9/10/14 The Morning Coffee: High-Maintenance Puppy (OT)

A very Good Morning to you (I had an amazing day yesterday—hope you did too. I've been hearing from an old friend).

So you'd have to be a pretty devoted reader of this site to remember my post about vacuum cleaners. If you don't want to go read it, basically it's a test of a Dyson "Animal" upright vacuum, which really sucked (although remember, with vacuum cleaners that's a good thing).

So right in the middle of the move, what happens? Butters, who likes to chew on little plastic things, chewed the plug off the cord of the Dyson. Rendering it utterly useless just at the point when we needed it most—mainly for the miniature drifts of Butters' own white hairs collecting all over the old house.

Who would have guessed, but it turned out almost no one could fix that. The cord is not a straightforward electrical cord like lamp cord; it's some kind of coaxial arrangement with insulation and so forth. The best I could do was the nearest Dyson Service Center—which is in Schaumberg, Illinois (about an hour and a half from here). And they quoted a six-week turnaround time!

Finally I found a great little old-fashioned-American vacuum-cleaner shop called "The Kleen-It Shoppe" on the edge of downtown Oconomowoc (a very charming little town, too—I'd never been there). The owner, George, made a special effort and turned it around for me in one afternoon. The cost: $65. Plus more than an hour in the car. I was grateful, though, because apparently they're the only place that could perform the service at all.

Goes to show you there's more than one way to be a very high-cost puppy. And now I have a very real reason not to be lazy and leave the vacuum cleaner out.

Our print sale starts later this morning. Hope you have a nice, low-cost Wednesday—

Mike

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

toto: "Hmm...it's gonna be a nice, high-cost Wednesday if you order one (or more) of the prints."

Mike replies: Oh, I disagree. Try finding a beautiful custom Pt/Pd print in a gallery for $230. You could do it—possibly—but it wouldn't be easy. I'd say these prints in virtually any art gallery would be somewhere between $650 and $1,200, and I can't imagine a pricetag of less than $450 on them.

Comments

[s.low]

This quote is from Wikipedia. A famous story about Don van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart.

Van Vliet enrolled at Antelope Valley Junior College as an art major, but decided to leave the following year. He once worked as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, and sold a vacuum cleaner to the writer Aldous Huxley at his home in Llano, pointing to it and declaring, "Well I assure you sir, this thing sucks."

[Dennis]

I had dogs as a kid, but since then, my wife and I have had cats - we've had 4 come & go (up to 3 at a time; it's not like they don't live long lives !) and our 5th one now. Of all 5, the first one was unusually intelligent. On at least two occasions, my wife was talking on the phone and the cat wanted her attention, so after being rebuffed a few times, he bit through the phone cord while she was talking ! (I imagine most of your readers still remember phone cords).

[steven Ralser]

If you can vacuum in the house with dogs be happy. Our dog goes berserk ever time we try to vacuum.

[toto]

"Hope you have a nice, low-cost Wednesday"

Hmm... it's gonna be a nice, high-cost Wednesday if you order one (or more) of the prints.

[DC Wells]

Nice to hear that a local shoppe earned your business. If you want a brand new cord, it is available online for $33. Installation looks simple.

[John Robison]

That right there would be enough to make me reject a Dyson. This is what I call "stupid and mean design" specifically designed to lock a person into captive and expensive maintenance. When we ran a small janitorial business the Windsor Sensor vacs were reliable and easy to maintain. I had an entire 35ft cord replaced for half that just this past year. Replacing a brush, about $11 for the part, took me all of 2 min. if I also stopped for a cup of coffee.

[Tony Collins]

Dogs can be trained not to chew electric cord by leaving appliances plugged in.:-)

[Bruce Appelbaum]

Luckily the vacuum was not plugged in while Butters exercised his jaws.

[Dave in NM]

This is one gear-centric post I don't mind responding to...

I love our Dysons. Living in a place where the nearest paved surface is five miles away, with three large dogs, our Dyson upright has been up to the task—the relatively high initial cost has been largely offset by the fact that we don't have to purchase bags to bring down to the dump. With as much dirt and fur as we collect, it was a considerable expense.

The real star though, is not the upright, but the small rechargeable hand vacuum. This time of year, at high altitudes, we're inundated by the nightly migration and infiltration of "Miller" moths. The little handheld Dyson is the perfect tool to suck 'em up every morning. This summer, we've also been plagued by a large population of bees that are attracted to our hummingbird feeders, and I suck them up by the dozens on a regular basis.

While the hose on the full-size vacuum would do just as well for pest removal, the handheld vac has real advantage. After collecting a few dozen fluttering moths or bees, I can remove the battery and throw the whole thing in the freezer. This way, when it comes time to empty it, I'm not confronted with a face full of moths or a hoard of angry bees.

[darr]

Most dogs are afraid of vacuum cleaners; sounds like Butters pulled the plug on it! If so, really smart dog you got there Mike.

[Speed]

We have an old Kirby Vacuum Cleaner -- too expensive, too heavy and too old -- that has a belt driven brush. The belt is the device's mechanical weak point, is not available from any of the standard retailers and from Kirby it is expensive.

A local vacuum repair shop (five minutes from home) has them (just don't label them "for Kirby") for a buck or two each. Last time I was in I (finally) decided to buy a spare which the owner gave me gratis.

As long as we have dogs and cats we will need "great little old-fashioned-American vacuum-cleaner shop[s]."

I see the belts are now available from Amazon.

[Patrick Dodds]

Oconomowoc - what a delightful word.

[Paul Amyes]

Dyson have a very online spares department which sells parts at a very reasonable price and the whole design of their appliance makes replacing parts very easy.

[Richard Newman]

Just be glad Butters didn't swallow the plug!!