About five million Canadian homes have a dog, cat or both. That's a lot of pet hair to clean up. Chris Olsen shows you which vacuums are best.
Samantha Boege and her family love their dog Waffles, but not the hair he sheds.
"It's everywhere. It's in everything. I mean, my kids -- it's in their food," she said.
Some vacuums promise to be especially good at picking up pet hair, like the Hoover Pet Cyclonic that claims to "keep your home free of pet hair." The Bissell Lift-Off Multi-Cyclonic says it's "made for homes with pets." So does a vacuum from Dyson.
Consumer Reports put those vacuums and more than 80 others through its tough new pet-hair test.
Hair for the test comes from long-haired Maine Coon cats. The hair is collected after grooming and sent to Consumer Reports' labs.
Testers spread five grams of cat hair on a carpet and then used a heavy roller to press it down. That simulates people walking repeatedly across the carpet. Next, each vacuum gets 14 passes to see how well it picks up the hair. Some didn't do a very good job.
"Quite a bit of cat hair is caught on the wheels and the bristles on the floor brush," Fred Spinelli of Consumer Reports said.
Even some of the vacuums that make special pet-hair claims weren't the best at picking up pet hair.
"Some of vacuums that don't make a pet-hair claim actually aced the test and are all around better vacuums," Sue Perry of Consumer Reports said.
Consumer Reports found quite a few vacuums that did an excellent job at picking up pet hair and are very good vacuums overall. A good choice is the Eureka Boss Smart Vac 4870 for $230.
Top of the list is the lightweight Hoover platinum. It's a bagged vacuum that sells for about $400. It rated "excellent" at picking up everything. It weighs only six kilograms and comes with a six-year warranty.
If you prefer a canister vacuum, Consumer Reports named a Sears Kenmore a best buy.
It's the Kenmore Elegance, model number 23107, for $480.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Chris Olsen
