I need a good handheld vaccuum - suggestions?

[just_lily]

Here is my situation. We live in a bi-level house. Our main floor (LR, DR, Kitchen, Bedrooms) is all hardwood. We have carpet on our lower level. We have a Dyson vaccuum that is fantastic, and I keep and store it on the lower level, since that is where all the carpet is. Storage is also at a premium on the main level, so I wouldn't have a place to put it upstairs even if I wanted to.

We have a backdoor off of our dining room. It is the door we use most often, and it is where we put the dogs in and out (about 573920 times a day). I have a rug in front of the door and it quickly gets covered in doghair and dirt. Mainly hair. If the door was someplace else I would just vaccuum the rug once a week or something, but it is in my dining room, if you kwim. I have to sweep every day to keep dog hair in check, and I would like to be able to vaccuum this little rug every day too, without a big hassle.

It is super sticky doghair too, so I can't just take it outside and shake it. That gets the dirt, but not the hair.

So I am thinking of putting a handheld vac on my Christmas wishlist. Something small enough that I can put in my hall closet and pull out daily to do this one rug, and I don't have to haul the Dyson up and down the stairs all the time.

Does anyone have a suggestion on a good handheld vac? I am pretty sure that it would need a beater bar in order to pull up the hair. I know that Dirt Devel has something like that, but everyone I know that has ever owned a Dirt Devel has had nothing but trouble with it.

Thanks!

[lightheart]

Don't really have any suggestions on the vacuum, we have a little 'shark' rechargeable, it works ok, not real great, it's the low end model. It's good for cherrios and snips of paper, lint and fuzz but I have long hair and the bar on it gets clogged often and slows the running of the vacuum down.

Do you have an outside rug in front of the door? Might want to add an outdoor carpet/rug there to catch things before they even come into the dine room.

[kdabbler]

We have a Dirt Devil and I love it for the fact that it DOES have that roller brush and its corded, not rechargeable. I've owned one Dirt Devil and several rechargeable dust buster types. The battery eventually goes on those things and they are just easier to replace than trying to pay nearly the same amount for a replacement battery.

I have had to replace the belt a couple times in the Dirt Devil, but that is all.

Here is an interesting article I read about cordless vacuums that earn the Energy Star rating.