A few years back the fellow that ran off with my first wife was selling vacuums.
http://www.homedefensesystem.com/refs.htm
I wanted to see this fellow do something useful with his life, so I let him come give us a demo.
There's a little door the hose goes into, under that there's a roughly cylindrical bag.
he sucked up ten lbs of sand, then five one inch steel ball bearings (with the VACUUM!,)
Then he had us use our vacuum on the dirtiest part of our apt, just inside the front door.
We went over it until we thought it was clean, then did the same amount of time two more times.
He took his vacuum with ten lbs of sand, and five one-inch steel ball bearings, and just moved the power head five inches over our 'clean' spot and it picked up so much filth we were disgusted.
Then he opened the little door with the motor running, and the ten lbs of sand, and the steel balls, and turned it upside down.
That thing didn't drop a bit!
Then he puts it on it's side and steps up on top of it, all 350lbs of him, and tells me the body has a lifetime warranty.
We bought one.
Ir was very costly, but we wanted his business to succeed, and we liked the vac, and it was named and promoted in such an endearingly jingoistic way, we HAD to.
It's got a military-grade HEPA canister sticking out of its ass!
If I had that, I could eat chili with impunity!
But this was before the dyson was big, I sometimes wonder how the two stack up.
Might have to see,
RD
..LOL!!...OUTLAW