Bissell Little Green ProHeat Deep Cleaner

For Christmas, my parents-in-law got us a Bissell Little Green ProHeat Deep Cleaner. In short, it’s a hand-held shampooer. You can use it on basically anything–carpets, rugs, furniture, the inside of your car, etc.

I have used it a couple of times and I think I finally have the hang of it. So I’m going to tell you my thoughts on it.

It’s amazing. I love this little thing.

I have previously used it on my couch, recliner, and the upholstery on my dining chairs. My only complaint with the dining chairs was that it snagged and now I have a couple little holes. But they’re so small that you can’t even see them. (And my chairs were extremely cheap and the fabric is crap–it’s probably not the shampooer, they’re probably just falling apart.)

I just used it to shampoo my office chair, which looks so much better (and feels amazing). And then I moved on to the area rug in my living room.

Has anyone else see Everybody Loves Raymond? You know that episode where Marie gets Ray and Debra a new vacuum cleaner/shampooer and Ray shows Debra how it cleans the couch cushions and then says, “This is what we call the Wow Factor“?

This is the Wow Factor I was waiting on with my shampooer.

Because wow!

My rug looks better than it did when we bought it.

It got out so much dirt that I couldn’t even see! Ready to see it? It’s a little disgusting.

The left side is the soap and water mixture. The right side is the dirty water. (The clumpy stuff is cat hair. After all this, I have half a mind to shave those stupid cats….) Yeah. All of that dirty water is dirt that I can’t even see. It’s the dirt my vacuum misses. And my rug feels so fluffy!! But all that dirt has me thinking I’m going to implement a “no shoes in the house” rule. Because ew. (Though Zach refuses to follow such a rule.)

My only real complaint, though, is that I can’t figure out how to take the brush apart. (The brush on the back with the orange bristles is what I like to use.) A ton of cat hair gets in that and clumps it up, so I periodically have to stop what I’m doing, detach the brush, and clean it out. And it takes forever because I can’t take the brush apart. I think doing so would break it, actually. Otherwise….

Pros:

• Easy to put together (the instructions were confusing, but I took one look at the picture said, “I don’t need instructions” and threw it together in about 2 minutes)
• Easy to use–you just turn on the power, flip the heat switch, wait for the red light to come on to tell you it’s heated, and then go
• It’s supposed to be environmentally friendly, but I can’t figure out what makes it so (at least not from Amazon…the company claims it is, though)
• The website says “Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging” and it means it–I had no trouble opening this
• Small and easy to store, so great for apartments and small houses.
• Very light

Cons:

• Loud. Think vacuum–however, this keeps my cats from hovering while I clean…so it’s kind of nice
• Leaks. If I have anything leftover in the solution tank, it will leak. I just remove the tank (easy to do) and set it upside-down in a bucket under my sink. However, I did recently have a problem with it leaking while I was using it. I’m hoping that was a fluke. It was the first time it had happened and I think I filled the tank up too much. We’ll see. (Honestly, though, the design of the clean water tank is stupid. There is no way to keep it from leaking.)
• Kind of a pain to clean. And you do have to clean it. Otherwise, it will smell. (Come on…it’s filled with dirty water. What do you expect to happen?)
• Cleaning out the brush. Even though it belongs in “cleaning” I feel it’s a big con and deserves its own bullet point. While you only have to clean the whole thing once every time you use it, I wind up cleaning the brush out multiple times in the middle of using it.
• I find the water difficult to guide sometimes, because it comes out in a fan. However, if it didn’t do this it would take forever to cover something in the solution. So if you really don’t want to hit something with the water stream, move it out of the way or cover it up. Use common sense. (Some of the reviewers on Amazon don’t have that.)
• It’s not as powerful as a regular cleaner…but if you want the power of a regular cleaner, then get a regular cleaner. This is for smaller spaces. Therefore, it’s a smaller cleaner with less power. See how this works?
• The cleaning solution is nearly $10 for a little bottle. I can’t seem to find a generic brand that works with the deep cleaner. Other Bissell cleaners have generic, cheaper cleaners…but not the Little Green Deep Cleaner, apparently. I’ll wait a little while and see if anyone comes out with one.

Overall, I love this machine. It’s so convenient.

Naturally, Kashka couldn’t stand the idea of her fur not being buried into the depths of the rug. Once it had completely dried, she rolled all over it for the good part of an hour. Jerk