In which we learn more about cleaning products than we really want to, or will ever need to know.
Stephanie stared down at the matted, dirty carpet. She supposed getting this assignment was a bit of a blessing in disguise, though she had bristled slightly at the assumption, by her editor, that she would have a filthy carpet on which to test the cleaning products. But it was true, so she couldn’t bristle too much, and here she was, getting paid to clean her carpets.
Ned snored heavily on her couch, uninterrupted by the vacuum cleaner. She’d managed to get him stumbled home after he’d passed out in the restaurant, having declared himself a time traveling alien. The police had arrested the shooter on the spot, no one had gotten seriously hurt, and after giving her name and address she was allowed to drag Ned back to her place. She’d rather have put him in a taxi and sent him home, but he was in no shape to care for himself, and even though he was a complete nutter, she felt she should take care of him until he was conscious. The weird thing is that the little dog, Pippiment, was out cold as well. Almost as if he was as drunk as Ned was. Weird, but not something she had the time or energy to deal with right now.
Picking up the can of Resolve High Traffic Foam, she sprayed an even layer on the patch of carpeting that had sported a mysterious dark stain for longer than she could remember. Then she gently rubbed the stain with a towel, and… it was gone! Amazing, and while she waited for it to dry, she coated her grubby staircase with the rest of the foam. Unfortunately, this led to a noxious cloud of chemical odor that sent her coughing for the next room, and throwing open windows, despite the chilly air. She thought about scrubbing the carpet, but simply didn’t have the energy. So she settled on the chair next to the couch and its snoring occupant, and settled in to watch some TV while the foam dried.
This, unfortunately, took far longer than the can indicated it would, and several hours later, and several episodes of Hoarders later, which made her skin crawl and made her actually want to clean, the foam was still wet. She was hungry, and, despite her best judgment, left Ned still snoring on the couch to go and get some food. It was only a quick run to the fast food place down the street, she reasoned. It wouldn’t hurt. She poked him once, to see if he’d wake up so she could take him with her, and maybe drop him off somewhere, but he didn’t move. Pippiment, likewise, remained snoring and curled up in his lap. With a shrug, she picked up her keys and her spare set of keys, just in case, and went to get a late-night snack.
When she returned, it was to find her front door unlocked and her house guests nowhere to be found. A quick and frightening search of her house assured her that no one was there, and nothing appeared to be missing. It seemed Ned had awakened and simply disappeared, which was rather rude when you come to think of it. The stairs were still damp, so she settled back down in front of the television to eat her food, and that’s when she saw it. A small silver button, laying on the floor next to the couch. It shimmered softly in the flickering light of the television, and she reached down to pick it up. A shock went up her arm and she dropped it immediately. The room swayed, but re-focused. She shook her head, and, one eye still on the button, finished her food. It’d been too long of a day, and she was simply not equipped to deal with this right now. Cleaning, now, cleaning was something she could wrap her head around.
She checked on the stairs and determined they were finally dry enough to vacuum, though they still seemed a little on the damp side. It didn’t seem to make as much a difference on the ground-in dirt on the berber carpet as it had on the spot. Ah, well, on to the next product.
She pulled out the Bissell Little Green Clean Machine and followed the simple assembly instructions. Instead of adding soap, though, she decided to try to suck up any residual wet chemicals on the staircase. To her surprise, an amazing amount of soapy residue started pulling up from the carpet. She worried that the Resolve High Traffic Foam had left behind a lot of residue, so she went over to the spot she had cleaned earlier, on an area rug she knew didn’t have previous soap left in it. Nothing. So apparently, the foam was not to blame for all the soap in the stairs. The previous tenants had most likely cleaned the stairs and didn’t do a proper job if it, leaving behind a ton of soap. This, of course, would attract even more dirt, making the carpet a veritable dirt magnet. Of course, her haphazard vacuuming habits didn’t help, but it was nice to have something else to marginally blame it on.
Unfortunately, other than sucking up a lot of soapy residue, the Little Green Clean Machine didn’t do much on the stairs. She had to admit that they just might be a lost cause. So she moved on to another, newer area of plush carpet and tried out the machine on a few spots. She’d read about the soap clogging the machine, though, and since she’d get to keep the product she tested, decided not to gum up her machine. Plus, there was no way to change the concentration of the soap mixture, like there was on the large machine, once you filled up the reservoir, so you’d have to empty the container each time to rinse the carpet with clean water. So she used a small bottle of diluted soap and sprinkled it on the dirtiest spots, then used the machine to spray hot water and suck up the soap, water and dirt. It didn’t do a bad job, but it was noisier than she had noticed before, and by the time she was done, her ears were ringing. And her back was killing her.
She booted up her computer, made a cup of hot tea, and sat down to write her review as a guest reviewer. Apparently Mr. Don Jackson, the normal cleaning product reviewer, did not have suitably dirty carpets to fully test this product. Or he just had better things to do this weekend.
