My little family moved in to our first real house a little over a year ago. That would be one husband, one big fat pregnant lady, one baby still baking in that lady's belly, one cat, and one very hairy black lab. The last on that list is where the trouble came in. We don't have a huge amount of carpet in our house, but what we do have is a nice light creamy color, a perfect backdrop for the piles of black hair to lay upon. We moved in with a second hand old hoover vacuum and a standard dog brush.
I shortly discovered that those tools would not allow us to survive with a giant black house dog. Even though our dog Vader loves to go outside in his beautiful fenced backyard, the house was sure to be filled to the brim with hair within a limited time span. Since I felt this problem had to be solved before our baby was born so the baby could have a clean house to live in, and since moving Vader outside was not an acceptable option for my husband, I did some internet searching for my solution. We were on a budget that did not allow me to buy a new vacuum cleaner, especially not one that would suck up that much hair and not die. Then on Amazon I found my answer:
That, ladies and gentlemen, is a $10 rubber broom. That piece of rubber on a stick saved our sanity and budget for about a year. It is a lot more work than just vacuuming, but it gets the job done.
I will have to say that when we first got it I tried to use the bristle part and was unimpressed. The product pictures on Amazon seem to indicate the bristles should be used. But when we turned it over and used the squeegee side, scrapping it across the carpet, we got clean carpet and a pile of hair to pick up, as shown in the above photo. That photo I actually took a few months after we got the broom, after we cut down the amount of hair with a FURminator.
Before the FURminator we had about twice the amount of hair on the carpet, and if we didn't brush the carpet twice it still looked pretty black. So back to the internet I went for more solutions and I finally caved and got the much advertised FURminator. This brush is much more expensive than the rubber broom, and more than I thought was worth paying for any brush. But desperate times call for buying gadgets that are cheaper than a new vacuum.
About the same time as the FURminator my mother was kind enough to gift us a Swiffer Sweep and Trap Floor Cleaner Starter Kit
for the hardwood floor. So I found a solution to fit our budget and keep floors clean for the little baby girl who was soon to be crawling upon them. Armed with this solution I began to save money for a nice fancy vacuum that could do the same job and use much less effort. Just recently I finally got my prize, and it was love at first use. This vacuum has been everything it was advertised to be, and more since I didn't see all the bonus features it has on the product page.
for the hardwood floor. So I found a solution to fit our budget and keep floors clean for the little baby girl who was soon to be crawling upon them. Armed with this solution I began to save money for a nice fancy vacuum that could do the same job and use much less effort. Just recently I finally got my prize, and it was love at first use. This vacuum has been everything it was advertised to be, and more since I didn't see all the bonus features it has on the product page.
I love that I can use this vacuum on the hardwood floors as well, and it works a lot better in that respect than the sweep and trap did. We still have to vacuum every day because Vader has incredible powers of shedding hair. But now it can be cleaned in much less time and effort. So I have learned there is great value in both the rubber broom and the fancy vacuum. One costs little money and much effort, while the other costs more money and less effort.
