Vacuum cleaner OS

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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)

 

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.

 

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

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)

 

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?

 

That makes three of us. :-/

I haven't had it yet. I'm stretching it out to close to the cut-off date as,
not long afer I wrote this I got the forms to also renew / reassess my
eligibility for the Invlaid's Benefit. That requires a(nother!) doctor's
visit and form filling out. I couldn't get in to see my GP before Tuesday
next, and will book my W&I interrogation after that.

That's a two-part question so I'll address it as such IYDM? It's hard to
make this short though... I'll try. Firstly "the doctors"....

Up until mid-2010 I'd been with the same GP for a decade. I was getting
increasingly frustrated with my situation. I felt that I wasn't being
listened to, by either my GP or by the (few) specialists I'd seen in that
time. Consequently I requested my medical records from the practice. I was
told that SOP was they forward them to the new GP - and where was I going? I
said it was undecided so I'd like them myself. They didn't like the idea of
a patient having access to their records but complied after I mentioned the
Freedom of Information act. :-/ I shouldn't have had to do that IMO.

On reading them (and between the lines - as I now know you need to do with
correspondence between medical professionals) it became clear why I'd been
treated as I had. The introduction letters my GP was sending out were along
the lines of "presents with apparent pain" and "constantly asks for stronger
pain medication".... It's no wonder that I got treated like I did. One
specialist who I saw in about 2002, widely regarded as one of the best
orthopedic surgeons in NZ treated me particularly badly.

When I visited him he talked for a while, then go me to lie on my back and
he extended my legs, asking me to tell him to stop when it became painful.
He stood at the foot of the 'bed' and lifted a leg, resting it on his
shoulder. It pinched and hurt like quite a lot at about 40º and I told him
so. He stopped there and held it, talking to me for a minute or so. Then he
quickly leaned forwards lifting my leg much higher and causing excruciating
pain (which caused me to limp badly for a week).

I'm a man who had been used to untreated chronic pain - and incidents that
caused pain so intense I'd drop to my knees, even in public - so I didn't
scream like a girl and punch him in the face. Instead I said "ouch" and he
patted me on the shoulder. His report (which I'd not seen until then) said
that "he said he was in pain when my leg was lifted to 40º but, when he was
distracted it could be lifted to more than 60º".

So anyway towards the end of 2010 I was looking for a better GP. I asked my
pharmacist - an excellent healthcare professional - who he thought were good
GPs in Pukekohe. He only gave me two names but it turned out one had handed
in his notice and the other was only a few years from retirement and wasn't
taking new patients. When I expressed my frustration to the shrink I
happened to be seeing at the time (depression, anxiety issues) he mentioned
a GP he'd met from Pukekohe who he said seemed competent.

She turned out to be far more than that. She'd postponed university to have
children and, when they'd left home she'd returned and became a doctor. She
was newly-qualified and in her mid/late 40s. She did what no other GP had
done for me since my accident - pushed ACC and, with the help of a
specialist got them to do an MRI. On getting the results the specialist says
that I shouldn't be mowing lawns, vacuuming etc. but acknowledges that there
aren't many options...

Unfortunately for me after six months with that GP she got a better job
offer in Auckland - where she lived - and so she left. The one I'm seeing
now is OK... FWIW here are a couple of images from my MRI.

The first pretty much shows the extent of the injury (as of two years ago).
It shows the badly damaged lower disc which has ruptured and lost over 50%
of it's fluid. Also the first 'fused vertebra' at the top of my pelvis is
broken and out of place, resulting in my spine being out-of-line at that
point by 1.2cm. What is less obvious is the disc above it is also ruptured
but backwards instead of forwards - resulting on pressure on the spinal
nerve

http://test.internet-webmaster.de/upload/1298068953.jpg

The second shows how the nerves for my lower extremeties are pinched where
they exit the spinal column - causing all sorts of issues with my legs.

http://test.internet-webmaster.de/upload/1298068978.jpg

It seems that my only (govt. funded) option is a spinal fusion operation
which has a 50% chance of making things worse and that none of the
specialists I've seen recommends - And I don't have the funds to do anything
else.

