Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This really does look like a scaled down toy version made by Fisher Price for kids to play with, while dad has the real Shop-Vac (like those little toy shopping carts)... but it isn't a toy. We got this to do our floors -- about 2,000 sq feet of tile. When the steam mop says "sweep first" we don't want to "sweep," we want to vacuum. Getting out the big Shop-Vac had become just too much for me, so we read all the reviews and decided to give this a try. Perfect purchase. We've since added this to the chore list for the kids. They're able to do the entire downstairs (all 2,000 sq ft) in about 15 minutes... followed by the other kid with the steam mop, also 15 minutes of work. They empty when they begin or end and the tank is big enough to do the whole job. Since it is small, it doesn't get caught in doorways, by furniture, or by its own cord and tip over, the way the big Shop-Vac would do when it would get stuck, especially on its own cord (big Shop-Vac owners know what I mean)--when you've given it that big pull only to have it do that R2D2 tip over thing. This thing chases after you when you pull on the cord, on its super fast little wheels. I hate to keep saying this things is cute, but it is! The only problem we've had is originally, with the way it was packaged. The hose was bent and a weakness created in the bendy hose (sort of like a flexi-straw) and it was in that position too tightly in the package, and created a weak/stress point in the hose. We put a light piece of metal housing (that we had left over from a lamp) around the weakness, to prevent it from cracking further and bending, stopping the air flow, but Shop-Vac should do a better job of packaging to prevent that from happening. We probably should have returned it to get a replacement hose, but we didn't. We're from Texas and we have duct tape to fix things like that! I'd have given it a 5 were it not for this flaw. We aren't going to use the optional vacuum bags. That seriously degrades the suction ability. Much easier just to shake out the dust and such into the trash, the old fashioned way. No one in our house has allergies, so it is a choice we can make. If you have to use bags, buy lots, because they are very small, and seem to fit in the base in a way that doesn't allow them to hold very much. Anyway, it is a light, easy to maneuver little machine. Just right if you're looking for a household version of the bigger garage-size machine. This is not even a Mama Bear size ShopVac - definitely Baby Bear, but with a near-Papa Bear size suction ability, but it doesn't eat phone cords the way the big one does (which is what you want in a household machine). As I said originally, it really does look like Fisher Price made a toy version so kids can have a Shop-Vac just like Daddy! heh. We did say we got our kids to do the floors, didn't we???