Having to work this hard to find an American-made vacuum cleaner bag: It sucks

Our Mississippi-made Oreck XL has been an invaluable companion for our many home-improvement projects.

At home, we have an old Oreck XL handheld vacuum cleaner that we inherited from my late mother-in-law.

It’s a workhorse, which Oreck customer-service rep Mary told me was made on April 26, 2001, in Mississippi.

It is particularly adroit with cat fur on the basement stairs and the remnants of home-improvement projects. I can’t count the number of bags I’ve filled with paint scraped from porch floorboards, porch columns, doors, windows, not to mention dust from sanding.

And therein lies my problem: Bags need to be replaced, and it’s increasingly difficult to find ones that are Made in the USA.

Instead, they come from China or Cambodia. But I recently ordered American-made bags offered on the website of Bank’s Vacuum, an operator of 12 “superstores” in the Detroit area that bills itself as the largest vacuum dealer in the world.

Alas, when the 12-pack arrived, I turned to the back of the package to read: Designed and developed in the USA, manufactured in China.

I emailed Bank’s, which acknowledged the discrepancy and apologized for the confusion. But Paul from Bank’s pushed back against my request to return the bags.

“Sure, of course you may return them,” he said. “But I do not think you will find any [Made in the USA]. The two major generic manufacturers are currently making it in China. The two different filtration levels of the Oreck-branded ones are made in China or Cambodia. So I do not think you will find them. Are you sure you want to return them?””

I was sure.

Sold to private equity

Vacuum bags are but a dust bunny to the vast gutting of domestic manufacturing in recent decades.

David Oreck founded his eponymous brand in 1963, his high-end vacuums first popular with hotels before conquering the residential market. His family sold the business in 2003, but it changed hands and landed in Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy in 2013.

The Oreck family tried to reacquire the company, its founder lamenting how it had lost its way by aiming for a younger market and focusing on big-box retailers rather than its own stores where customer service was king.

From an article on the American Bankruptcy Institute website:

“Oreck goes into more detail about the company’s latest missteps in his recent book, ‘From Dust to Diamonds,’ which, according to a publicist’s pitch, chronicles how ‘venture capitalists are robbing American companies and unnecessarily contributing to the continued loss of American jobs.’ ”

A Hong Kong company outbid the Orecks for the company, joining a conglomerate that also included well-known consumer brands Ryobi, Milwaukee and Homelite.

Paul from Bank’s Vacuum wasn’t wrong about the limited options for bags. When I hit dead ends, I turn to eBay.

I found a new old-stock 12-pack listed by Ava Bee Boutique, owned by “Zootsy,” a “mother of five married to a fantastic man.” Zootsy told me she picked up the bags at a local auction, bundled with a vacuum she planned to list separately.

I paid $16.81 for the American-made pack vs. $14.98 for what turned out to be Chinese-made bags. I never mind paying a little extra knowing that I am supporting American labor.

And it was all the more gratifying to prove Paul wrong because I’m relentless in seeking out Made in the USA options.

You can take that to the Bank’s.