Glad it was free!

My mother got this vacuum free after purchasing two Oreck air purifiers on QVC. She gave it to us since her home is mostly carpeted and it was described as a "light duty" machine which translates to "can't suck up anything" apparently.

I kept this machine for use only on our hardwoods for about a month, running it about 4 times a week. It worked *okay* for the most part- not too impressive, not too shabby, but satisfactory enough for my liking. After that initial month of use (and regular, nightly charging), I noticed a decline in suction (crumbs, cat hair, etc not being picked up and rather pushed around on the floor)and also noted that nothing was being picked up into the container. So I got down on my hands and knees and checked the brushes underneath and they were completely wrapped, I mean COMPETELY impassibly wrapped with hair- MY hair! It's as if it was never able to get the hair past the brushes at all! Figured that was a "my bad" moment since I do have fairly long hair and most vacuums I've dealt with have some sort of problem with hair getting caught in the rollers, I cut all the hair off the brushes (a long, tedious, and gross process seeing as there was plenty of dirt, cat litter, and other nastiness entwined in the hair) and it ran fine for about two more weeks.

That must've been D-day for this vacuum because I decided to try the "carpet" setting on a very low section of carpet we have in our utility room. We also have a catbox in there so there was a small amount of cat litter scattered on the carpet that I wanted to get up. It got the litter up but things were never the same! Two days later when I tried to vacuum the hardwoods again everything kept getting spat back out onto the floor! INCLUDING cat litter from before! I had emptied the container and checked the brushes and didn't see any litter in it but where was this magical litter coming from?? After making a disgusting mess of my otherwise semi-clean living room (we're still crunching around on strewn cat litter that keeps appearing from under the furniture), I again checked the brush and roller area for the problem. This time I got out a flashlight and some pliers. I couldn't figure out why nothing was making it from the brushes to the container and found out that somehow a mass of dust bunnies, hair, and cat litter had formed a ball between the place where the container connects to the vacuum head and the brushes. There is about 3 inches of space there that was completely full of this crap! I'm still confused as to how this stuff didn't make it up into the container and how anyone is supposed to know that they should regularly (and blindly, it's really hard to see in there) know to dig around in their vacuum *just in case* a dust monster has accumulated in there.

Even after I cleaned that mess out it STILL doesn't work right anymore! I'm not sure what exactly did it in but I've done all I can to get it to work like it did originally and just gave up. I can't bring myself to pay for repairs on a vacuum I got for free.

I felt I had to write this review because I'm seeing people spending upwards of a hundred bucks on this thing and I wouldn't even take another one for free! It's a low-powered gimmick that seems to need a manual of what NOT to attempt to clean up with it in order to get any use out of it whatsoever. SO bottom line: DO NOT BUY THIS VACUUM IF YOU HAVE PETS, LONG HAIR, LOTS OF DUST, HIGH CARPETS, OR ANYTHING BIGGER THAN A GRAIN OF SAND TO PICK UP!!!

Then again the sand would probably clog the ridiculous cone filter and there goes that!