Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Anyone who's had a Brita knows that after a while the water doesn't filter as quickly as when you put a new filter in. Now imagine that it acted like that when it WAS new. I filter 3-4 pitchers a day (tap water sucks here), so I know how quickly water filters. I got a new one of these filters out not too long ago, and it was covered in gray dust. I thought it wasn't a big deal, but it wouldn't rinse off. A wet paper towel got most of it off, but not all. The package says these do not require pre-soaking, but that isn't entirely accurate. The instructions flat-out say to submerge the filter in water and shake out the air bubbles, and that no *further* pre-soaking is necessary. I did that, and I had freshly washed the pitcher itself, so I put it together to run a few throwaway pitchers of water through. It took SOOO long to filter the water, it was ridiculous. After it finished, I went to dump it and noticed that it looked like something was left behind in the area where you pour the water to be filtered. Brita owners are probably familiar with the black speck stuff, but this looked like fibers of some sort. I rinsed it out again and chalked it up to chance. It happened again on the second run. The water isn't mysteriously forming fibers out of thin air, so my only guess is that something is floating up out of the filter. Also, after I did the pre-soak and wipe off of the new filter, I set it down on a clean paper towel while I assembled the pitcher (forgot to do so earlier). When I picked up the filter, the paper towel had a giant gray spot. This thing is supposed to filter junk *out* of the water, not add more junk to it. I was very annoyed. I didn't want the hassle of returning the other filters, and I don't like to throw things away, so I tried to make use of them. Today, I give up. I'm throwing the 2nd one (that I tried to use today and had the same results as the first) and the third, still in the box. The water didn't even taste like it was well-filtered (with the first one). Back to Brita I go.