Vacuum Shopping

I am preparing to purchase my second vacuum as a married woman. That would only make it my third ever too. So I've been thinking that perhaps I'm not the only one who is not always sure how to decide what is the best. Generally I google it and look at some of the websites that sell the most options usually Amazon and Walmart. I look at what are the best sellers and what are the top rated. I sort based on the price range and few features that I know I want. And then....it gets tricky. I also usually check Consumersearch for what they recommend too and sometimes other ratings sites.

The problem is even after all that there was a pretty big list left and I wasn't sure how to narrow it further. I always worry about price, should I go for the cheapest thing that has my desired features or will that one be junkier than the next up model. I read review after review and wonder if the bad reviews are people who didn't assemble theirs properly or were not using them correctly or what conditions they were using it in.

And so I was obsessively reading reviews on Walmart's website when I noticed something. At the bottom of the page there is a place that people can ask questions about products like "does this work for hard floors?" or "will it pick up sand or cat litter?" . These were things I was wondering myself. And then I noticed something else, the answers mostly tend to be as mixed as the reviews themselves except that sometimes a spokesperson for the product company answers the questions. Sometimes they say something like "no it doesn't do that and its not really designed for it anyways see models x,y, and z. "

So then I went to the company pages (Bissell, Hoover, and Eureka) and looked at which models are recommended for my situation (hard floors, pets, some rugs, and allergy sufferer) That helped me narrow it down to 1 or 2 from each company and then price range (100 or less) helped me narrow that down further.

I will say that the last vacuum I had was a Bissell power force turbo, one of the most popular ones at Walmart and pretty inexpensive. I think they run at about $63 right now there. So the main drawback to that one was the dirt cup empties from the top so you have to dump it out which gets messy, the filter configuration clogs fairly easily like if you are vacuuming a lot of hair or fuzzies, and the exhaust blows out the front in such a way that it will blow dust or finer dirt out of the way before you can vacuum it up and it also will scatter sand and kitty litter instead of vacuuming it up so it takes a long time to get it all if you ever do. That and its now not functioning.

Ultimately I felt like I was not a very big fan of my last vacuum and did not want to buy a Bissell because of that. So that left Hoover and Eureka. I finally decided that Eureka didn't have anything in my price range, with the features I really wanted so that finally had it down to one brand. And from there I picked the one that I want. Now the only decision I have is whether to upgrade it for the automatic cord rewind option or to just go with the less expensive one that has all the most important features. I am leaning towards the cheaper one. Here's a link to the vacuum that I have finally chosen which is supposed to be good for pets, hard floors and rugs or carpet.