Just when you thought I was done with posts about vacuums

A couple months ago, Britton decided to give my Dyson to the handy man we had working at the house to see if he could "fix" it because it seemed to have a clog. Now handing a Dyson (or probably any vacuum) over to this man (or maybe most men) is like handing a computer hard drive to a caveman. It is something foreign to them (unless it is a shop vac) and they don't understand it. Somehow this person managed to pry off the canister without actually using the release knob, he then took apart pieces that were not suppose to be taken apart and cleaned them. Probably needless to say, but that totally destroyed my already sickly Dyson. Since then I have been stuck having to use the horrible, very heavy, many filtered Bissell Pet Vac. When the filters aren't clogged the suction is pretty good, but the filters clog every few minutes when you live out in a desert dusty area and have several pets. That alone is frustrating beyond belief, but earlier today I apparently didn't snap in one of the filters right, which for some reason took nearly a minute for me to notice and I ended up with a room full of fine dust particles. This caused the worst asthma attack that I have had since I was a child. So I threw the Bissell out the backdoor, well, so much as I could throw that heavy piece of crap while having an asthma attack.

Not having had an asthma attack bad enough to require medication since I was a child, I had no inhalers or any type of med in the house. I made a hot pot of coffee and although I have heard you shouldn't take it for asthma (not sure why) -- I took allergy med. Luckily that seemed to work and I was back to breathing pretty normally within about 30 minutes.

It has been due to my cheapness that I didn't just buy a new Dyson. Well, also I thought that I wanted or needed the animal vac version, which is like $600. However, after checking some sites on the internet I found the only difference with that version is that it comes with 2 attachments that not all Dysons come with. I already have those attachments, assuming they will work with a new model, but even if they don't they really aren't that important. Anyhow, it means I can buy the much cheaper, smaller and lighter (easier to lug up the stairs) version of the Dyson! I will likely have to empty the canister a lot more often, but emptying a Dyson is a breeze.

So first order of business tomorrow will be shopping for my new Dyson. I doubt I will ever again be as happy to spend a few hundred dollars on a cleaning tool. :)