of your own tales of struggle against the oppressive will of your partner. LET’S UNITE!
Also tell me which one to buy, because right now the pretty purple ones are winning over the boring yellow ones.
***EDIT*** I should add that we do have a vacuum cleaner, just a boring one that came with Jethro and was probably bought by his mother for his first apartment. It is not yellow, nor shiny.
Kind of a Mess 
so! my parents (in the UK, where I also live, but a safe and healthy distance away) have a nilfisk vacuum (my dad is insistent that we not use the normal verb “hoover” like normal UK people, because “hoover” is a brand name, so if you say “i’m going to hoover the hall in a minute, can you move your stuff?” my dad will reply with “nilfisk! you’re going to NILFISK the hall” and not move his stuff. for some reason, we don’t use the verb “vacuum” so much here. where was i? oh yeah) that has lasted about 30 years.
but! they also have a dustbuster, because it is woah heavy to schlep the nilfisk out to deal with something small. it needs to be charged up a LOT, so my advice is to check individual models and their power-down time, before you get one that needs to be plugged in for twelve hours just to suck up biscuit crumbs.
there are few sadder things in the world than a DB that doesn’t suck properly. (i’d make a risque joke here, but it’s too obvious).
Also, to be fair to yourself, it’s not a mad purchase and it is useful on places where you can’t Swiffer (does one Swiffer or swiff? What’s the verb construction?) and come ON, you’re going to have a CHILD and they can make mess. AMMUNITION. Totes necessary.
I want to walk around and say I am going to nilfisk something!! I also want to say that I make mad purchases….honestly, I think I really just want to be from the UK. (I have a post about that soon, actually…)
But YES, you are so right. Baby=mess, therefore I need a dustbuster of some sort.
Preferably one with lots of bells and whistles.
I’ve never had a dustbuster, but I hear you on the “spoiled by awesome vacuum” front- my folks have an Oreck, which also used to be sold door to door. I think they mostly advertise on tv, though- you call them and they come and demonstrate it in your house. Which feels really fancy to me.
I will warn you, though- my old flatmate had a Dyson and I hate hate hated it. It had waaaay less suction (I am suspicious of any and all vacuums that lack the spinny brush of doom in the main head) than I’m used to and weight a friggin’ tonne (I live in England, so I get to spell things however I want now. hahaha. Take that, elementary-school teachers.). I think any non-bag style vacuum is way heavier than it needs to be.
Noooo! Don’t kill my Dyson dreams!!
Also, I am jealous that you live in England AND that you get to use words like “tonne” without sounding stupid.
I have a Miele. It is awesome. *is smug and totally useless, but then again, we vacuum regularly because we (by which I mean I and Spouse-Creature reluctantly follows my lead) are obsessive*
SEE! Sophia has a Miele and says it is awesome. Therefore, I need a Miele in my life.
Case closed.
I have a Dyson and a little Bissel Spot Bot for when the cats start hacking up hairballs everywhere. I rarely use either. The former because Jessie hates the sound of vacuum cleaners so I can’t vacuum while he is home, and the latter because we are always out of solution and it just seems easier to grab the bottle of resolve and the scrub brush to get the job done.
That being said I HAD to have both of them. Considering we now have carpeting in almost the entire house they are brilliant for when I am having company over and don’t want to appear to be a complete and total slob. If you had carpeting I would say the Dyson was at least something you had to have, especially with a dog and a baby in the house.
I grew up with a dust buster and loved it, though I am not sure I would use one now. I probably would, but after the Bissel spent almost a year in the box in a closet after it was gifted to me, I am fairly certain Jessie would say no to it.
I did look into the multi floor cleaners when we did have all pergo and tile floors, some that vacuumed and some that vacuumed and steam cleaned at the same time. Those are the ones that I totally coveted. Not that that helps you any, I am just saying something to fill in for my lack of small portable vacuum knowledge.
Ooo, that Spot Bot sounds fancy. Then again, maybe I just like things that rhyme.
Although, don’t mention multi-floor cleaners. I look at those and get the vapors…SEXY.
my grandparents had a dust buster (maybe black & decker?) that we used ALL THE TIME, but I have no idea how long the individual thing lasted – seemed like a pretty well-used and ancient model but it was the 90s last time I saw it and my little kid perception of it is probably skewed. generally though, a dust buster IS really amazing for the little things, when you don’t want/need to bring out the whole big vacuum.
As an adult, I had one that I got as my yankee-swap gift at work – since we had a limit of $20, pretty sure we got the model you see for sale at Rite Aid.. I would not recommend it, it never held a charge very long and we finally just had to throw it out a couple weeks ago when it just flat stopped working at all. So don’t cheap out on it, but as you said, even the nicer ones aren’t usually that expensive. Maybe read some reviews on amazon before you pick one.
