How Do you Keep Your House Clean with a big Dog?!

This post is sponsored by eBay

"How do you keep your house clean with a big dog?!" is a question I get on the daily. I've addressed it here when I talked about all my loves, errr vacuums. (It takes an army), but it always comes down to you have to love your dog/children/lived-in-life more than you hate the mess that comes with them. Which we enthusiastically do. I also happen to enthusiastically love cleaning and there are definitely a few things that make it MORE fun. When BISSELL saw we included them in our all-star line-up awhile back, they asked if we would share what we have, how we use them and what we love about them.

We have two — count ‘em, two — BISSELL vacuum cleaners, both of which we bought certified refurbished on eBay (more on that here),but essentially they come direct from the manufacture and are tested and verified to work like-new. We got the ICONpet in September 2019 and the Crosswave in May 2018 and neither has ever called in sick, if you get what I’m saying.

You’ve heard of the upstairs vacuum and the downstairs vacuum, but our BISSELL’s actually serve two different purposes. Two cleaning *moods*, if you will (And I will…)

Now, we have a big, lovable hairy dog, three active kids, and plenty of construction and remodeling going on every day. If I didn’t love to clean and secretly enjoy to hum of our two BISSELLs, our house would be a mess. I’m not (but I kind of am) making a case for you to get both of these.

Candidly, here’s what I like about the ICONpet High-Powered Cordless Vacuum:

1. You don’t have to plug it in. I never trip over the cord. You just charge it up (you’ll mount the charging station to a wall near an outlet), and it stays powered for up to 40 minutes. The higher power modes cut down on those minutes, but this vacuum rarely takes more than a few minutes to do the job. (I use lower power modes on lightweight area rugs.)
2. It can change into a hand vac when I want to vacuum the couch or the stairs or the curtains or anywhere else Willow’s hair has landed. The also cordless motorized TurboBrush tool lets me roam all over the house, cleaning anything I can reach.
3. There’s a Tangle Free Brush Roll that traps pet hair (and all of our hair!) without wrapping around the vacuum.
4. There’s a removeable dirt canister that’s easy to dump and doesn’t stimulate by gag reflex.
5. There’s a light on it :) This is the big thing that kind of puts it above my other vacuums. The light just makes it easier to see dirt. Period. It swivels and swerves, and I can see under EVERYTHING.

The CrossWave Pet Pro is unlike any other vacuum I have and it's a critical addition to my line-up because:

1. It’s a wet vac! I fill up the tank with water, add the multi-surface pet formula (pet-friendly, kid-friendly, earth-friendly), and then go to town. It scrubs off paw prints, dirt, food — you name it. You’re vacuuming AND washing your floors at the same time. It feels like the future. I find this especially helpful for wet/dry messes like spilled cereal, vomit (I'm sincerely sorry), the mess around the dog's bowls. Gaggggg.
2. You can wash area rugs with it. It gets them all sudsy and everything. There’s a button that says “hard floor” and one that says “area rug.”
3. There’s a two-tank system, so the dirty water isn’t swimming around with the cleaning solution. #genius
4. It smells so good. This gets its own bullet point. It smells like the room has an air freshener in it when you’re done.

Vacuuming is one of those chores that ranks high on my list because of the instant gratification, satisfaction, smell, vacuum lines, clean floors, time to put in my headphones and clean---I mean, what's not to love! Linked a few below from eBay for a great price if you want to snag one!