HARDSELL

Happy to hear your health and happiness of your friends are more important than money!

Take Venson's advice to heart about reusing the MIELE bags.  Most bags can't be reused.  MIELE's, especially with your usage, can be reused once. 

Your dear Husband can be your assistant.  But you will have to buy another straight suction canister vacuum [for $50/less] to accomplish the job.  You can only reuse the bag once.  Here's what your husband will do [using a face mask to keep from breathing the dirt, dust and dander]:

Cut the TOP edge of the full bag [paper/cloth].

Dump completely.

Vacuum clean the inside and outside of the used bag completely with the new straight suction canister.

Fold the edge of the cut over twice about one-half inch just enough to staple the folded seam completely closed.  If you use the clothlike paper, make a wedge out of thin flexible cardboard.  Put the folded edge of the used bag in the cardboard wedge and staple closed.  Some tape over the stapled fold will seal further and prevent leakage/breakage.

This procedure will save you some money over the long term.  This procedure will work fine for your 4 legged furry friends and you!.  The new vacuum will pay for itself after reusing 10 MIELE bags or even less.

Caveat: MIELE will void the warranty for this, as Venson said.  Don't lie, but don't tell the truth.  When you take the MIELE in, remember to insert a new [unadulterated] bag.

Carmine D.

I'm sorry to hear that the good vacuum store owner/operator did not offer the bags to you with the sale but instead nickel and dimed you for $15 more. 

If you an/or your husband signaled any unwillingness to spend $600 on the new MIELE S7, I would guarantee you that the store owner/operator would have sweetened the deal with a free box of bags.  Why?  To make the sale.  He would not have lost a $600 vacuum sale and a future customer for $15 worth of bags.  If he did, he would not be in the high end [read expensive] vacuum sales market for very long.

Mike's point is well made and taken.  $100 per year for bags [at $4 per bag] is a deal breaker for the MIELE S7 unless you like throwing money away.  What if the price goes up to $5 per bag.  That's $125 per year for the bags.  That's 20 percent of the cost of the vacuum for one year's worth of bags.  You should be very upset with your present/future predicament.  Unless you did not specifically tell the seller you had 14 pets, and/or specifically told him you did not want a bagless, he sold you a bill of goods with the MIELE and the bags.  If the MIELE lasts 20 years, and it will, at $100 plus per year for bags, you're facing a $2000 plus future bill for bags.  Something to consider seriously if you decide to keep the Miele.

Carmine D.

It's genius!  And........you don't know that for sure, either.  I may not be a member of MENSA, but that doesn't mean that I don't meet their requirements.  It just means I choose not to join. 

Carmine D.

It doesn't take genius to parlay $7.5 MILLION in legal winnings into $1.6 Billion in 7 years.  I could have done just as well, if not better, right at my computer with an investment in Berkshire Hathaway. 

Jealous?  Of money?  Me?  You're the one that always brings it up.  Not me.

Money is never a measure of human success.  At my age, I measure my success by the number of people who I want to love me;  if they actually do.  Not to worry.  You are not on the list.

Carmine D.

HOOVER UK is right to promote these aggressively.  I suspect they will be very huge sellers among cost conscious vacuum buyers on a budget.  May even catapult HOOVER UK vacuum sales to the lead and ahead of others.

Would anyone care to explain the physics of Air-Volution!  Let's see:  Is it Cyclonic and/or Centrifugal?  Maybe it's a Wind Tunnel?  None of the above?  Shucks, scrub the terms.  Does it pick up household dirt on all surfaces quickly and easily with no fuss and no bother so their users can get on with their daily lives?  Now that's the real test not just words. 

Carmine D.