What the Pet Hair Eraser Actually Erased

The Bissell Pet Hair Eraser arrived in a box the size of a small engine block. BW opened it like she'd been waiting for a lottery check. The dog had been shedding like we were in the middle of some biblical plague, and the regular vacuum—a fine machine, nothing wrong with it—kept jamming up every seventeen seconds. So here we were.

I read the manual while the child watched a show about people buying houses they couldn't afford. The Eraser looked serious. Compact. Purpose-built. It had this motorized brush roll that was supposed to grab hair that other vacuums missed. Fine. We needed that.

First use was a Tuesday afternoon. BW ran it over the living room couch where the dog had been napping. The thing worked. Hair came up in these satisfying rolls. The Eraser hummed along like it had finally found its calling. I felt something close to hope.

By Wednesday, the child had figured out how to turn it on.

By Thursday, the child had figured out it was a lightsaber.

I found her in the hallway staging what appeared to be a full-scale invasion of the laundry room. The Eraser was running at full power, she was making explosion sounds, and there were dust clouds that suggested she was also vacuuming curtains. This was not in the manual. (The manual was very specific about hard floors and upholstery, not cotton window treatments at eight in the morning on a school day.)

I turned it off. She turned it back on. We did this four times before BW came down and gave me that look. The look that means I should have been paying attention.

The Eraser's motor started making a sound like a small appliance having a crisis. A grinding thing. Not a happy sound. I checked the brush roll—clogged with curtain fiber and dog hair in some kind of unholy blend. Took me twenty minutes to get it clear. The child watched from the kitchen, already halfway through a bowl of cereal she'd made herself without asking.

The next day the Eraser still worked, but it sounded like a helicopter with opinions. BW uses it anyway. She says it's fine. The dog keeps shedding. The Eraser keeps grinding. The child has moved on to other weapons.

It sits in the hall closet now, waiting for someone to use it again. It's probably wondering how things deteriorated so quickly. It was supposed to solve a problem. Instead it became evidence of how every solution in this house eventually leads to a Thursday morning with the curtains half-vacuumed and somebody's hands on the power button who shouldn't have them there.

The dog is shedding right now. The Eraser is not running.

If you liked this story about the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Handheld Vacuum, you can buy your own on Amazon. Remember, we're BFF if you do.