As to whether W&I believe the levels of pain and disability I suffer - I
couldn't honestly tell you. Frankly I don't think they care. All they seem
to care about is paying me as little as they can get away with.

I guess - although, with my psych issues I have trouble relaxing (hah!) when
other people are around. Also for most of my life I've had a preferece for
living alone. I've never minded having visitors and I used to socialise a
lot - but at he end of the day I need my tranquility. Also I've got a
room-and-a-half full of hoarded 'junk' (old audio equipment, a collection of
IBM ThinkPads, most of which require working on to get them going...) to
keep me busy (as if I ever get the.... energy and low-pain time to do it). I
keep them as I can't afford 'entertainment' so I have 'stuff' to keep me
entertained - keep my mind busy.

A couple of times in desperation I've advertised for boarders but it seems
the only people interested in living in this part of town are people who I
wouldn't want in my home. <shrug>

Sorry for the long-winded reply but it's not something I could have
adequately explained in a few sentences.

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)

 

Didn't take long to read and thanks for replying. I too have had some
bad experiences with specialists and skeptical doctors but not quite
like yours.

Maybe there's some people in Auckland reading this who have enough
humanity to take some notice. In Christchurch we have an organization
called Lifelinks
http://www.lifelinks.co.nz/Default.aspx
and you sound like a classic case for help from an organization like
them. I don't know if there's something like this in Auckland. I
will call them on Monday to find out. In Christchurch they help
people with disabilities and mental health issues to get together in
shared accommodation. I too live by myself and wish I didn't so I
have an idea how you feel. Anyway, I hope you can post back here if
W&I don't give you better help. You can gmail me at shane dot 2471958
if you want.

 

Yeah sucks huh? Sorry to hear about your problems.With mine, for the first
three or four years after my injury I got into the habit of going to a
chiropractor every time it 'went out', about three times a year. It got
harder and harder to 'pop back in', until I was told they couldn't help me
any more. (Turns out that would have been about when enough of the disc
fluid had leaked out and been absorbed so that there wasn't enough disc
left.)

Following that I finally had to accept that I couldn't keep my business
going - It'd already gone from going really well to barely ticking over. By
the time that was sorted I'd lost my life's savings and my equity in the
house. As it was about four years from accident to getting serious about
pain relief (and a benefit) that may have influenced how I was dealt with.
<shrug> I didn't stop work straight away, I really tried to keep going until
I had to accept I couldn't. If I'd accepted it sooner I *might* have been
able to get out with a few dollars and there wouldn't have been a break of a
few years (from a medical point of view - as they don't liase with
chiropracters) from three months after injury to me saying I couldn't work.

Looks interesting. At this stage I only really need W&I to realise that I
need a few more $$ a week (my benefit hasn't gone up for years - the
opposite in fact) and some help with the housework. Perhaps a couple
two-hour stints a week or so - that should do it.

Thanks mate.
--
/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)

 

Hi guys. There's SFA traffic in here right now so I may as well answer this.

My benefit was *reduced* by $10/week!

Apparently I was put on the 'Special Benefit' a few years (before National
got their teeth into the rules) back when I needed to get into fairly large
debt to buy the new, very firm bed that I'd been being told for a decade I
needed (to replace the saggy thing I bought second-hand over 20 years ago).
Also I had a potential job at Mahurangi Technical Institute, teaching short
courses on aquarium fish care and maintenance to petshop staff, an NZQA
thing that they need.

Anyway, if I was to teach it I had to hold the certs myself (NZQA
requirement), even though a lot of the staff there know me from my previous
life as an ornamental fish breeder and captive aquatic environments
consultant. I still needed to hold the certs (which are so basic compared to
what I used to do). MTI gave me a significant discount but it still cost me
a chunk of dosh.

So I paid for the courses and was granted the certs courtesy of 'current
competency (after an hour or so of answering random questions from each
exam - rather than doing the full courses). I hoped that with a new bed, a
course of Transforminal Epidural Steroid Injections (TFESI) over a few
months and a different med regime that I'd be able to do the job. (I was
told it was mine if I felt I could do it. Most of the guys in the key
positions at MTI have had previous dealings with me and were keen to bring
me on-board.)

