Carpet Cleaning

Neat Idea / Average product - Bissell 1200B Handheld Steam Vacuum

Love my little SpotBot! - Bissell 1200B Handheld Steam Vacuum I have two cats that love to spit up so I went searching on epinions for a small carpet cleaner. I had tried just...

Great little device - Bissell 1200B Handheld Steam Vacuum I love my full size Bissell steamer for once a year carpet cleaning. However, it was a pain to get out and clean s...

Let me start by saying the only stains in my house that I ever need to clean up are from my cat - dreaded cat vomit. It’s my greatest stain nemesis. I have top of the line carpeting that is acceptable to use a 50/50 mix of bleach/water on as a last resort to remove a stain. I was hoping to purchase a product that would eliminate the need for me bleach the stains each time. The SpotBot seemed like the answer.

The whole idea of the SpotBot is that you can “set-it-and-forget-it” in a sense. You can choose between two automatic settings - “surface stain” or “set-in stain”. The unit claims to be programmed to treat and remove any stain according to these selections. Ingenious idea. It does the thinking so you don’t have to! The Bot has a wide circular opening with brushes inside. You set the circular opening of the SpotBot over the stain, choose your programmed selection and just walk away! The bot will ‘do it’s thing’ and then beep when it’s finished. Just a note - the 10 second interval beeping will never stop so before it drives you insane, it’s a good idea to go tend to once it’s done. While the unit runs, based on the programming selection chosen, the unit sprays the solution, lets it soak into the stain, the brushes move forward and backward to brush up the stain and suction comes on to lift the stain. Steps are repeated per the programming throughout the cleaning cycle. This is all done automatically within the programming and is touted to be the most effective methods for removing any stain. Plus, it is really cool to watch! Another thing to note is that there is definitely a circular indention in the carpeting after it is used. So if you are having company over that day, the circular spot will be clearly visible until it dries and the carpet pile in that area is vacuumed a few times. You can take a paper towel over that spot to help soak up the moisture and rub out the circular marking as well (but I can still always tell where it is til it dries). There is also a manual brush attachment (much like the Bissel Little Green Machine) so you can manual address a stain if you so choose. Personally, I find the manual mode to work better in most cases.

From my experiences with this unit, while the idea is ingenious it doesn’t seem to live up to it’s claims. We often have to run the unit up to 3 full set-in stain cycles to even get a stain to lighten. This drains the entire tank of solution and the solution is rather expensive. Oddly enough, I have found that the stain becomes much worse if I use it on fresh cat vomit than if it’s dry which is hard to believe. On one particular occasion, it turned a 2 inch wide by 4 inch long stain into a 6 inch diameter stain (this was on the fresh stain noted above). We had to have it professionally cleaned to remove it. It’s possible that I didn’t fully blot up enough of the stain and remnants before I ran the unit in this situation, but I really thought that I had.

On average, I would say that using the programmed modes, there is a 50% chance that you’ll get the stain up completely. Even in manual mode, I would give it a 75% chance to get the stain up - which all in all is comparable to any other unit I have used (such as the little green machine). My husband believes that running the unit 3 times in “set-in stain” mode will net 100% stain removal in his opinion.

In all honesty, cat vomit in itself is insanely difficult to remove from lighter carpeting. (colors such as light grey, rose, beige). Please take this into consideration when evaluating my review since my specific use situations may be different than others.

This unit didn’t meet my expectations based upon it’s claims, but I’m not so sure that anything would. In most cases I run the SpotBot once and follow up with a 50/50 bleach solution to remove my stains effectively.

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