«

Not really After my trusty old Electrolux finally died, and there
were no parts to be found, I took a punt on a super-cheapo Chinese
no-name bagless device. You get what you pay for, I guess. Now I'm
prepared to go a bit up-market (not to the Dyson level) and I'm looking
for suggestions for a good value machine. I have no problem with a
bagging machine, but I'd be interested to hear others' opinions about
bagging vs bagless.

In article <kdpqj1$oid$>,
says...
>
> Not really After my trusty old Electrolux finally died, and there
> were no parts to be found, I took a punt on a super-cheapo Chinese
> no-name bagless device. You get what you pay for, I guess. Now I'm
> prepared to go a bit up-market (not to the Dyson level) and I'm looking
> for suggestions for a good value machine. I have no problem with a
> bagging machine, but I'd be interested to hear others' opinions about
> bagging vs bagless.

I've read Dyson reviews and they are not desirable in Real Life (tm) by
all accounts, never mind the flashy look.

My previous one was a Phillips, we phased it out because it didn't have
microfilters fine enough to spare me sneezing attacks when vacuuming.
Still does champion duties in my wife's sewing and felting loft (cheap
generic bags weren't as good as the originals, but serve where it is
now).

We replaced it with a Miele "Cat & Dog" vacuum cleaner, and that one is
simply superb. (not bagless) I can run it aroud the house for an hour
and no sneezing nor swollen eyes.

-P.

On 24/01/2013 8:43 p.m., Peter Huebner wrote:

>
> We replaced it with a Miele "Cat & Dog" vacuum cleaner, and that one is
> simply superb. (not bagless) I can run it aroud the house for an hour
> and no sneezing nor swollen eyes.

I looked at (and tried) one of these and they seemed awesome. However I
bought a Nilfisk Bravo Pet Pack vacuum as it seemed to offer similar
performance for around half the price - 6 months on and I am extremely
happy with my purchase.

On 24/01/2013 6:35 p.m., geoff wrote:
> "Gib Bogle" <> wrote in message
> news:kdpqj1$oid$...
>> Not really After my trusty old Electrolux finally died, and there were
>> no parts to be found, I took a punt on a super-cheapo Chinese no-name
>> bagless device. You get what you pay for, I guess. Now I'm prepared to
>> go a bit up-market (not to the Dyson level) and I'm looking for
>> suggestions for a good value machine. I have no problem with a bagging
>> machine, but I'd be interested to hear others' opinions about bagging vs
>> bagless.
>
> The Dyson we have a work is a POS. Flimsy clunky plasticcy crap.
>
> geoff
>
>

I'm glad to hear it, since I have no intention of buying one.

On 24/01/2013 8:43 p.m., Peter Huebner wrote:
> In article <kdpqj1$oid$>,
> says...
>>
>> Not really After my trusty old Electrolux finally died, and there
>> were no parts to be found, I took a punt on a super-cheapo Chinese
>> no-name bagless device. You get what you pay for, I guess. Now I'm
>> prepared to go a bit up-market (not to the Dyson level) and I'm looking
>> for suggestions for a good value machine. I have no problem with a
>> bagging machine, but I'd be interested to hear others' opinions about
>> bagging vs bagless.
>
> I've read Dyson reviews and they are not desirable in Real Life (tm) by
> all accounts, never mind the flashy look.
>
> My previous one was a Phillips, we phased it out because it didn't have
> microfilters fine enough to spare me sneezing attacks when vacuuming.
> Still does champion duties in my wife's sewing and felting loft (cheap
> generic bags weren't as good as the originals, but serve where it is
> now).
>
> We replaced it with a Miele "Cat & Dog" vacuum cleaner, and that one is
> simply superb. (not bagless) I can run it aroud the house for an hour
> and no sneezing nor swollen eyes.
>
> -P.
>

We don't seem to have allergy issues related to vacuuming. We do have
great quantities of dog hair.

