How Clean is YOUR carpet?

Yesterday I had two piano lessons scheduled for 5pm and 5:30pm so I used what I thought of as my "wonderful' vacuum cleaner to clean up the pieces of fake Christmas tree and garlands that were scattered across my front room's floor. I also vacuumed my hardwood hallway and the highest traffic area in my house - the pathway from the back door to the hardwood hallway. This area is the access to my kitchen, so, of course, it's always the dirtiest.

This is the vacuum I used yesterday afternoon. It's an Electrolux Harmony. My mother-in-law bought it for me for Christmas when Joseph and I were living in an apartment. It is SUPER quiet which made it ideal for the apartment. And it was supposed to be quite good for it's price range. ( I don't know exactly how much my MIL paid for mine because it was a gift, but this model runs about $300 new.)
My piano students showed up a few minutes early and we started lessons right away. While I was in the middle of my lesson with Chris, my doorbell rang. Now, I'm not a big fan of formalities so I kinda just "yelled" for the person to come in. In walked a 30-something woman and a 30-something man. The woman proceeded to tell me that her boss was going around my neighbourhood demonstrating a carpet cleaner and that he'd (the boss) like to stop by and clean one of my rooms in exchange for a good word from me if I liked the job he did. Of course, I thought it was a cleaning service of sorts, so I told the woman to come back at 5:45pm when my lessons were over.

She came back alright. With her boss in tow. Well, he WAS the "main attraction" after all. Turns out, her boss, Markeith, sells Kirby vacuums. So, for the next TWO hours Joseph and I watched as Markeith vacuumed different parts of our house. The high traffic area by the kitchen, the hardwood hallway, the first seven stairs to the second floor. Two area of which I had JUST cleaned myself only an hour before!

I've never seen so much dirt come out of a carpet before! I thought my floors were clean. Boy, was I wrong! The dirt that Markeith's Kirby pulled out of my carpet was enough to start a small mud pie feast. (By the way, before you start thinking that I don't clean my house well, let me remind you...I JUST vacuumed that carpet with my Harmony an HOUR before Markeith vacuumed it. Also, we have a cleaning service that comes into our house every other week to vacuum and clean. AND, we spot clean as needed in between the cleanings! We are NOT dirty people!) Of course, I was impressed. Joseph was too, but he was doing his best to seem nonchalant the whole time. What Joseph knew that I didn't, was that Joseph's mother owned a Kirby. OWNS a Kirby. Only my MIL's Kirby weight a half ton. The one Markeith showed us last night still weighs a good bit, but it IS solid metal instead of the typical plastic body of your everyday vacuum cleaner. See, there's a picture of the Kirby below:


I'm sure that you've guessed what I'm trying to say. Markeith walked away from my house last night leaving me with my very own Kirby Sentria. Of course, what's not pictured above is what I told Markeith that I really wanted. The demonstration "dirt meter". And a stack of filters. So now, after I vacuum a room with my Sentria, I can go back over it with the dirt meter (which hooks up to the Sentria instead of the bag) to make sure I got my room completely clean before moving on to the next room.

Now, my question for you is this:

Is $1,600 too much to pay for the peace of mind and knowledge that your house is as clean as any person can possibly get it?

Oh! I forgot to mention...The motor and transmission of the Sentria comes with a Lifetime Guarantee and the rest of it comes with an automatic 3yr. warranty. And the things this vacuum does AS WELL AS vacuum...that would take up a whole other post!