New Consumer Reports Finds That Pet Hair Is Pet Owners’ Top Household Problem in 2026

A nationally representative survey ranked shedding ahead of pet odors, noise and damage, and only 13 percent of owners reported no household issue at all.

RIVERTON, WY, UNITED STATES, September 18, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Pet hair is the most common household problem among US pet owners, ranking ahead of pet odors, noise, and damage, according to the Consumer Reports American Experiences Survey. In the March 2025 survey, 40 percent of pet owners named excessive shedding or pet hair as a household issue, the highest share of any option.

The results place hair well above several problems closely tied to living with an animal. Excessive noise was named by 14 percent of pet owners, and damage to furniture, floors, carpets or yard by 21 percent. Only 13 percent of pet owners said their pet created no household management issue of any kind. Put another way, only about one pet owner in eight reported no household work from a pet.

How the household issues ranked
Consumer Reports asked pet owners which household problems their pets created. The share of pet owners naming each issue:
40 percent named excessive shedding or pet hair (Consumer Reports American Experiences Survey, March 2025)
27 percent named cleaning up waste, drool, or hairballs (Consumer Reports)
21 percent named damage to furniture, floors, carpets, or yard (Consumer Reports)
21 percent named cleaning up tracked-in dirt or mess from food and water (Consumer Reports)
20 percent named pet odors (Consumer Reports)
14 percent named excessive noise (Consumer Reports)
13 percent reported no household management issues at all (Consumer Reports)

Shedding and pet hair was the only issue named by more than a third of pet owners. The next most common answer, cleaning up waste, drool, or hairballs, trailed it by 13 percentage points. Damage, tracked-in dirt, and odors were grouped closely together at 20 to 21 percent each, while excessive noise came in at 14 percent.

Three issues on the list involve cleanup: hair; waste, drool, and hairballs; and tracked-in dirt or mess from food and water. Hair led that group by a clear margin, and it also finished ahead of every issue that does not involve cleanup.

How the survey was conducted
The American Experiences Survey is a recurring Consumer Reports survey fielded by NORC at the University of Chicago through its AmeriSpeak panel. The panel is designed to reflect the US adult population, and results are weighted by age, gender, race and Hispanic ethnicity, housing tenure, telephone status, education, and Census Division.

The March 2025 wave surveyed 2,290 US adults, 1,428 of whom own pets. The household issue percentages reported here are shares of those 1,428 pet owners rather than of all adults surveyed, so each figure describes pet-owning households specifically. The percentages total more than 100 because owners could name more than one issue.

Consumer Reports does not sell pet products, and the ranking reflects what owners reported about their own homes. The survey was conducted independently of the company issuing this release. The results come from a panel operated by an academic research organization and weighted to the national population.

A separate study points the same way
A different survey, from a different publisher and sample, produced a similar result. In the 2024 U.S. Houzz Pets and the Home Study, 65 percent of pet owners named an overabundance of fur and hair as their biggest pet-related challenge at home. Tracked-in dirt and mud came second at 42 percent. That study surveyed 1,165 US pet owners who use the Houzz home design platform in August 2024, so it describes that group rather than all pet owners nationally.

Why hair sits at the top
Noise and damage are often the first downsides people associate with owning a pet. In the survey, far fewer owners named both, but far more named hair. Pet hair also outranked every other cleanup task on the list, including waste, drool and hairballs, putting it at the center of the routine household work that comes with owning a pet.

The full ranking matters as much as the top line. Owners named hair nearly twice as often as damage to furniture, floors, carpets or yard, and almost three times as often as excessive noise.

“Most people picture barking or a chewed table leg when they think about the hard parts of owning a pet, but day to day it’s the hair on the sofa, the clothes and the car seats that owners keep cleaning up. Because that hair keeps coming back, the tool for it has to be something people can reach for again and again rather than something they keep replacing,” said a PurePath spokesperson.

The PurePath Glove is built for the problem the survey ranked first: loose hair left on fabric around the home. The glove uses a 5 mm electrostatic mesh to lift embedded pet hair from furniture, clothing, bedding and car seats. It needs no adhesive sheets or refills, so you can reuse the same glove after each cleanup instead of throwing it away. The company makes it for households with heavy shedders or multiple pets, and for dark furniture and clothing where every strand shows.

About PurePath
Based in Riverton, Wyoming, PurePath is a pet care brand focused on making life cleaner and calmer for people who live with a lot of fur. Its flagship product is the PurePath Glove, a reusable electrostatic glove that lifts pet hair from sofas, carpets, car seats, and clothing, alongside a small line of related pet care products.

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