Man, I was hoping that it would work! To be able to get back into my chosen
field, on a reasonable wage - and not be reliant on the soulless W&I machine
for income. A dream - that stayed a dream. If anything my back got worse
after the TFESI - partly due to the fact that it reduced my pain
considerably for ~6 weeks at a time and, during those times, although I
tried not to, I 'over-did it' trying to catch up on things that had been let
slide for years. So, when the TFESI wore off I was in more pain than before!

Also, as was explained to me afterwards, if I'd had the course earlier, when
there was still fluid in my ruptured discs (and no 'osteophytes', bony
growths where my back's tried to fuse that part of my spine to immobilise
the affected area over the last decade-and-a-half), my spine could have been
re-aligned. As it is..... Eh!

Anyway it seems that I no longer qualify for this Special Benefit (my
understanding is that it's been redacted, it no longer exists) even though I
still have over half of the debt incurred at that time (and I've not been
frivolous, I hate debt and have been paying it as best and as fast as I
reasonably could). It seems that I was still getting the 'extra' to the tune
of $40/week and they wanted to stop it all. However, after me gathering much
documentation, having several meetings and essentially begging (for my life)
they agreed to reduce it in four $10 stages over two years, every six
months[*].

So now I'm basically fooked. Death by four cuts? I have some pretty certs
that I could hang on the walls (and a bunch of credits at a website), I got
an MRI, some procedures and a chance to see a better class of specialist...
But my back's no better (worse actually) - and I owe a bunch of money. I
tried... I really tried to find something that I could do, a way to get off
a benefit and into work. (Hence the debt - I was being as positive as I
could, looking at it as an investment in my future.) Alas, the only way I
could teach that class for more than an hour a day would be if I were
medicated to the point where I couldn't teach the class... My own Catch 22.

[*]My latest doctor's eval states that I won't need to be reassessed for
between two and three years. Options were; a) Less than 6 months b) 6 to
12 months c) 1 to 2 years d) 2 to 3 years e) permanent (never
reassess).

My GP said that although my injury's irreversible and permanent if e) is
ticked then it makes me ineligible for certain future funding of medical
procedures or treatments - even if they might benefit me and/or reduce my
pain etc. Consequently I'm classified as d) reassess in 2 to 3 years.

Anyway, thanks for your sympathies Peter and Shane. There's the requested
report of what happened...

Now, back to the ones and zeros......
--
/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)

 

So now I'm basically fooked. Death by four cuts? I have some pretty certs
that I could hang on the walls (and a bunch of credits at a website), I got
an MRI, some procedures and a chance to see a better class of specialist...
But my back's no better (worse actually) - and I owe a bunch of money. I
tried... I really tried to find something that I could do, a way to get off
a benefit and into work. (Hence the debt - I was being as positive as I
could, looking at it as an investment in my future.) Alas, the only way I
could teach that class for more than an hour a day would be if I were
medicated to the point where I couldn't teach the class... My own Catch 22.

[*]My latest doctor's eval states that I won't need to be reassessed for
between two and three years. Options were; a) Less than 6 months b) 6 to
12 months c) 1 to 2 years d) 2 to 3 years e) permanent (never
reassess).

My GP said that although my injury's irreversible and permanent if e) is
ticked then it makes me ineligible for certain future funding of medical
procedures or treatments - even if they might benefit me and/or reduce my
pain etc. Consequently I'm classified as d) reassess in 2 to 3 years.

Anyway, thanks for your sympathies Peter and Shane. There's the requested
report of what happened...

Now, back to the ones and zeros...... [/QUOTE]

That's as sucky as a sucky thing can be.

Care to say (privately if you like) how much your debt is ? I'm thinking we
could take up a collection to help out a helper.

 

That's as sucky as a sucky thing can be.

Care to say (privately if you like) how much your debt is ? I'm thinking we
could take up a collection to help out a helper.
[/QUOTE]


Plus me on the list I have a double slipped Disk and 2 Cortisone Jabs
have not help, but I fort ACC and won, plus I get the independence
allowance some $3000+ for 5 years on my second 5Y one now.

 

Hi Bruce. Yeah, sucky is right. I still owe around five grand. It was over
seven two and-a-half years ago, right after I'd got the bed and quals. So,
'til now I've been able to pay off around a grand a year. The trouble is
last year alone it cost me nearly a grand just to service the debt ($949
actually).

