hOW TO dEStroY A bAGLESS sTiCK sHArK vACcUMe
Ordering a vaccume vaccum vacumn vacume vaccuum vacuum cleaner from TV and then destroying it.


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One thing that pissed me off when I bought my Stick Shark was that it didn't come with the Deluxe Accessory Kit that was shown on TV. But this morning, a mysterious brown box showed up on my door, and guess what was in it?

Deluxe Accessory Kit

That's right - the Deluxe Accessory Kit, including the longer hose, rigid extension wand, and nap brush with nap lifter and bristle attachment. Also enclosed were two replacement dust cup filters for my Stick Shark; only one is shown here because I installed the other one in my vacum as soon as I opened the box.




One thing the Stick Shark doesn't always do well with is those styrofoam packing turds. They get stuck inside the hose, and when you use the regular floor nozzle (the part of a regular vacuum one would find the brush roll located), they're too large to fit the opening. A couple of those things suctioned against the opening will cause the vacuum to start making that "there's something stuck inside" sound, so you have to dig them out of the inlet before you can continue vacuming. If you grind them into the carpet with your shoe (thus breaking the foam into smaller pieces) the Stick Shark will suck them up.


What the Shark does work well for is rubber bands and hard objects like coins and broken glass. Items like this would ruin any ordinary vacuum, but not the Stick Shark.
It greedily consumes them with a satisfying "pthththththump!" sound just like on the commercial.

Another thing the Bagless Stick Shark excells with is cleaning up dry messes, such as cereal or busted flowerpots.

Suck up those coacoa puffs!!

As you can see, the studly little vacume *easily* vacuumed up all of the spilled Coacoa Crispies, even on this tough-to-clean carpet. This accidental spill was *NOT* scripted or staged in any way; I just grabbed a camera and took "before", "during", and "after" pictures as I went for my "Shark Attack Vacuum" and nonchalantly cleaned up the mess. Much like they do on TV, I didn't even bother to pick up the source of the mess (the cereal box, in this case) before starting. The vacuum cleaned even the cereal I had run over in my wheelchair and did it on the first pass.

The spots you see on the carpet in the "After" photograph are embedded stains, and no vacumm will pick those up.


Pubblic enema number one

As a test, I took apart my couch which was full of broken glass left from last year's big earthquake - glass I couldn't reach inside to get without cutting myself up badly, and glass that my old upright didn't have any attachments for sucking up anyway. The Stick Shark quickly sucked up ALL the glass, and for the first time in almost a year, my couch is finally glass-free!


Quake couch comes clean!
Note: In this shot, the glass was "planted" because I'd already cleaned
it earlier.The pennies and tobacco fragments were not planted however.
And everything you see on the couch here was actually vacuumed with the Stick Shark.



Is the Stick Shark a vacuum for cat owners? Let's find out.

Stick Shark vs. Bad Kitty
First, I went to the store and paid $1.99 for a bag of Tidy Cat.
This is a typical type of clay litter most often used in the kitty litter box.

Stick Shark vs. Bad Kitty Stick Shark vs. Bad Kitty
I dumped about 2 pounds of it on the carpet, and ground it in with
my shoe using a twisting motion as if I were crushing out a cigarette.

Stick Shark vs. Bad Kitty
Look at the Stick Shark go! This is a fairly large kitty litter mess, as such things go. Most cleanups involving cat
litter will be just small spills from what the cat digs or tracks out on its paws when exiting the plastic cat toilet.

Stick Shark vs. Bad Kitty
After vacuuming this huge pile for approximately 2 minutes,
all the cat litter was gone. So yes, it really does do that.
If this were bare floor, all the litter would be gone in just seconds.



Here's the short story on the Bagless Stick Shark vacuum Cleaner:

ALWAYS SUCKS UP: Household dirt & grit, coffee grinds, rat & mouse poop, small light bulbs, map pins, screws, bolts, small nails, rat fur, broken glass, small batteries, cigarette & cigar stubs (never vacuum lighted cigarettes!), cigarette ashes, peanut M&Ms, thumbtacks, small pieces of plastic & foam, single sheet of toilet paper, half a sheet of Kleenex, dry cat litter, dry cat & dog food, dimes, pennies.

