Niclonnic
Please don't take offense to this, but I personally feel you should fix up the Dyson, do whatever it needs done to it, & let your Mom keep it & you drop your ideas of trying to get it from her. You have a perfectly good Hoover upright at home that you could live with, & you just gave away a nice new Eureka Airspeed upright you got for free thru Amazon Vine. Your Mom DESERVES to keep this Dyson....she has had the heart to be a good mother to you & wife to your father, so your Mom deserves a nice cleaner, regardless of whether you feel it's "too much" cleaner for her. Love your mother, have a heart, leave her alone & let her keep the Dyson.
Now, to solve your problems you have had with your Hoover. Here's something to consider....how about trying a bagged vacuum & using a Kevlar cloth shake-out bag instead of paper bags? The material these bags are made of is the same as Kirby makes their outer vacuum bag. You simply take the bag out, remove a plastic slide at the bottom of the bag, empty & put back into your vacuum. After a few times filling it up & emptying it, you can hand wash in the sink & let air dry. Of course it would be a good idea to take the bag & trashcan outside to empty it. One big advantage to using a shake-out bag is that it can hold a LOT more dirt than most bagless vacuum's dirtcups before needing to be emptied. And of course you could always use a paper bag if you had a big messy job & you didn't want to be exposed to the dirt.
Panasonic makes a pretty good upright....the upright I have linked here has been in production under Panasonic & Kenmore names since the mid 1990's, so it's a proven design that won't give you problems. If you would prefer to have a HEPA filter, though, then you could buy the Carpet Pro upright & also buy the Fuller Brush HEPA filter & use that with the upright. Or, you could also buy the Fuller Brush version, main difference between the two being is the Fuller Brush has a metal handle which you don't need, & also looks like the hose may be longer & the cleaning wand is attached, same as the Panasonic design. You could also buy a Kenmore upright that takes the 5068 bag, as the Panasonic Type U can be used in them, but be warned the HEPA filter is not sealed like the Carpet Pro or Fuller Brush machines would be, lots of dust would escape around the filter.
If you're going to be stubborn though, & wouldn't give the idea of a shake-out bag a try, & you MUST have a clear bin, there's one option left to consider, & this would completely eliminate the bottom-empty dirt cup design....the Dirt Devil Breeze upright vacuum. It's an effective design & works very well on carpets & floors. When you look at the underside of the powerhead, the reason is obvious....the intake tube is HUGE, & it's been designed so most of the powerhead is exposed to the airflow, it's not off to one side like most clean-air uprights. Consequently, it picks up the dirt quickly & carries it away to the dirtcup, & picks up dirt off floors without scattering it too much like most powerheads would. This design also incorporates a wide powerhead hose, & a short air pathway to the dirtcup, it's highly unlikely to clog. To empty, you just take the bin outside, take the top off, dump into the trashcan, then clean the filter by "wringing" it with your hands. Another way to clean the filter would be to find a large stone & keep it, then take your filter, put it in a shopping bag, bang the heck out of it, tie it up & then use it again next time the filter needs to be cleaned. The filter can also be washed occasionally. I wouldn't worry about buying filter replacements, the filter should last the life of the vacuum, & the F1 HEPA filter, which is identical, the filter material isn't any better than the Microfresh filter the Breeze is supplied with. Now there are some downsides to this cleaner though.... 1. It is fairly noisy. However, after using one myself, I didn't find it too bad, you could get used to it, & for some reason being noisy does seem to be a trait of Dirt Devil vacuums. 2. The tool attachment hose has to be hooked up & unhooked to the main powerhead hose every time you want to use attachments. However, considering the advantage is a short air pathway & no clogging, I would live with it. You could always just do your whole house, then hook up the hose & do what you need to do with the attachments.
Now, be warned though....DO NOT buy the newer version of this vacuum at the bottom of the Amazon link!! Horrible design! I had to help a friend out with one of these, & they moved the filter from the dirt cup & made it smaller, presumably to make it easier to clean. Well, instead it clogs way too easily & is a nightmare to clean. Hate to say it, but this one puts the "devil" name in Dirt Devil
. The older version I recommend above is discontinued, but Dirt Devil just recently had a clearance on it thru the Hoover website, & can occasionally be found on Ebay & other websites, you'll just have to hunt for it. Also, the older version has been made for years under other names....Breeze, Featherlite & Jaguar are the most common names, & there is also a black Regina version too. You can tell if it's an older model if there is no headlight, they only put that on the last couple of years it was made. So you could find one easily at a garage sale or thru Craigslist or Kijiji too. Most I would pay for one would be $30, since in most stores it sold for $100 & went on sale for $50, so since most people would buy it on sale & pay just under $60 including taxes, $30 is reasonable.
Hope this helps you out, Niclonnic.
Rob
Panasonic upright
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-MC-..._hg_vf__3?ie=UTF8&refRID=164P7EGD6ZY83Q7HG6TR
Carpet Pro upright
http://www.amazon.com/Carpet-Pro-CP...215?s=vacuums&ie=UTF8&qid=1410782933&sr=1-215
Fuller Brush upright
http://www.amazon.com/Fuller-Brush-...724?s=vacuums&ie=UTF8&qid=1410784945&sr=1-724
Fuller Brush HEPA filter
http://www.amazon.com/Fuller-Brush-...388?s=vacuums&ie=UTF8&qid=1410784239&sr=1-388
Panasonic Type U shake-out bag
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Upr...10786131&sr=1-39&keywords=Panasonic+cloth+bag
Dirt Devil Breeze upright
http://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Devil-Ba...166?s=vacuums&ie=UTF8&qid=1410782849&sr=1-166