And definitely use the kid excuse – just see Liz’s post today about how much constant cleaning you’ll be doing once that baby is mobile!
YES! I can use Liz as ammunition… And good reminder not to go cheap; if we did and it didn’t work, the I told you so’s would NEVER STOP.
Holy crap girl you almost got me in to trouble! I’m currently on a conference call and decided to pull up my Google Reader… and promptly commenced to do my damnest to not actually laugh out loud.
Hee hee! You could have pretended you were choking! And then asked for the day off to recover from your near death experience…
It was a fairly nice day out today too…
hahahaha! Love this post. I just registered for a vacuum. Like wedding registry, for the very reasons you discuss. It’s kind of weird. I know.
Not weird at all. Had I realized that my love for suction devices ran this deep, I would have put that Miele bad boy on there too. (And then promptly been told off my relatives, but you can’t win ’em all….)
We have a little DirtDevil hand vac that I use almost exclusively for cleaning up cat litter & cat food. It’s fine for that but definitely not for use on large areas. What’s really obnoxious is that I can’t find replacement filters for it anywhere. There’s only so much cat hair a hand vac filter can take, you know?
We had problems finding filters for the regular vacuum. I take it as a sign that we need a canister vac. Jethro ignores me…
Um. Baby = Vacuum is a necessity. I think a dust buster is the perfect solution if you don’t have much carpet. I will say that the Dyson, which I own and love, can also be used on hardwood floors – you just turn the spinny brush off. Our place is all hardwood or tile, except for an area rug in the living room, and I use that sucker everywhere. Because I hate to sweep.
I clarified in the post; we do have a vacuum, just a crappy one. BUT, you’ve proven to me that not only do I need a dust buster, I should get a Dyson also. Cuz Cindy says so.
If you’re serious about the Miele, it does have a wide attachment that gets the dust off hard floors… even better than a broom. I just use my bagless BIssell on the bare floor setting, because my kitchen mat refuses to be swept clean. I love the bagless because I can empty it anytime I want, just to see how much gross stuff is in a particular room.
It’s grody, but that’s kind of the draw of the vacuum. I wanna see how much gunk it sucks up and bags keep it from me….
I now want a dustbuster so badly that I have opened up a window on amazon and … am … really … close … to … hitting … BUY
It’s pay day, I have wine (it’s 9pm in the UK I’m allowed) and you’ve made me buy a dusbuster
I heart you
I heart you too. Even if you DON’T buy a dust buster. Which would be sad, but understandable. Mostly. (You totally need it. Tell me which on you get.)
And have some wine for me, I MISS IT SO MUCH.
I think I had wine for ALL of us but somehow managed not to purchase a dustbuster, and now I really need one ‘cos I spilt crisps on the sofa after drinking too much wine
sigh
life is hard
I have a basic brand-unknown dust buster from target that I use ALL*THE*TIME. Mostly because I’m too lazy to drag out the big vacuum cleaner for small things. But I also use it for pet hair on the sofa, and I wish it were a little better at that.
I got one of those pet hair remover brushes for like 5 bucks, got bored and then never used it again. Sometimes, the pet hair wins….
I think this is a safe space for me to admit that I don’t own a vacuum cleaner. The house has vacu-flow, but the attachments didn’t work so we tossed them. And now, every other month, I drive across town to borrow my mother’s dyson. So yes, in setting up the nursery on the weekend? I had to drive to my mother’s and steal her vacuum.
I am a 30 year old home owner who can’t get her shit together to even own a vacuum, let alone clean. Sigh.
There is no shame in this. It’s an excuse to see your mom, right? You’re making her feel loved! You’re just being a good daughter. See?!? No shame. Kudos to you.
(The spinning? I’m excellent at it. It’s how I get through the day.)
I love you. You’re the David and I’m the me, so I guess that makes sense.
You are the killer of joy.
If it weren’t for you people, people like David and I would rule the world.
And have dustbusters.
I was also told by my spouse “you don’t need that” when Wallyworld put dustbusters on sale.
I waited (there is a clause if you wait past the “don’t buy that” time, it no longer counts) a week or so, and then I bought it anyway.
I use it ALL THE TIME. I leave it plugged up, so it is always charged, and I am pretty sure it is a black and decker one, but on the hard surface areas? The BEST for getting assorted dust and gunk up and out of corners. Much better than other methods, which basically push the dust around, raising it in the air, which is Not Good For Babies before disposing of it.
I clean more often, because I can notice a dust bunny, grab the dustbuster and hoover it right up. Bam!
