Vacuums in our house last only slightly longer than “Hearsay”. We have had a “Panasonic”, a”Hoover”, at least two “Dirt Devils” and a “Goblin” All of them have fallen by the wayside in less time than it takes a page on my web site to open, if it’s not hoses coming apart, it’s motors burning out, bags bursting, dog hairs clogging the intake or it’s kids using them as playthings and then denying all knowledge of how the handle came off! Recently, after the demise of our last vacuum, (A Hoover upright) I took to using one I borrowed from the school I work in, it was an ok vacuum by all accounts but more suited to hard floor surfaces than carpets. My good friend Helmet had recently acquired a Dyson DC03 and had even given me a demonstration of its capabilities when I last visited his hovel. I was fairly impressed at its cleaning power but was more impressed at the filtration system (Hepa filter, whatever that means). Both my wife and I, and my oldest son suffer from Asthma, so I immediately became interested in the Dyson. A week later and my wife finally managed to loosen my vice-like grip on my wallet and extracted £230 to purchase our very own Dyson, (A happy day for Alison-aka-Monica, a sad time for my finances). Alison has recently been quite ill and has been left with a weakness on her left side, the DC03 weighs less than 7kg and glides easily over carpets and laminates alike, just the thing for my wife to use without tiring herself out too much. My kids are fascinated by the see through dust-pan-collector-thingy, it makes a kind of time line of dirt, you can see each layer forming as you go from room to room and to be honest it has made Ali a bit paranoid thinking of the amount of dirt hidden in the shag pile.
The tools sit nicely on top of the filter unit and the wand-come-hose-thingy slides easily into the handle assembly. The hose is plenty long enough for Ali to vacuum up the crumbs and remote controls from under the cushions on the settee and for getting into the hard to reach areas like the corner behind the telly and the valance rail above the windows. Luckily we live in a bungalow so there are no stairs for her to handle, I don’t know how the DC03 would perform if you had to vacuum a couple of flights of carpeted stairs, with the hose coming out of the handle I imagine it would be quite easy to topple the Dyson over once you were only half way up. I have been told that the older DC03 models have filters that only have a six month life span, our filters are washable which should save a bit of cash in the long run. All in all I am very pleased with the DC03, it remains to be seen if it lasts the year out but at £230 it had better! Or it will be back to a dust-pan and broom! The Dyson is available through most of the major highs treet electrical retailers (Comet, Curries etc) or you can get one online from any number of companies (do a google search, there’s loads of them).