SOMETIMES SUCKS UP: Cellophane top from cigarette packages, nickels, half-sized styrofoam packing turds, small pieces of tape.

CHOKES ON:Regular sized styrofoam packing turds, unsmoked cigarettes, size "AA" or larger flashlight batteries, bottle caps, cigarette lighters, coins larger in diameter than a nickel, multiple sheets of toilet paper, paper towels, small pieces of paper (such as a corner torn from an envelope), rubber douche bottles, used Stick-Up air cleaners, in-tank bowl cleaner, plastic bread package clips, C7 1/2 Christmas light bulbs (though it will pick them up if the bulbs are stomped on first).





The only possible damage mechanism that I could see would be for sharp objects to be aspirated into the dust cup and tearing holes in the filter, though in my testing, nothing I've vacuumed has damaged the filter. It appears as though the aspiration mechanism of the Stick Shark is engineered cleverly enough to create the right airflow inside to divert the vacuumed up debris away from the filter material.



Just like the infomercial shows, the vacuum's dirt cup is incredibly easy to remove, empty, and reinstall. I'd rather do this than fuss with bags anyday.

The Stick Shark also has a 3 year warranty, which I found very surprising given the not-so-expensive look of the whole thing. When I checked the labelling, I found my unit was made only a couple of weeks ago (late January 2002), so the demand for the Stick Shark must be incredibly high. I also noticed the instructions for attaching the shoulder strap (for hand-vacuum usage) were not correct - they have since redesigned the strap and added special attachment points for it on the vacuum's body, making the strap much simpler to attach and remove.

The Stick Shark emits a fairly loud, slightly whiny noise but not quite loud enough to drown out the TV when that guy on the Jack In The Box commercial yells "sowcow" and snaps that soggy $1 bill he plucked out of the giant fish toilet.

Further "testing" revealed that the Stick Shark works best as a bare floor vacuum (an "electric broom") and it really shines as a handheld vacuum for cleaning on and inside furniture and spot-cleaning such as taking care of a spilled flowerpot or coffee grounds dumped on the counter. It doesn't seem to work on carpeting as well as my full-sized upright, but that's only because it doesn't have a beater brush like a full sized upright does.

Here's a tip: The cleaner you keep the dust cup filter, the better your Stick Shark will suck. The filter is designed to be washable; so wash it in the sink with warm water and mild dishwashing liquid. An old soft-bristled hairbrush - perhaps one the handle busted off and you no longer use - can be used to gently "scrub" the filter under the running faucet. If you don't have a broken hairbrush lying around, then just use the small upholstery brush that came with your vacuum. Blot the excess water out of the filter with paper towels, and allow both the filter and the dust cup to air-dry completely before putting them back in your Stick Shark.
Regardless of your filter cleaning regimen - or lack of it - the filter should be replaced with a new one every three months if you use the vacuum regularly, even more often if you beat the poor vacuum to death every single day.

This would make an ideal vacuum for a small space like a college dorm, camper, or R.V.; or if you have a lot of bare floors, or if you're always breaking your regular vacuum by sucking up "forbidden" objects with it. You might want to hang on to that big vacuum cleaner if you have a lot of carpeted floor space to clean however.

The tank on this vacuum is rather small, and fills up remarkably fast if you're vacuuming a very large area with loads of dirt in it. So if you're vaccuming a large, filthy room, you might need to dump it once or twice before you've finished. It's a great little vacuum for small rooms, but not for lots of big ones.

This is also a good vacuum for cleaning up things like windowsills, the vents on big TV sets, computer fan & vent slots, the slots in a computer power supply, the nooks and crannies in an upright arcade video game, and places like around furniture legs and inside couches & chairs where a regular vacum can't reach and a dustbuster doesn't have enough suction to do the job.

