A.,
I hear your pain! We have a long haired cat that we adopted from the SPCA - at that time, she was short haired! Anyways, I bought the ferminator online. It's a brush that they sell at the pet stores. Kind of expensive, but it really pulls the hair out. Only thing is, I noticed that it takes A LOT of hair out and you want to be careful not to pull out the winter undercoat. Also, we had a Roomba that I used to turn on everyday. You know, one of those automatic vacuums. Ours worked great for about two years..until it broke! It had to be cleaned out frequently and if you've got a lot of hair, it might get caught up in the wheels and other parts. About 1x/mo I would disassemble the thing w/ a screw driver and pick out the hair. Lastly, we have a sponge that we use to pick up the hair on the couches. You can buy it at the pet stores for about $10. Good luck!