You know you're middle aged when

[robgul]

When you decide you need to invest in a vacuum cleaner for upstairs.
It's only a matter of time before I batter the feck out of the walls humphing the current one up the stairwell.
(In my defense we never had an upstairs to hoover before).

Or compromise with a "big one" and a "small portable one" - we seem to have a corded upright Dyson and a cordless sort of stick Dyson (my wife likes Dyson, I don't - all design and poor function)

My workshop sports a Henry (that also powers the woodwork dust extraction system) and cordless Einhell using the same battery as a lot of the power tools.

[TheLurker]

,,,Nobody wants to inherit a well-worn Dyson.

FTFY

[Mrs Pingu]

To be fair to Dyson, mine's been going strong for the thick end of 20 years (ok, it needed a new motor this year) and I really like it. Probably helps that I'm a slutty housewife and don't hoover often enough, though it has had to deal with a LOT of car hair.
We have a handheld Dyson from before they went all stick cordless, it's alright for spot jobs and the car but I don't think I'd like one for proper hoovering, plus it's noisy as hell. I'm thinking of going for one of the more recent small ball models.
I wouldn't buy a new one though cos he's a filthy Brexiter.

[Mr Larrington]

Car hair?

[Mrs Pingu]

 

[T42]

I'm imagining what that would have looked like after 500k on the autoroute 30 years ago, before we killed off all the bugs.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

..you remember bugs.

[T42]

Dear God, was it that long ago?   

[TheLurker]

To be fair to Dyson, mine's been going strong for the thick end of 20 years (ok, it needed a new motor this year) and I really like it.

We had a series of Dyson's hoovers (hee hee) the first one, about 25 years ago was good.  It died after a DIY *ahem* incident.  Who knew that much plaster dust was bad for hoovers?  Not me.  Anyway, we got another, it wasn't as good as the first, but it was still OK.  I won't go any further as you can see where this is going, can't you?  TLDR; I wouldn't give a new Dyson house room.

[rafletcher]

We junked the Dyson we had as its weight was a pain up and down a narrow staircase. Got a Bosch Athlet. Nicely balanced and my wife liked it, but it, and the next one, suffered from a common fault where the connector between the 2 parts of the handle fails. Plus it was nigh on impossible for me, let alone my wife, to get the brush head off to use attachments. We now have a VAX cordless. Not as well balanced (too heavy) and a small dust container, but effective, and dead easy to swap bits about, making for a good handheld for the car. I still get to tote it up and down the stairs (my wife at 79 doesn’t feel confident doing so, what with the stairs being 45 degrees with a 90 degree turn over 4 steps at the bottom) but that’s ok. And we have a Miele with a bag for spring cleaning and a Henry for soot and ash.

[Giraffe]

I have: downstairs, upstairs and loft. Lazy buggers - never do any work, just leave all the muck around.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

To be fair to Dyson, mine's been going strong for the thick end of 20 years (ok, it needed a new motor this year) and I really like it. Probably helps that I'm a slutty housewife and don't hoover often enough, though it has had to deal with a LOT of car hair.
We have a handheld Dyson from before they went all stick cordless, it's alright for spot jobs and the car but I don't think I'd like one for proper hoovering, plus it's noisy as hell. I'm thinking of going for one of the more recent small ball models.
I wouldn't buy a new one though cos he's a filthy Brexiter.

They don’t make ‘em like they used to, you know. 

I like my old Henry - much more powerful than new ones, a destroyer of worlds, it is..

[De Sisti]

I have a VAX model 121, purchased in 1989 that is still going strong.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

I have a VAX model 121, purchased in 1989 that is still going strong.

Five castor model, nice bit of kit.

[T42]

I have a VAX model 121, purchased in 1989 that is still going strong.

Not running Windows then.

[MattH]

You know you're middle aged when you get that joke

I spend a lot of time at work with the youngsters looking confused and pityingly at me and similar aged colleagues when we make comments like that.

[ian]

Solve the Dyson problem by getting a cleaner. Never really had an issue with the Dyson, but it weighs more than a busload of sumo wrestlers and basically doubled the time it took to vacuum the house. The cleaner uses a Henry which everyone raves about, but we have a little cordless Vax blade thing that, from my occasional forays into cleaning when I or the cats knock something over, certainly gets a lot more stuff out of the carpet than the cleaner and her Henry.

[De Sisti]

I have a VAX model 121, purchased in 1989 that is still going strong.

Not running Windows then.

[ian]

Computer joke, your honour (VAX was a type of computer from DEC, once the most popular in the world, before it lost out to generic Unix systems and eventually consumer OSs like Windows).

[T42]

 

[ian]

I think my first interaction with a grown-up computer was VAX/VMS – ed.ac.uk – I think they moved to Unix soon afterwards. None of it was very friendly for non-nerds.

Well, we did have four BBC Model Bs at school, but grubby pupils weren't allowed to touch them unsupervised. I never got as close as the same classroom. Actually, I tell a lie, my supervisor during my degree let me borrow his little Mac to write up my project, the alternative was booking 30-minute sessions in the library computer 'lab.' Wordperfect before WYSIWYG, with the keyboard function key decoder for formatting.

[De Sisti]

Computer joke, your honour (VAX was a type of computer from DEC, once the most popular in the world, before it lost out to generic Unix systems and eventually consumer OSs like Windows).

I'm not computer literate, so thanks for the explanation.

[TheLurker]

Solve the Dyson problem by getting a cleaner...cordless Vax blade thing that, from my occasional forays into cleaning ...certainly gets a lot more stuff out of the carpet than the cleaner and her Henry.

Ermm.  That rather suggests the whole, "Get a cleaner" thing isn't quite working as you might expect?

[tom_e]

Solve the Dyson problem by getting a cleaner...cordless Vax blade thing that, from my occasional forays into cleaning ...certainly gets a lot more stuff out of the carpet than the cleaner and her Henry.

Ermm.  That rather suggests the whole, "Get a cleaner" thing isn't quite working as you might expect?

I'm guessing the "my occasional forays" bit may be key to understanding why the cleaner is more satisfying and effective, even if they don't suck quite as hard.

[Mrs Pingu]

Messaged the local bloke who fixed our Dyson a year ago when it made magic smoke and he has several 'light balls' for 50 squids so that'll do.