Warning: Be alert for sudden slowing in the 3300 block of Monaco Parkway as drivers brake for vacuum cleaners.
Some motorists even pull over to take pictures of the 20 or so sweepers arranged like soldiers on Aaron Craig’s front lawn.
No, it’s not art. And yes, that’s a Rottweiler named Remey under the evergreen.
“This is my showroom. It’s free advertising for me,” says Craig, who buys broken vacuums, fixes them and sells them out of the North Park Hill home he shares with his wife, Shadawn, and their 2-year-old daughter.
“About 10 people a day stop and take pictures,” says Craig, an ebullient, intense, self-employed salesman who says he moves an average of 20 sweepers a week. “I plug ’em in and I show ’em they work and I sell ’em.”
There’s actually a name for what Craig does: “bojacking.”
Originally, the term referred to the practice of buying and reselling Kirby vacuum cleaners to undercut the company’s direct- salesmen. But Craig makes a point to show buyers his subcontractor’s license from Kirby.
After serving in Desert Storm, the honorably discharged Army veteran worked as a social worker in Denver before taking the Kirby sales course in 1995. He found it difficult to justify charging up to $1,400 for a vacuum, so he invested $500 in machines Kirby buyers had traded in and found his life’s work.
“Here’s how it works: Kirby sends someone out to your house. If you like the Kirby they give you a trade-in value on your old vacuum.
“I used to sell Kirby, but now I sell the trade-ins, too.”
He lists them in one breath: “KirbyHooverBisselEurekaDirtDevil . . . and Dyson.”
Craig was green before “green” became the latest marketing term.
“Instead of throwing stuff away, I recycle them. It takes me a half-hour, and I have them running — usually it’s just a belt or a clog, just a simple fix,” and out to the lawn they go, lined up in rows like the Army regiment Craig marched with.
So what does he think of those new yellow ones advertised on TV? “Dyson, they’re all right, but they don’t hold a candle to Kirby or Hoover.”
Craig started as a bojacker in Denver and took his trade to Cleveland for couple of years before returning to independence in east Denver.
“I don’t have a boss. I get to work at home. In a way, I relate to people with this better than anything else. I’ve sold cars, real estate and advertising, but I enjoy vacuum cleaners,” says Craig, whose salesmanship supports his family and three children from a previous marriage.
“I have a real estate license, but I sell more vacuum cleaners than real estate because of the economy,” he says. “I always come back to vacuum cleaners.”
Kristen Browning-Blas: 303-954-1440 or kbrowning@denverpost.com
