Living in a house with wall-to-wall carpet, we knew our cheapo, big box retailer vacuum would not do. Two years ago, when we were renting a small tiled floor apartment we purchased a DirtDevil Vibe and for whatever reason after a year of service in our carpetkingdo
m, it bit the dust – no pun intended.
Thankfully Will had been gifted a 2008 Consumer Report’s buying guide – a thrifter’s dream – last Christmas. We found a few vacuums that could withstand a large amount of carpet square footage and settled on the Hoover Windtunnel 2 – a CR QuickPick. The book quoted us $250 for a new one. There are some things that do require being purchased new, but a vacuum cleaner (tested first) in my book, isn’t one of them. We couldn’t bear to pay full pr
iced for a vacuum cleaner that we could get 1-2 years old and in perfect working condition for a little less. We decided to check our sources for a used option/better deal.
After a few minutes on Craigslist, we found exactly what we were looking for with a ticket price of $75. One phone call later and a drive down to Zilker, I had the thing in my hands. Despite the fact that the family was indeed very sweet, I couldn’t bring myself to leave a Craigslist transaction with out at least trying to bring them down on their price. We struck a deal at a flat $60 – quite a bargain.
I spent my Saturday testing it out and needless to say, I was very pleased.