I've managed to stay on-target paying it off despite the first $10/week
reduction last September. (I figured that, if I didn't get a job at the end
of it all, as I'd given up smoking and just about everything else that
wasn't essential I'd be able to pay off a grand a year if I implemented
'austerity measures'. Mind you, that was calculated before there was a large
jump in inflation and assuming my benefit would increase inline with
inflation. Instead it's reduced.)

However there's no way I'll be able to keep up paying it off at that rate
now. With the second cut in place and the next less than six months away
I'll probably be lucky to be able to even pay the interest. It's split
between two low-interest credit cards and, once or twice when I had
high-expense months last year I had to pay some off one with the other. (As
the minimum monthly payments are at least double the interest I can get away
with that in a pinch - I hate it though.)

Sorry mate, I hate to bleat - I'll try to keep it to myself in future. The
only reason I've mentioned it here from time-to-time is it's never far from
the front of my mind - it can be hard to concentrate on a post when you're
stressed out over meeting the bills. This *isn't* where I saw myself being
at 51.

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)

 

Sorry mate, I hate to bleat - I'll try to keep it to myself in future. The
only reason I've mentioned it here from time-to-time is it's never far from
the front of my mind - it can be hard to concentrate on a post when you're
stressed out over meeting the bills. This *isn't* where I saw myself being
at 51.[/QUOTE]

At a similar 56, all I can offer by typing is ...
there but for the grace of the big spaggetti monster ...

Nil illegitimus carborundum.

Loosely (and probably badly) translated ... don't let the bastards grind you
down. I still want that T shirt.

 

Yep, chance. A random occurance while doing something that didn't even seem
remotely dangerous changed my life forever. I went from a rising star in my
chosen field to a virtual shut-in in a nasty neighbourhood. Broke as a
destitute person who's been bankrutpted, then robbed and cursed with pain so
bad that I'm too sore to wipe my own arse if it's too soon after getting up!

Heh! Yeah, a term I like lots. I actually studied Latin briefly in a British
grammar school before my parents whisked me off to live in NZ. I seem to
remember 'noli illegitimi carborundum' but it's faux-Latin anyway and I'm
accessing my memories through a haze of opiates so who cares?

Speaking of T shirts I think I saw a guy wearing one that I had custom
made[*] in the 80s. However I only saw it from a distance when I was driving
so I don't know if someone robbed my 'slogan' from back in my care-free
days.

On the front of mine it said "I only sleep with the best" in large letters,
underneath that, in much smaller text it said " ... but I'll shag anything".
<g>

[*] Word of the decade; 'Bespoke'. I learned it years ago, used to read it
maybe twice a year (and I used to read a *lot*) and used it myself from
time-to-time - when I thought I was in company where it would be understood.
Hell, I think that I might have gone half-a-decade once without reading or
hearing it.

(I used to have to dumb-down my.... Damn pain meds befuddle my mind...
diction? No. Vocabulary? That'll have to do, gotta wrap this up. I had
someone's female companion take exception to me using words she couldn't
understand and he was going to beat the snot out of me for 'making her feel
dumb'. I didn't say the obvious as it was plain he had an anger-management
problem and I didn't want to get into a fight. As it wasn't the first time
I'd had a negative response to me using the English language in all of it's
glory I learned to dumb it down when talking with the hoi polloi. I could
have really used an English-to-Redneck dictionary. <g>)

Anyway, back to 'bespoke'. Now I hear it weekly on TV shows, movies, news
etc. Heck, I even heard it twice in an hour the other night! Funny how words
come into fashion. Who would have forseen that 'bespoke' would become a
(relatively) common word?
--
/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 Thursday, 24 January 2013 12:09:18 UTC+13, Gib Bogle wrote:
<snip>

By odd coincidence we've just inherited a 'Kirby' vacuum cleaner. This think looks like it is straight from the 1950's but is near new, and apparently retails for some horrendous price (i.e. >$1k ???)

Have not powered this thing up, but it weighs a ton so definitely not recommended for you, Shaun!

It looks like it could suck a golf ball through a garden hose though.