I've seen it on a couple older and slightly newer Hoovers. Most of them were from machines that had heavy use, such as a Hoover I was given by a lady that cleans houses...Worn to nubs. And I've gotten 2 Hoover elites recently that had worn down to a point where it wasn't picking up in one section, but the rest of the bristles were in usable shape. Seen it on f&g eurekas and probably a couple other vacs. I was not suprised at it happening with an Oreck, those bristles are so soft under heavy use I'd deffinitely expect them to fall apart