On 24/01/13 20:43, Peter Huebner wrote:
> In article <kdpqj1$oid$>,
> says...
>>
>> Not really After my trusty old Electrolux finally died, and
>> there were no parts to be found, I took a punt on a super-cheapo
>> Chinese no-name bagless device. You get what you pay for, I guess.
>> Now I'm prepared to go a bit up-market (not to the Dyson level) and
>> I'm looking for suggestions for a good value machine. I have no
>> problem with a bagging machine, but I'd be interested to hear
>> others' opinions about bagging vs bagless.
>
> I've read Dyson reviews and they are not desirable in Real Life (tm)
> by all accounts, never mind the flashy look.
>
> My previous one was a Phillips, we phased it out because it didn't
> have microfilters fine enough to spare me sneezing attacks when
> vacuuming. Still does champion duties in my wife's sewing and felting
> loft (cheap generic bags weren't as good as the originals, but serve
> where it is now).
>
> We replaced it with a Miele "Cat & Dog" vacuum cleaner, and that one
> is simply superb. (not bagless) I can run it aroud the house for an
> hour and no sneezing nor swollen eyes.
>
We had a Miele and it didn't suck. That is to say, it did suck because
it didn't suck. Heh! Having got that off my chest, I will reiterate, the
Miele we had was rubbish. And changing or emptying the bags was sheer hell.

We got a Dyson and we won't be changing back to a bagged vacuum. It is
marvellous, and really gets the carpets clean. I've not noticed any
sneezing attacks.

Cheers,

Cliff

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Peter Huebner wrote:
> In article <kdpqj1$oid$>,
> says...
[snip]
> We replaced it with a Miele "Cat & Dog" vacuum cleaner, and that one
> is simply superb. (not bagless) I can run it aroud the house for an
> hour and no sneezing nor swollen eyes.

That's great Peter! Would you come and do the same for me?

LOL, I can (mulch) mow the lawn (I have a very good, commercial-grade mower)
without *too* much trouble if I save a morphine pill for the two days
previously. It's sore while I do it but then, when I've had a cool shower
and run water on my back I'm not so bad.

However vacuuming the carpets is another matter entirely. For a start I've
never seen a vacuum cleaner with a long enough 'wand'. (I'm not that tall
but can't bend forward at the waist too much.) Unlike mowing lawns I find
that I have to really lean into the cleaning and apply quite a lot of
pressure at the vacuum head to open the 'pile' of the carpet enough to get
it properly clean. (I say 'pile' as the carpets in this rental aren't
exactly shag-pile. <g>) The end result of this is usually two+ days of
having to grab the opposite side of the mattress to turn over in bed in the
mornings (that's just the start of the hellacious day!).

The last time I vacuumed it was four days and the extreme pain had graduated
to the 'agony' category. I couldn't do much of anything for over
half-a-week. Consequently I haven't vacuumed since (which means this year)
and I hate it!

To answer your enquiry about makes and models of vacuum I originally (back
in ~2002 or so) bought a cheap-ish Nilfisk (~$350) as I liked the idea - It
had a small vortex filter[*] towards the top of the wand that you could
easilly see and empty before it got too full and the detritus went into the
bag. (Of course the lighter dust still goes into the bag but, with this
system you can get 10 x the use out of a bag.)

However the design was flawed. Two units burned out within the first couple
of weeks of use (I wasn't so sore then). After taking the second one back
the store got a rep to come out and he said that they were getting roughly
25% of them back. The outlet of the vortex had a mesh with about 10 threads
to the millimeter and it was too restrictive - the motors overheated.

In the end I upgraded to a Nilfisk King priced at ~$700 (this was a reduced
price, taking into account the hassle I'd been through!) which, because I
bought it on HP over three years and at the time didn't have contents
insurance anded up costing me over $1.2K! Lesson learned, no more HP (unless
it has a 'no-interest' period and I can pay it off in that time) and I now
have contents insurance.

However, when the second of the cheaper ones blew it's top I only took the
motor part into the shop - I was sick of lugging all the pipes etc. I told
the Nilfisk rep I'd drop them off next time I was in town and he said not to
worry about it.

