Conquering Pet Hair with Dyson

by Alison Lumbatis

This post is a bit of a departure from my typical style and beauty posts, ok, it’s actually A LOT of a departure. But eBay reached out to me to talk about Dyson vacuums and I was more than a little curious – especially since they’re up to 50% off! (more on that later)

But first, confession time! I hide a dirty little secret…our house, clothes and cars are constantly covered in a coating of pet hair. With a golden retriever, Siberian husky, two cats, a horse and two goats, let’s just say that we have a little more fur in our lives than the average household. #dontwearblacktomyhouse

Bailey, our golden retriever and Skye, the husky, just chillin’ and sheddin’.

Our horse and two “kids”.

Our family loving refers to the fur clumps on our floors as “tumbleweeds”. They gather on the kitchen floor, under the sofa and in every corner of the house. Every time a ceiling fan or the A/C kicks on, tumbleweeds roll across the floor. It’s kind of gross and more than a little embarrassing, especially if we have surprise guests drop by.

The worst part is that we have dark wood floors and a gray kitchen floor so there’s no hiding the fact that we have a problem.

My husband Craig is kind of a crazy person when it comes to keeping up with it. He’s constantly vacuuming everything. And I do mean everything, last Christmas, I posted this picture on Facebook of the back of our couch:

In his world, a clean house is a house with vacuum marks on everything! Oh and he’s happiest with a lint roller always within reach. We seriously buy lint rollers by the dozen.

With daily vacuuming going on at our house, we tend to burn through vacuum cleaners pretty quickly, usually every couple of years. Most of them just aren’t designed for that much use or they start to lose suction after a few months.

I’ve always heard great things about Dyson vacuums but never pulled the trigger on them due to cost. Much like an investment handbag though, on a cost per use basis, Dyson beats out the less expensive, lower quality vacuums that we’ve been replacing every few years! So we’ve been on the hunt for one. I recently discovered that eBay has an awesome selection of Dyson vacuums and they’re up to 50% off.

We’ve had our eye on a couple of different models, for different uses around the house. To tackle our everyday vacuuming needs, the Dyson Ball Upright. Our downstairs is a combination of hardwood floors, tile and carpet. It has a self-adjusting cleaner head that automatically adjusts between carpets and hard floors. Our whole family suffers from allergies so we also appreciate that it has whole-machine HEPA filtration so allergens and bacteria are trapped inside, not expelled back into our home.

For our kitchen floors, stairs and quick clean ups, I like to have a lighter weight, easier to use vacuum on hand. The Dyson Absolute Cordless Vacuum is in the running for this. We can also easily stash it in our coat closet or corner of the pantry. This one fits into corners easily and runs for up to 20 minutes on a charge. I like it for getting into tight spots like under the sofa.

Of course we can’t forget about our vehicles. I’m not kidding when I say that the dash of my SUV is constantly covered in fur! As soon as we step foot back in the car from the barn, I see horse and goat hair floating around. Our daughter also sometimes forgets about her dirty saddle pads in the back. Those things get corroded with horse hair, as do her breeches after riding.

My husband Craig likes to have a small handheld vacuum in the garage just for car cleaning. The Dyson Car + Boat Cordless Handheld Vacuum is ideal for our vehicles. It comes with a variety of tools like a stiff bristle brush for ground-in dirt, mini-motorized tool for upholstery, and mini soft dusting brush for fragile areas like the console. Plus the extension hose reaches from the dashboard to the trunk.

There are quite a few other models, all at up to 50% off on eBay. You can shop them all here.