“I tried Resolve High Traffic carpet cleaning foam on two separate areas, and had two very different results. They were two different types of carpeting (standard plush and berber) and two different types of dirt (stained spot verses high traffic ground in dirt) and two different cleaning methods (rubbing verses letting it sit).
The first area I tried it on, a small discolored spot on plush carpet, is completely gone. In that instance, I sprayed on the foam and gently massaged it into the carpet with a small towel. I didn’t have to wait for it to dry to see the results, they were immediately apparent. The spot was gone. Subsequent vacuuming didn’t really do anything, other than presumably removing the leftover chemical flakes. I would highly recommend the product for this type of small spot cleaning.
The second area, a set of berber carpeted stairs that have seen better days, presented more than one problem. It took the entire can of foam to coat the stairs, which is not unexpected. The foam is a little pricey, though, and I’m not sure I’d want to spring for enough to do a huge area. Not only that, but when you spray an entire can of foam, the chemical smell is very intense. It wasn’t really noticeable when using just enough for a small spot, but when working a large area, it was overpowering. Then, the foam dissipated, but the stairs felt wet for hours, far longer than the product says. I did not rub too much on the stairs, because the small area I did rub with the towel did not have the same immediate effect as it did on the spot. Overall, there was very little improvement in the overall appearance of the steps. Whether this is because the product really isn’t capable of handling ground-in dirt, or if it’s a problem with the berber carpeting, I do not know. Another thing to note is when I used a carpet cleaner on the stairs, it pulled up a lot of soap that had been left in the carpeting from some previous (bad) cleaning. Whether this led to the carpeting clinging to the dirt more tightly than it otherwise would, I don’t know. However, even if it did a decent job of cleaning the carpeting, I still would not use it over a large area, as the smell is overpowering and honestly, it stayed damp as long as cleaning with a small carpet cleaner.
Verdict: very good for small, spot cleaning. Stick to conventional carpet cleaners for large, high-traffic areas.”
She rubbed her eyes and re-read the first review. Not anything that would earn her a Pulitzer, but it would do for the magazine. What could they expect on such short notice? She poured herself another cup of tea, and started in on the second review.
“I’ve used the Bissel Little Green Clean Pro-Heat machine two times so far, and have mixed feelings. One of the first things that bothered me is a feature that is available on the large machine that is not on this one – the ability to control the mixture of soap. In the large upright machines, the soap and water reservoirs are separate, and there is a dial you can use to adjust soap concentration on the fly. This may explain why I’ve never had the problem so many people have with this machine – the soap gumming up the heating unit – on the larger machine, since perhaps the water is heated before being mixed with the soap? At any rate, that feature allows you to ‘rinse’ areas of the carpet as you go, instead of having to mix a soapy solution, run that over the entire area, and then rinse out the water reservoir, fill it with clean water, and run over the carpet again to get out any soapy residue (leaving any soap in the carpet will attract new dirt even faster).
First, I used it on some highly trafficked berber steps, which already had a lot of embedded soap. I did not use any soap mixture, just ran the water/suction over the carpeting. This pulled up a lot of soap, and a lot of dirt, but did not do much to improve the overall look of the carpet. It may be that this particular berber (which people say is long-wearing, but I think shows wear a lot more than plush) is simply hopeless. The carpet stayed damp for quite some time, and the suction on the machine is only moderately good, but as long as you’re not using it over a large area during a really humid month, it was acceptable.
Then I moved on to another set of stairs, these having plush carpeting that was a lot newer. New enough they had never been cleaned, and had no embedded soap residue, and only minor wear and a few spots. For this, I mixed a small amount of solution in a bottle and sprinkled it over spots, but otherwise just used the water and brush to freshen up the carpet. This worked pretty well and though a few of the spots lingered (I’m not terribly surprised, there’s a reason people use tea to dye fabric!) the stairs look very much refreshed. Again, a fair amount of water remained in the carpet, but in a low-humidity month it wasn’t much of an issue.
Another couple of down sides are the inability to use the brush and the suction at the same time, and the placement of the switch on top of the brush makes it very easy to accidentally move (I push down fairly hard on top of the brush to try to get the best suction possible). The later being a mere annoyance, the former being something I really wish would be changed (again, to work more like the big machine).
Overall, I would say it’s handy enough for spot cleaning, and certainly a lot easier to pull out in the case of a spill than the large machine. I don’t really regret buying it, but I’m not certain it’s worth the price. If you have a decent place to store the larger one (which has a hose/small brush attachment) that you can get it out quickly and will use it, I’d probably recommend just going with that. If you really want convenience, and can adapt to/don’t mind the little things that aren’t quite right with this machine, it’s handy to have around.”
She e-mailed the articles to her editor, turned off the computer, and went to sit back on the couch. Too late she remembered the small silver button, and she accidentally stepped on it, a sharp shock going up her leg.
The room swam, dissolved, and everything went dark.
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