There are many places that you can use to find parts for a vacuum cleaner that is broken, providing you have someone around that is handy enough with tools to take a swing at fixing it. The part that breaks the most on most less expensive vacuum cleaners is the drive belt. It’s the rubberized belt that is around 6 inches long, that when stretched out turns the brushes on the bottom of the vacuum.
When you take the vacuum over objects that don’t belong in the vacuum cleaner, such as pieces of rope or a cat’s tail and the unit comes to a screeching halt, the burning smell that will soon fill up the air is your drive belt slowly melting away.
Luckily, the drive belt is available at several locations, so many in fact that your local drug store may even carry them! They are cheap to buy and a snap to replace with a screwdriver and a bit of common sense. For other types of problems that you may encounter, there are a lot of resources at your disposal just in case you decide to tackle the problem on your own.