Sometimes the best ingenuity happens when you're between a rock and a hard place. The previous owner of my home had a cat. A nice yet ridiculously furry cat. Having grown up with felines in my home, I wasn't shocked by the amount of hair ground into the carpet, but what I wasn't prepared for was my complete inability to remove it — until today!
Recently I've made claims that my vacuum is my BFF and while we're still close, like most relationships we'd had a falling out of sorts. You see, in the past, it's always been there for me and tackled any job I needed it to tackle. It has literally been the most awesome purchase we've made for our home and was money well spent. Though it's sucked up more dog hair than we care to count, when it came to this super thin, fine and insanely abundant cat hair…well…it finally said "enough is enough".
No matter how many times we tried to run it over the carpets, the hair would just ball up and clog in the most inconvenient of places inside the vacuum. This required tools, coat hangers and even a few four letter words of "encouragement." Nothing worked! Although we have a shop vac, the process was so tedious and there was so much carpet to cover that we had all but given up.
This morning, both vacuums were sitting side by side and it hit me! I love my Eureka 4D for many reasons, but mainly for the use of it's "power paw" attachment. It is a small brush that operates by suction power from the vacuum. It works brilliantly and so we decided it couldn't hurt to try it out on the shop vac. It didn't fit, so we monkeyed around with a few extended attachments and finally found the right combination to make it work. After turning on the shop vac it whirred to life with a ridiculous amount of power and we were in business!
So much business in fact that we cleaned our entire carpet in just under 15 minutes without a single speck of dust, hair, or debris left anywhere. No joke! Although they make many attachments for shop vacs, we've never seen a need to purchase them. Usually our shop vac gets used when we're picking up large debris or water from some sort of plumbing backup. If you're in the same boat we are, try using your regular old household attachments next time you've got a tough job to do. It will give you all the convenience of a standard household vacuum with the extra sucking power of a shop vac, it's really the best of both worlds!
You can purchase just the power paw attachment to use on any vacuum from eBay starting around $13. Happy bidding, your carpets will thank you!
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Comments (12)
Your story about the wet vac could quite possibly have saved my sanity, and my rottweiler's coat. Just today I was going to google "shaving down a big dog." I am NOT kidding. We live in a townhouse and we love our big rescue dog but the hair is EVERYWHERE. Woven into the carpets, rugs. I have to BRUSH my carpets to 'sort of' make a dent on all the hair. I think I'll rent a wet vac this weekend, hold my breath, and try it out. If it works, we will do a dance in your honor!
Good luck! It worked wonders for us and although the shop vac worked alright on it's own, the addition of the power paw gave it super sucking power and the ability to sweep up the fur with the ease of a regular vacuum!
I have a similar attachment that came with my Kenmore canister vac, and I LOVE it. It's no miracle worker, but it does a pretty amazing job of getting hairs out that have woven into the upholstery on our couch and side chair.
michpc - Until now I hadn't found anything it couldn't conquer, so I was elated to find I could make it attach to the shop vac. As Emeril would say, it really kicked it up a notch!
Two black labs, lots of hair. So much so, I tore my carpets out and now live with my concrete floors. I have the Eureka w/ attachments, now I need to get a shop vac.
I think this wold be great for the dog hair in my car too!
I have a Bissel Bagless with a similar attachment as well - Works great for vacuuming upholstery and draperies!
http://www.bissell.com/heavy-duty-vacuum/
However, I'd stick to a machine that has a Hepa Filter, especially for cleaning up pet hair/dander. I don't know that many Shop-Vacs have particularly good filters for such purposes since they're primary purpose is to pick up large quantities of chunkier dirt and liquids.
yes i agree with bepsf, a good filter is important, who knows what your pet brings in. our dyson animal is awesome. it has a washable filter(!) as well as the turbine brush system and gets the white pet hair off our brown wool rug very easily.
We bought the smallest shop vac possible when we lived in our first home, a great big old drafty farmhouse. There was dust everywhere coming up through the floors, etc. and with a border collie we switched full time to using the shop vac. Even w/o an attachment like this one it was zipzip, job done. There was fresh air exchange aplenty in that house, didn't have to worry about filters and being a country house we didn't have to worry about nasty toxins.
My Dyson has an "Animal" attachment that has been a complete lifesaver. I'm still amazed and completely grossed-out at how much it picks up, but there are some nooks and crannies it just can't get. Excited to try this out!
I'm glad others mentioned the filter part! I had the shop vac/pet hair brainstorm a couple of years ago, and what seemed like a revolutionary idea wasn't, well, so great after all. Soon I noticed the exhaust was smelling...doggie. Very. It was clear that the shop vac filter--supposedly a very good one--just didn't do the level of filtering I expected/required. At the moment I am using the rollerball Dyson and have nothing but praise for it.
My Dyson Animal does the trick every time. We have a Shepherd/Lab mix and boy does she shed. The Animal has a similar attachment and has never clogged on us. It has been the best purchase we've made since we've had the dog!
A slightly damp sponge or a rubber glove (the textured-palm kind for doing dishes) gets rid of a whole lot of pet hair, quickly. Might be a good idea before the vacuuming?