So THAT's what the orange light is for... (Miele Cat and Dog)

Member Name: cazm17

Product:	Miele Cat and Dog
Date:	21/10/02 (7631 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Picks up cat hairs with little effort, quiet in operation, Easy to store, Works on pet hairs!

Disadvantages: Struggles with long human hair, Need special brush to clean stairs properly

Having been through three vacuum cleaners in as many years I was at my wits end. Last Christmas I had spent hours, literally, vacuuming the carpets throughout with an ageing Vax cleaner that had seen better days. Each piece of carpet needed vacuuming about 8 times to get it thoroughly cleaned for the arrival of the in-laws, and I'd just about reached the end of my suction hose. Particularly when the cats decided to fight straight away! The two Electrolux models before that had been no better (uprights are far better, waxed lyrical everyone at the time). Unfortunately when they went wrong, they went wrong in style. The whole machine was kaput and I was £200 the worse off as they always died just out of guarantee.

Christmas came and went, fortunately without any recourse to the vacuum cleaner, although I had had an interesting post-turkey conversation with my mum about the best cleaner to have. She has three active Springer Spaniels which dictate she has to hoover on a virtually daily basis to avoid being knee deep in fur. Fortunately my three cats aren't quite that bad, but both me and my boyfriend have long hair which does add to the problem.

'I'm thinking of a Dyson', I say.

'Don't even think about it. I've got the Henry, the Kirby and the Dyson, and I have to use the Henry on the dog hair because the Dyson won't touch it.' she responds. I will point out that at this time there were only a limited number of 'pet' models on the market, and Dyson wasn't one of them. So we started thinking about getting a Henry from my local CostCo, as they're quite cheap there. Anyway to cut a long story short, I completely forgot until my mother called telling me there was a Miele Cat and Dog Plus fully paid for over the phone awaiting collection at our local House of Fraser. She'd heard they were really good.

Our first night was spent examining the bits and bobs, and documentation, what
goes where etc, and decided to wait until the morning for the first test. When it came to the test we were astonished. Even on a low setting, where it previously took 8-10 passes of the brush, the 'turbobrush' took 1. The whole of the landing took less than 5 minutes, and the lounge was spotless in half an hour.

I won't bore you with the technical details but there are a whole range of settings (with a very handy picture to help you remember which is which), which cover rugs, heavy duty soiling, rugs, furniture etc. I was very impressed with the little extras you can get from Miele. No fumbling around trying to find stockists, you can call their Bags More Direct service and have all the accessories delivered to your door, including handy accessories like a parquet floorbrush or a car cleaning kit.

And let me tell you how handy the car cleaning kit is. I got a free one of these with the vacuum cleaner (Miele often give away free accessories as promotions). It was a bit of a nuisance as you had to send away for it after purchase, and having put the box away found that I needed the serial number etc. But when it arrived, it made stair cleaning the most effortless piece of vacuuming I'd ever known.

Having cats, the best solution I'd found had been to vacuum any loose debris with the vacuum hose, then using a Ronco velvet brush to clean the hair off. Unfortunately this usually took around 30 minutes at best on my stairs. Using the 'mini turbobrush' now takes me about 5 minutes, although you can actually buy the turbobrush on its own. The car cleaning kit resides under the stairs and has never been near the car. It normally retails at around £25. And it's a fair point to say that without the mini turbobrush, stair cleaning is quite awkward, as with most cleaners.

One of the other handy things about the Cat & Dog Plus is the two docking points for the brush. Depending on whether you store it laying down or
standing up, there are places for you to insert the brush to keep it tidy. It certainly beats falling over the vacuum hose in the middle of the lounge.

~Miele CleanCare~
Miele also offer an extended warranty, which I took out just after purchase. I'm normally very wary of these, but for £17 a year for 5 years covers you for all parts and labour (*excluding misuse). You also get two boxes of dustbags each year (10 dustbags and 2 Super Clean Air filters) delivered free of charge to you. The normal cost of these are £6.50 a box, although to be fair I've only just changed the first dustbag, some 8-9 months after purchase. I felt their cover was well worth a look, although this reminds me I need to find out when during the year you should receive your dustbags...

~The Pitfalls~
It's been a pleasant year (or as pleasant as vacuuming can be, anyway). However, the Miele Cat & Dog has not been without its faults. It has been a pleasure vacuuming up cat hair, but human hair is a bit of a challenge. Since the main way it picks up hair is with the rotating brush, our hair gets caught up around the rollers, both of us having nearly waist-length hair. This does mean that every few goes you need to clean the turbobrush.

I didn't realise at first what the problem was, and was getting frustrated that it wasn't picking up the fur. However, upon closer inspection and de-hairing, it worked a treat.

I was also quite unsure about when the bag needed changing. Yes, I know an orange or red light on the top would indicate something is wrong, but it took me a while to realize. Well, who really reads the manuals properly?

All in all... our friends have the latest Dyson for pets, and it doesn't pick up fluff as quickly or efficiently (in my opinion) as our Miele. If you can live with having to remove fluff from the rotating brushes on a regular basis, then the Miele is a good choice. I wouldn't swap it for the wo
rld. Well, maybe for a newer Miele one day...

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