DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Kirby sweeper guys

They are ingenious. I went out hunting this afternoon. 1/2 hour later or so (my wife was telling me this when I got back from the woods), the doorbell rings. Our front door. In 10 years of living here, our front doorbell has rung about 5 times......always someone we don't want to see, i.e. salesmen.

Anyway, she went to the back door. Saw an old beat up chevy astro van, figured it was our bro in law. Walked out, and it's 2 guys, nicely dressed she said. They told her they were with Century, or Centron....something.

Once they got in the house, they started up with the Kirby spiel.....how dirty our carpets and furniture were, etc and with a simple demonstration, they would show my wife how dirty things were and how great the kirby was........then the boss guy left. Said "I'm going to go check on the guy at the other house".

The guy left in my house proceeded to attempt to show my wife how dirty our house was......problem was, he didn't get any dirt.

He tried several different carpets, a chair, couch and loveseat.......nothing. He then proceeded to ask my wife if he could use OUR phone to call the other guy to come pick him up.

He had been here over 30 minutes, according to my wife. Now, my wife is no idiot.......when he offered to sell her the kirby for $2,700 dollars, that's when she said " no, you need to leave" and that's when he asked if he could use our phone.

The jerk is lucky I wasn't home. He would've been escorted out of the house, one way or another, and he would NOT have used our phone. My wife is nicer than I am.

$2700 for a kirby? I know, I know, they drop the price if they think you're interested......but to start at $2700???????

IF they sell ONE at that price they should be embarrassed.

$2700 for a vacuum that doesn't do jack?

$2700, my gosh! The government is going to have to start offering tax credit incentives on those things.

Your wife had NO dirt in the house? None whatsoever??

Damn, ask her if she wants to come over and clean MY house.

I can't believe there are still door-to-door sales like that in this day and age. Especially selling high priced vacuums. You'd have to be high to buy one.

Tyler owns three of them

I figured someone would say that.

Wow,, how things have changed..

I once sold Kirbys,, many many years ago. Did ok with it I might add..

We never, EVER went door to door cold calling. Odd.

We had a phone bank of people that would call homes, offer to clean one room (meaning we'd clean the carpet in one room) using the Kirby Attachment that would act as a carpet scubber. To get that rug cleaned, the resident would have to listen to a sales pitch..

Of course, when I sold Kirbys, you could get what we called "the Full Boat" meaning every attachment offered, for about 475.00 (I'm really showing my age)

Wow do I have some funny stories....

What are vacuums? Why is my tan carpet now dark brown?

I had a friend that sold Kirby's. He tried to give me the whole show like 6-7 years ago, until he saw the system I have.

I have a Rainbow system, uses water instead of the conventional bag. It works way better than the new Dyson we also have and is like 10 years old. Paid like $1400 for the system back then. We had 2 dogs then and went through $300 vacuums like every 2-3 years.

I will say, we still love the Rainbow system. It doesn't stink like a dirty vacuum when your using it, and the tile attachment works wonders on the tile floors, way better than any standard broom and pan can. And the carpet attachment is good for quick spills, it's a little small to do an entire carpet I think.

Wife laughs at me, but I use the tile attachment to clean up the patio around the pool, again way better than a broom.

I wasn't here, but, apparently they do a "black cloth" test????

There was a little dust he got - but that was it. So, when I said he got "no dirt", I was wrong. He did say, according to my wife, "I've never been in a house this clean".

My wife is a clean freak. She gets it honestly - from her mom, her grandma, and her great grandma.

Ahh, the dreaded black cloth.. we also had a white cloth test as well,,

We used the black one on mattresses. We'll hand the electrical cord to one of the folks, ask them to point to the bed room, and before they had a chance to protest, we'd head that way, them following holding the electrical cord..

We'd walk into the bedroom, strip the covers off one part of the bed all the way to the mattress.. and ask them to plug the cord in, which they always did.

Then we would run the hand held version of the Kirby over the mattress.. We always got this white stuff to come out.

We'd leave the bed room, ask for an ash tray, put the white stuff in the ashtray and light it on fire...we'd explain that the smell they are smelling is dead flesh and that it rubs off your body as you sleep and causes bacteria to build up,., and of course, we all know what that can lead to...

I don't ever remember that closing a deal, but it was one of the funnier things we used to do.....

We'd also meet every morning in the Kirby Office. we'd have a meeing and then they would make us sing Kirby songs.,..

Remember the old polka hit, Roll out the Barrel,, we'll have a barrel of fun..

well, for us it would be:

Roll out the Kirby,, we got the dirt on the run

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My wife(stiff GF then)

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Sorry to hear that.

We actually have a Kirby.

I had no interest in buying or pay as much as I did for it, but my wife wanted it (she doesn't even hardly clean...)

Anyways, I paid nowhere even close to that price for it. That's crazy. I will tell you that I also have a Dyson, which was supposed to be about the best out there that you can buy in stores, and the Dyson sucked ass in comparison. I dumped some crap on the carpet, salt I believe, and it picked up maybe 2 crystals, where the Kirby pulled it all out. It is a very good sweeper, just depends on if you feel like spending the money on the thing.

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It is a very good sweeper, just depends on if you feel like spending the money on the thing.

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Kirbys are amazing vacs.. the older ones were heavy,,, I believe they've made them much lighter nowadays.. FYI,, do you guys know they are made in Lakewood, Ohio?

Anyway, if you can find a Forrest Vacuum Cleaner shop in your area of Cleveland (there are 3 or 4 of them)... they sometimes have used Kirbys that you can buy at reasonable prices..

My grandma had a Kirby. It looked like something from the 1950's but I'll be damned if that thing still didn't work.

I remember as a child those shampoo carpet sales pitches. I wanted to buy one, lol.

My lady was a Kirby gal many years ago.

We still have the Kirby today with all the attachements. That vaccum is now 20+ years old and still works like a champ. I wish I could say that about all my tools.

We have a Kirby bought off of ebay. Paid something around 600 dollars for it.

It is a very good vacuum. I got tired of going through 300 dollar vacuums every 2 years.

Check ebay and a local shop.

I have had a Oreck for about 6 years now and couldn't be happier.

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For some reason, I see you singing just a little louder than the rest.

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I don't remember for sure, but I bet that's true Wanna hear what's funnier,, I can't carry a note in a bucket .... This man can't sing a lick!

we have a dyson animal (because we have 4 dogs that shed hair obvi) and we got it in 10/04. It's 11/09 and the thing falls apart faster than a GM product, faster than you can yell, "Cavalier!"

j/c
Update: We had some friends over last night (yeah, I have 1 or 2 friends)......Must've been kirby week here. They got the visit, too.

Same price - $2700. The lady said "I looked at them like they were crazy, and they must've thought I was interested because the next thing they said was "we could probably cut that in half if it would help".

I'm not saying kirby is a good a bad vacuum......it's just a sham they way they try to sell it.