You NEED one. Seriously. 🙂
“Not Good For Babies.”
You said the magic words. I bet if I bring this up to Captain Paranoid, it might do the trick.
Then again, maybe not. He may be Captain Paranoid, but he’s also Cheapskate McGee…
My fiance’ actually used to sell Kirby’s a few years ago. It made him hate dysons though as he proved time and again that they still left a lot behind. When I had to purchase a new vacuum I was petrified because of all he knew about them that my decision would be fully criticized since well we couldn’t afford a Kirby. Wound up with a Eureka Boss and he approves of that yay! and is was only $100 at wally world, double yay for not super expensive!!!
Dust busters are highly important when you have a wee one. Ask Jethro is he going to sweep up all the soggy cheerioes the ba-be spills onto the floor or what about when the child discovers ripping paper is fun?
And a real life general example of why dustbusters are awesome. The other day I managed to spill coffee grounds onto the carpet. Before Dust Buster I would have gabbed a damp paper towel, made a half @ssed attempt at cleaning it up and then figure oh well the dogs will probably get it and become super charged meh. With dust buster, I pulled the sucker right off the wall and quickly zipped up the grounds which meant no super charged dogs which well went unnoticed since the one lacks an off switch anyways. I was more adult and clean because of the dust buster.
YES! So you’re saying, if Jethro doesn’t let me have a dustbuster, I should just leave the mess for HIM to pick up when he gets home from work!!!
Okay, that’s not what you are saying, but that is what I am going with.
Also, I love that yours is called “Boss.” Makes it sound TOUGH…
The tags on this post are awesome.
And buy the dust buster, they rock. I totally want one now.
I’ve been wanting a dust buster for about 2 years now. I want to attach the charger stand thing straight to the wall in our bathroom by the litter box so that I can zap up the litter that our cat scatters around the bathroom. But I can’t bring myself to buy one because I have a small dirt devil vacuum of some sort that I got as a hand-my-down from my grandparents’ house AGES ago and it serves the same purpose, except it is bigger and has to be stored in the closet, so it is a bit of a pain to put away. When it stops working, I will buy myself a dust buster, but I am making myself wait it out. But it must be really well made, because it still works really well even though it seems pretty ancient. I may never get a dust buster at this rate. 🙂
All that to say- I think one would be invaluable, especially with a baby who will then grow up to be a toddler toddling around and leaving crumbs everywhere. 🙂
I know waaaaaay too much about Dysons from trying to convince brides to register for them. For one, their plastic is really durable, and all the pieces and vacuums are drop tested over 5,000 times in development. (No, I did not make that number up.) The ball is really as great as you think it will be, although I suggest going to a store and trying it to make sure it feels comfortable. I broke both my wrists as a kid and now I can’t do weird twisting motions, so no ball for me. Never would have guessed had I not tried one out. They all have different attachments, of course, which are nice. There’s even one for mattresses, which is great if your pets insist on sleeping in bed with you. How pet hair gets through the sheets is beyond me.
The one you picked can do hardwood floors, too. And of course, you never have to buy filters, just rinse with water and let it dry. And they really don’t get clogged, not even when you use them to clean up a store that hundreds of people have been walking around in all day.
Although since you have pet hair to contend with, you might want to consider something from their Animal line.
We have a Dustbuster and pretty much never use it. It gets clogged really easily and we can never find filters for it. Ian does like to use it to vacuum his car, though.
PS: I don’t have a vacuum either! I borrow my mother-in-law’s when she lets me, which is not often. She likes to come over unannounced and make snide remarks about how dirty our carpets are and how full of allergens our home is. Sigh.
WELL. It’s a good damn thing I decided to tackle my GoogleReader this morning or you’d be deprived of my most excellent advice (which is as follows):
We don’t have any carpet, just a few rugs here and there, and We have an Electrolux Ergorapido which not only has a funny name and is ORANGE but is a two-in one floor-vac and dustbuster combined! You get a neato Transformers ™ effect which is always something I look for in house appliances. I use the Electroux on the floors and our crappy off-brand vacuum on the rugs themselves.
We have two dogs and two cats and a husband who frequently comes home covered in dried manure that flakes off as he walks through the door (mmm. delicious.) and it rarely gets clogged. I use it all the time. Sometimes I mix things up and sweep and then just use the dust-busted part to vacuum up the piles — because you never can get ALL the dirt into the dustpan… and the best part? We got it for about $70 at Target ( a coupon and a sale). Google says it sells for about $100 bucks which is spendy, but less than a Dyson. We didn’t really *NEED* it, but we certainly use it! Well okay, who am I kidding, I use it. But that’s what counts.