But pets come with some sacrifices when your house is involved. I'd prefer it if we didn't have tons of neon jingle balls rolling around. I'd prefer it if I didn't have to look at a scratch pad all the time, but these are things I'm happy to live with to have more moments like this.
But we have made some adjustments over time. We have a designated cat toy basket, and only a few of their most loved toys (jingle balls and the ever present milk cap ring) are out all the time. We rotate a fresh stash to keep them busy. We also let them play with their favorite thing, cardboard boxes, for an hour or two and then out they go.
We also moved the litter boxes out to the sunroom. It really helps our sanity when the cat door acts as an extra barrier. It's stopped cat litter from getting all ove the house.
But there's one thing we've never really been able to eliminate The dreaded pet hair tumbleweed.
I know we're not the only ones dealing with this menace. Little balls of fluffy hair drifting across the hard surface floors make my husband growl with rage. You can pick them up all day, but they never stop forming. And it seems sweeping only makes them worse.
Our first line of defense was a Roomba. It held the hair at bay but never eliminated them entirely. But as the battery slowly died, we ended up depending more and more on our $5 garage sale Dirt Devil. We knew it wasn't cutting it, but we kept on in denial.
Then on Saturday, it died. We did a little research and decided on the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser, for $149 at Target.
Oh. My. God.
This thing is incredible. Incredible! I balked at the price (no way will I ever be a Dyson owner) but wanted to try it out. This thing is amazing. It glides like a dream, and it picked up so much hair and nastiness that we had to empty it twice in our bedroom alone.
Yeah, disgusting I know. But our floors are CLEAN now. Our carpet looks so amazing that I'm putting off my daydreams of new carpet. It made such a huge difference, that I can't recommend this product enough for pet owners. After about a minute of using it, Brett yelled "I'm going to vacuum every day!" Unfortunately, he hasn't made good on that promise, but a girl can dream.
It has several attachments with rubber brushes for picking up hair (along with anything else lurking in there). The attachments were great on the stairs, and we can't wait to try them out on the furniture. It was a little confusing to put together (the instructions were not so great), but after about 15 minutes we were ready to roll.
All in all, this vacuum has pretty much done the impossible: made vacuuming enjoyable for two very lazy housekeepers.
