BISSELL Pet Hair Eraser, Refined Bronze/Magenta

It's been many years since I've owned a Dustbuster type of handheld vacuum, largely because every one I've used had limited battery life, and wasn't good at picking up all but the lightest debris.

I thought I'd give the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser a shot, hoping that the handheld technology has evolved, and that something -anything -could make living with a Shepherd and Pointer easier.

Out of the box, I immediately noticed how the pink rubber tip on the end of the vacuum looked and felt a lot like the brush I use on my short-haired Pointer. Holding back the urge to vacuum my dog, I decided to read the instructions, telling me I needed to put it on the charger for 18 hours before I vacuumed anything. Dutifully, I put it on the charger, but noted that the design of the charger base REALLY expects you to mount it to a wall. I wasn't sure I was ready for that sort of commitment, but it worked fine left on my floor.

The next day, it was time to start erasing pet hair. The first few minutes were brilliant. It seemed this was going to be a perfect way to get my furniture and stairs vacuumed without lugging around my upright and dealing with the attachments. But, things started going downhill. The pink grabber thing seemed to bring short hair up, but didn't consistently make it to the actual vacuum. Not a huge deal until I emptied out the bin and noticed how quickly the filter had changed color.

Unfortunately, the filters aren't washable, so in just under two weeks, the Pet Hair Eraser went from "awesome" to "dumb 80's Dustbuster". If I had been using this for hours on end, or if my house was particularly dirty and dusty, I'd totally understand. After all, filters don't last forever. But the performance absolutely tanks if the filter is dirty, and replacement filters (P/N 52H6) aren't all that cheap when they need to be replaced so often.

Personally, I see this as a design problem. If the Pet Hair Eraser had been designed to pick up your kid's spilled Cheerios, I wouldn't rate it so harshly. But when it's advertised as a product to deal with debris that's inherently dirty, I don't understand why they wouldn't put a washable prefilter before the cotton-like filter. At this rate, I'm likely to spend more money in filters than the MSRP of the Pet Hair Eraser in under a year. At that kind of money, I almost start to wonder how long it would take before I'd come out ahead getting a refurbished Dyson DC31 Handheld Animal Vacuum Cleaner.

Save 28% Off