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Grade: A
Useful/Relevant to My Life: A
Worth the Money: Yes
Purchase Again: Yes
Highlights: Handsfree cleaning that gets spots out!
Limitations: Must empty tanks after each cleaning. Cleaning path sometimes not as wide as desired.
I will begin this round of reviews by reviewing my favorite household purchase: The Spotbot. The Spotbot is a midsize portable carpet cleaner. It is not meant for whole house carpet cleaning, it is meant for cleaning spots. It cleans spots extremely well. Shortly after we had new carpet installed, it was time for Duncan to begin pottytraining. As any humble, experienced, and sane parents might do, we approached this milestone with fear and trembling. We feared for our relationship with our son; we feared for our carpets!
We bought the Spotbot in hopes that it would make the inevitable accidents easier to cope with. It did. Bissell constantly markets this unit to pet owners. I am puzzled as to why they don’t target families with children. In the Pfamily, with children 9, 4, and 1, and with food, dirt, and bodily fluid too often finding their way to the floor, we use it constantly.
The best feature of the Spotbot is the fact that it cleans handsfree. It is a [ro]bot. You put it on the spot, you turn it on, and you leave. If you have a child who has just vomited or peed on the floor, or if a food throwing child is still covered with food, you probably need to be with your child, not with your carpet. With the Spotbot, you can attend to your child and still take care of the carpet.
For most stains, hot water suffices. For tougher jobs, you can use Bissell’s proprietary cleaning solutions which are pricey. We have used it dozens of times in the past two years, and we haven’t found any spots the Spotbot can’t get out. Sometimes however, the cleaning path is not as wide as we would like. For a larger mess (vomit can be an example of this), you might have to move the machine several times in between cleaning cycles to get the entire mess. The Spotbot doesn’t move itself and it cleans only one circle of carpet at a time. This is the tradeoff for its portability and relatively small footprint.
The other problem with the Spotbot is that it will smell mildewy if you aren’t diligent in emptying both the cleaning solution tank and the dirty tank before putting it away. This is one reason I generally use hot water–because I would hate to throw away the expensive cleaning solution.
The Spotbot is expensive (over $100)–but new carpet would cost much more. We love our Spotbot!
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3 Responses to “Household products: Bissell Spotbot”
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Thanks for that review…wish I had read it about a month ago, when I was considering getting one of these for Christmas. I ended up getting a dirt devil upright cleaner, because I tend to have long paths of drippy stains going from my door and across the room, so I thought I might as well go ahead and get something that could clean a bigger area. I haven’t tried it out yet…maybe I’ll post a review when I do!
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