You get what you pay for. Or not.

We have three dogs. Trying to keep the house even moderately free of dog hair is an almost daily project. I’m not sure what’s worse, the rodent-sized dust balls blowing across the wood floors or the carpets that change color as the dog hair collects and collects. I use a big wet-dry vacuum on the downstairs, non-carpeted floors. For upstairs I have a far-from-cheap Oreck.

I hate it.

I hate the company.

I hate my local dealer even more.

Oreck’s top of the line model retails for $600. Six-hundred dollars to do a job most of us hate. Do Orecks clean well?

Well, yes, when they work. The problem is -- in my experience at least -- they fail a lot. My first Oreck burned through belts at an alarming rate. After a couple years I foolishly upgraded, thinking that spending more money meant getting a better product.

Not so. My current machine, an Oreck Forever – boy what a misnomer! -- is lighter than the original and has so much suction that it’s almost self-propelled. But it clogs just as much as the machine it replaced.

Worse, trying to get help from my local store turned into an ultimately fruitless two-hour waste of time. Their website listed a 6pm closing time; when I got there at 5:40 – after a 30 minute trip – an employee had locked the door and was walking away. After he left I looked at said door; the “6:00 PM” closing time had been covered with a blank piece of paper. So they were open 10 AM until . . . ? Apparently, until whenever they decided to go home. The hell with the customer.

Stuck with a still-clogged useless POS I tried first to get online instructions for unclogging it myself. That didn't work out so well, so I swallowed my pride and drove back to the store. When I told them that the unscrewable collar was not, they (employee AND owner) told me to use a screwdriver and a hammer. Putting aside how ludicrous that is, I asked them to show me what they meant; they refused, demanding money for a service call instead.

The hell with Oreck, I say. They've never done well in Consumer Reports’ survey. I for one know why. Now you do too.

What I should have bought,

Consumer Reports' #1 rated vacuum, the Kenmore Elite 31150