Saturday, January 19, 2008

Saturday Review: Dirt Devil Extreme Quick Vac

Figured it would be nice to do a few more product reviews like I used to when I first started.

Product: Dirt Devil Extreme Quick Vac
Youz*d Rating: Two thumbs and big toes down

I've been DYING to have a vacuum cleaner around the apartment. For months, all I had was a microfiber wet/dry mop that I used for both picking up all the dust that seems to love my hard wood floors and moping. This worked for a little while, but as soon as the white rug came into the picture, I knew I was going to need something more.

But, I wanted a nice vacuum and they're expensive so I just kept putting it off and watched my rug get dirtier and dirtier until the white became a nice shade of grey.

Finally, I'd had enough. New Year's Eve I went on a search for a vacuum to help me whip this dust into shape. I looked online at all the major retailers and stores and compared prices. Kmart seemed to have a good Shark vacuum that seemed worth buying so I headed over. Of course when I got there, they didn't have the Shark so I had to go based on looks. The yellow Dirt Devil seemed like it might get the job done. It was lightweight but heavy enough that you still felt like you were getting some power. It was also cheap, but after realizing that the only things we really needed a vacuum for were the rugs, I figured cheaper may be the way to go.

Well, it wasn't. First off, if the dirt isn't right in front of the vacuum, it won't pick it up. Instead, the air vents on the sides will blow the dirt all over the room. Second, the suction wasn't that great. The shag of the white rug was low so it shouldn't have been too hard to get a few specs of dirt off the top but the Dirt Devil seemed incapable of doing this.
The real straw that broke the camel's back: the brown rug. It was late and we were tired so I didn't vacuum the rug when we first bought it home. It wasn't until last night that I noticed some of the fibers from the rug were shedding. Wool rugs are known for this, especially when they're new. Being the geek that I am, I was acutally happy for the shedding because it gave me another excuse to use my vacuum!
Within one minute, the vacuum was clogged. Wool fibers were blowing all over the room from the vacuum and the rug was just shedding more and more from the vacuum going over it. Not once, not twice, but FOUR TIMES I had to declog the vacuum just to pick up the mess it had blown over the wood floors.
Seeing as how the vacuum sports a label that says "Ideal for bare floors and carpets," you'd think that it could handle vacuuming, I don't know, a carpet!
Today's adventure will include returning the Dirt Devil and getting a Shark full-sized vacuum especially made for carpets and pet hair. If it can pick up dog hair, it can definitley work on my carpet. I guess I should have known the Dirt Devil was bad when, after digging through three Google search pages, I couldn't find a single review of the stupid thing. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one dumb enough to buy it!

1 comment:

  1. This is the second one I've owned. The first one I bought clogged after vacuuming a tiny room in my apartment, then stopped working all together. I went back to the store that I had purchased it from, and exchanged it. The second one did pretty much the same thing. I cleaned it out multiple times for the same tiny room. Then, just like you were to pull the plug out of the wall, the vacuum shut off.

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