Ok, so maybe I am missing something. I simply do not find a vacuum to be effective on carpets if it does not have a beater brush attachment. When we lived in Germany, I was able to find a vacuum that had a beater brush so all was good. Since moving here, OH bought a vacuum with the local standard floor attachment (ie no beater brush, or turbo brush as I believe they call it here). Does the generic beater brush that you can buy for about 70f make a difference? Or should I just buy another vacuum? What do others do?

Buy a Dyson - top quality and has everything you will need. It is worth the 400+ CHF and comes with 5 year waranty.

Would you suggest an uPright or a canister? Floors are 1/2 hardwood & 1/2 area rugs. Thanks!

My 25 euros Siemens dwarf vacuum cleaner came with 5 different attachments, and does a pretty good job...

Maybe you can check on the official producer site if you can order the piece you need, maybe at a cheaper price on the other side of the border? (I don't know your brand, so can't help further)

Great thought. Just looked and doesn't appear to be an option, other than one of the generic ones that you can buy at most any store, but I don't know how it would work since there is no electric courant to get the brush to turn. And it's about 75chf, so I don't want to spend money on it without knowing if it really works. By the way, we have an electrolux model.

I had the store here order the Dyson DC 24 from Germany for me. Sure I probably paid a bit more than if I went to Germany myself. It has everything you need for carpets and I have a very large long haired furry cat so I am very pleased with the results. In hindsight I probably should have got the larger model but other than that I'm very happy with it too.

We have the canister, and its really best buy we did. Costly but good, and you are set for years. We have the larger one DC32 animal pro.

Yes, you are right that canister has some edges on the Upright vacuum as it's more versatile then the upright and besides of cleaning carpets they can handle cleaning of bare floors too.