Family of Four

There are indeed four humans living in our house now but this post isn't about us (this is a house blog, after all). It is about how we managed to acquire yet another vacuum, bringing our total number up to four. Of course, the fact that we also have four humans (including two particularly messy young ones) probably has some connection to our growing family of vacuum cleaners. Though we have struggled to find ways to keep the floors clean ever since we moved here.

Our vacuum family consists of a Roomba that makes its rounds twice a week, a Miele canister vacuum that we rarely take out now that we have a cleaner come weekly, an old Dyson animal that lives in the basement from back when we lived in an apartment with wall-to-wall carpets, and a hand-me-down Black and Decker dust buster that had outlived its usefulness despite being our most used vacuum.

Thanks to a toddler who likes to walk around with bowls full of cereal, crackers, goldfish, and other small things that go crunch underfoot, the dust buster has become our go-to floor cleaner. Step on an oatmeal sure? Go grab the dust buster. Ride-on toy scooter roll over some cheerios? Time to dust bust. But that thing did not have the suction power, nor was it doing our backs any favors bending down to the floor cleaning up the crumbs.

And so, a couple of weeks ago, we acquired a refurbished Dyson V7 Motorhead vacuum, also known as a stick vacuum.  It lives in the hallway right near where we had parked the (now departed) dust buster. It's not that noticeable from the living room (second picture below) and is very centrally located to all our usual messes. I am also partial to what Dyson calls purple and I call magenta color.

It comes with a few attachments and the stick feature means no more bending down to vacuum. The fact that it has an actual motorized brush bar means it can pick things up from carpeting pretty easily, and it has two power settings depending on how much needs picking up (plus a "trigger" button that somehow is much more intuitive than having to switch something on).

It is so thin that I had high hopes it would fit under things like this sofa, a home to dust and crumbs (and toys and plates??) that get kicked or brushed under  while the kids are playing. Alas, it does not.

Nonetheless, in the two weeks we've had it, we are finding that we love having it around. Here is the haul just from this morning - crumbs, cat hair, dust, and play-doh.

It's not what we would use for when we have to vacuum the whole floor (that's what the Miele is for, or the Roomba if we can wait an hour for it to do its thing). But it's great for the almost constant little messes caused from a house full of people.