Eureka EasyClean Lightweight Handheld Vacuum Cleaner, Yellow 71B

I have three sets of stairs, four kids, three dogs and a cat. My stairs get a lot of use. The feature where you flip the plastic up was amazing so I could get the face of the stairs, the hand tool only came with a crevice tool but it was great and worked well. I loved how long the cord was because it reaches all my stairs. My carpets actually look fluffy when I am done with them. My only concern is the filter, it's very hard to clean. Haven't mastered that yet but it hasn't effected the performance so far. I love the fact that it has a belt, which means to me that it works harder. It's light weight so any child carrying mom or dad can drag this around the stairs of furniture with ease. A little bulky for using in a vehicle, but again that crevice tool does wonders. Love this ugly yellow vacuum, it's amazing!!

I have been researching vacuums specifically for use on carpeted stairs -- I have a lot of stairs between the ones leading upstairs and the ones going down into the basement -- and they are wide stairs with landings in-between the stair sections. A regular upright vacuum is just impossible for this scenario because the vacuum head doesn't really have a chance to brush over the smaller width of a stair tread and the upright is so cumbersome and heavy. My experience with cordless vacuums is that their battery runs out before I'm done. I read positive reviews about this vacuum on many, many websites, and decided to try it. I LOVE IT! It is very easy to use, the cord is long enough to reach all the way up or down the stairs, and you can see all of the dirt and pet hair that it has sucked up -- which on one hand is great that it really does a great job of vacuuming up the debris out of the carpet, yet on the other hand it completely grossed me out that my other vacuum was leaving that much stuff in the carpet! I would highly recommend for anyone who is seeking an easy vacuum to use on stairs or in your car!