Eureka - 96H Quick Up Cordless 2-in-1 Vacuum

We have a Eureka upright (bright yellow model) that we bought about 15 years ago for about $50; with a bunch of pets at any given time. We have had to replace the brush roller a couple of times (it's made of wood) which costs about $10 each time. It's a dandy!

I have a shark and a Hoover for pets that I saved from someone that was ignorant to the fact that vacuum cleaners must be cleaned. So badly treated and the person had animals that had lots of hair and for some reason they thought they could vacuum water too. What a mess-I use both regularly and they both have different plus and minus attributes and both do well. The shark has a big plus with a switch on the handle that has three settings for more suction. 1 is for bare floor and the second low pile third thicker. This is great for two reasons against the other vac. The first is it’s easier to go from carpet to floor without having to bend over and adjust the height of the vac head. The second is it’s easier to use the hose end and switch from more suction for furniture or baseboard to less on thick pile for getting dust off smooth surfaces or kitchen drawers without sucking up items you don’t want to. If it does go too much on something you can just switch to lower and it lessens the grip on said item. All that said, my favorite vac of all time was my eureka, ugly yellow with a cat paw illustration on it - can’t ever remember the name- that thing could suck two monkeys though 30’ of garden hose. The shark is strong for how quiet it is too. Last, the owner of the vacuum cleaner store here said he really hated shark and it wasn’t anything to do with the workings of the machine but rather the fact that the company has no replacement parts available. So if you go with the shark do not lose the attachments or you will have to go to eBay or what I did was bought a set of universal attachments on Amazon that has an adapter for the size and shape of shark’s specific hose end.

I'm trying to find out if there's a way to disengage the roller brushes and still use it with the main head on. I'm seeing in search that no, you can only take off the entire head and connect an attachment for specialty vacuuming. Is that correct? Or am I missing a button to disengage the roller? If I pull out the roller there's no way to close the compartment so can't even try to vacuum without the roller. Rather surprised that user can't choose between roller or no roller because some fine carpeting should not be vacuumed with a roller. I guess I should've done my research better but for the price and all the many features I did see it didn't occur to me there wouldn't be an option to lift the roller, or otherwise leave it unengaged. My well used $35 Eureka quick up does. But it's on its last legs and discontinued so bought the Levoit. Can't complain about it otherwise but this is an odd omission to me. Any hope?