After using the King for a couple months and paying through the nose for the
bags I modified the vortex-on-wand system to fit - removing the fine mesh
and just relying on centrepital force to keep most of the 'dust' out of the
bag. It works reasonably well, the bags last more than 5 x longer than they
used to.
[*] I like vortex filters - having designed and built them into quite a few
large-scale 'aquarium' systems in the early 90s. It's great to just open a
valve and there goes 90% of the rubbish into a bucket - instead of having to
endlessly squeeze sponges to clean them out.

I have a meeting with W&I coming up in a week or so to re-assess my
eligibility for the 'special benefit' (read: reduce it even further) so I'll
raise the issue of getting a house-cleaner in for an hour a week minimum to
vacuum my carpets as I simply can't do it any more. We won't even talk
about the black mould on the walls and ceilings of the 'wet areas' of the
house that I can no longer clean off! :-/
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

In article <kdt2tt$gls$>,
says...
>
> I have a meeting with W&I coming up in a week or so to re-assess my
> eligibility for the 'special benefit' (read: reduce it even further) so I'll
> raise the issue of getting a house-cleaner in for an hour a week minimum to
> vacuum my carpets as I simply can't do it any more. We won't even talk
> about the black mould on the walls and ceilings of the 'wet areas' of the
> house that I can no longer clean off! :-/
> --
> /Shaun.
>
>

Gods, I am appalled that there isn't better support available for you.
I am pretty sure that in our area (Hokianga) the hospital would send
someone around to clean and help a few hours a week. Have you tried
talking to your community nurse if there's something available in your
area?

The social security net seems to be gnawed at and whittled away bit by
bit by our beloved neo-con political gasbags.

-P.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Peter Huebner wrote:
> In article <kdt2tt$gls$>,
> says...
>>
>> I have a meeting with W&I coming up in a week or so to re-assess my
>> eligibility for the 'special benefit' (read: reduce it even further)
>> so I'll raise the issue of getting a house-cleaner in for an hour a
>> week minimum to vacuum my carpets as I simply can't do it any more.
>> We won't even talk about the black mould on the walls and
>> ceilings of the 'wet areas' of the house that I can no longer clean
>> off! :-/ --
>
> Gods, I am appalled that there isn't better support available for you.
> I am pretty sure that in our area (Hokianga) the hospital would send
> someone around to clean and help a few hours a week. Have you tried
> talking to your community nurse if there's something available in your
> area?

Yep, I was told that I it's handled by W&I.

> The social security net seems to be gnawed at and whittled away bit by
> bit by our beloved neo-con political gasbags.

Indeed. After over 20 years of paying taxes and ACC levies I thought that
I'd be looked after if (gods forbid :-/) anything ever happened to me. Well,
I guess I'm still alive so there's that....

Cheers,
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

On Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:13:19 +1300, Peter Huebner
<> wrote:

>In article <kdt2tt$gls$>,
>says...
>>
>> I have a meeting with W&I coming up in a week or so to re-assess my
>> eligibility for the 'special benefit' (read: reduce it even further) so I'll
>> raise the issue of getting a house-cleaner in for an hour a week minimum to
>> vacuum my carpets as I simply can't do it any more. We won't even talk
>> about the black mould on the walls and ceilings of the 'wet areas' of the
>> house that I can no longer clean off! :-/
>> --
>> /Shaun.
>>
>>
>
>Gods, I am appalled that there isn't better support available for you.
>I am pretty sure that in our area (Hokianga) the hospital would send
>someone around to clean and help a few hours a week. Have you tried
>talking to your community nurse if there's something available in your
>area?
>
>The social security net seems to be gnawed at and whittled away bit by
>bit by our beloved neo-con political gasbags.
>

I am also appalled.

Maybe Shaun could post back here and tell us how his meeting with Work
& Income worked out.

I would like to know
1. Do the Doctors and W&I believe the pain levels and disability you
have?
2. Is shared accommodation a possibility?