One thing that pisses me off about this vaccume is that large, thin objects like fallen leaves from houseplants get stuck against the nozzle or hose tip unless you grind them into the rug with your shoe first, in order to break them up into smaller pieces. Whole leaves tend to get stuck right at the end of the hose or on the bottom of the floor nozzle, so you still have to hand-pick them. Heavier objects like pennies and light bulbs also have to be picked up before vaccuming when you use the floor nozzle because they will not go up it. If you don't want to pick the pennies up, just throw on the hose and suck 'em up - then put the floor nozzle on and vacuum as usual.

Remember, the Stick Shark will not clean large areas of shag carpet as well as a vacuum with a brush roll will, but it's fine for bare floor and for spot cleaning of any surface, including carpet. If you have a lot of bare floor and hate sweeping, or if you have a lot of accidental spills and general spot cleaning to do, you might as well buy the Bagless Stick Shark, and if you don't like it, send it back. Most places that sell this vacumn (including the TV infomercial) offer a 30 day satisfaction guarantee, so you really can't lose too much by trying this studly little vacuum.

Here's another tip for you. If you have a flowerpot or cat litter dumped all over the carpet, you can use the Stick Shark with the hose attachment to suck up the bulk of the dirt, then pop on the upholstery brush and work back and forth with short, brisk strokes to pick up the remainder. Using the brush this way acts like the brush roll or agitator in an upright vaccum, so you will get all the dirt up. This is actually demonstrated nicely in the infomercial by Mark Rosen when he's sucking the "earth out of the carpet", but he doesn't specifically discuss it. Short, brisk strokes with the brush attachment - remember that.



BEFORE YOU BUY A BAGLESS STICK SHARK

I received the following e-mail this evening. Enclosed were three rather disturbing photographs, which I think are pretty self-explanatory.

      Subject: Question about the Stick Sharck vaccumn
         Date: Monday, 18 Feb 2002 21:33:56 -0600
         From: "{name withheld}" [withheld@stupid.com]
           To:  ledmuseum@gmail.com
    Dear Sir, 
    
    I saw your funny web sight about the Stick Sharck Vaccumn and bought one off ebay.
    But mine looks different and it doesn't seem to work very well.  Is there more than one
    kind of Stick Sharck vaccumn being sold?  I think mine must be that other cordless kind.
    But it won't pick up anything, not on the kitchen linolium or in the capet in the living
    room or den. And it doesn't do anything on the steps either.  I don't see any place to
    turn it on so it muse be one of those sweeper vaccumns like they use at hotels.
    I didn't get a hose or that little chair brush or the long skinny nozzle thing either.
    Please help.  I want to try the thing with bolts and m&ms like they did on TV.
    
    Sincerely, 
    {name withheld to protect privacy and maybe prevent a shooting}
    
    P.S.
    I took some pictures so you can try to fix my vaccumn.
    
    (file attachment Sharck_Vaccumn_Pics.zip)
    






So, can you guess why this poor woman's "new" "bagless" "stick shark" doesn't work? You think maybe it's missing some important part - like the VACCUUMMNNE!!! This was just too funny to pass up. Remember to be sure you get a whole vacuum cleaner when you buy a vacuum!!
This thing is all "stick" and no "shark"!! At least it's bagless. :-O



Summary of cleaning tips to keep your Bagless Stick Shark working at its best:
  1. A clean filter really sucks. Really, it does. The cleaner you keep that filter, the more suction your Stick Shark will have. If you use the vacuum every single day, you might even want to replace the filter every month, instead of every three months.
  2. Always clean the filter after vacuuming up powdery dirt such as talcum powder, confectioner's sugar, fireplace or cigarette ashes, or plaster dust.
  3. Clean carpeting with short, brisk strokes. When cleaning a dry spill from carpet, use the upholstery brush and work with short, quick strokes once you've sucked all the dirt off the surface. Use the same method for pet hair on chairs & couches. For cleaning a whole room of carpeting, use your regular upright or canister with power nozzle instead of the Stick Shark. The Shark will clean up the surface dirt (fine for a quick, emergency clean-up) but won't get the dirt at the bottom of the carpet fibers because it doesn't have a beater brush.







Comments? Questions? Then E-mail me.










Craig Johnson
4120 N Valentine Ave, Apt 140
Fresno, CA 93722-4159
United States
+1 559-558-0491