Happy Slob's Housecleaning - Product Review - Dirt Devil Spot Scrubber (Mini Portable Carpet Cleaner)

Product Review of:

Dirt Devil Spot Scrubber - Mini Carpet Cleaner for Spots

I was really fed up with some nasty stains in our carpet (ahem...let's just say that one of our pet cats has a real affection for finding the most obvious spots to barf up her furballs!). No matter what I did, I couldn't budge those stains, and in fact seemed to be making them worse with every attempt to clean them! Whenever I looked at one of those stubborn stains, it seemed to grin and chuckle at me, or wave as if to remind me of its very presence. As if I could've forgotten it!

So...hubs and I decided that it was time to finally buy some sort of carpet cleaner. But, we live in a modest 2-bedroom apartment without much storage space at all. Even our closets are just sort of wanna-be's with not much room for anything other than the absolute essentials. (And don't get me STARTED about our linen closet...) Wow, I'm in a cranky mood today, huh?

Right - back onto the topic at hand: our lovely new portable carpet cleaner! It's tiny and meant for spot removal as opposed to large carpet cleaning jobs. Just what we were looking for! Here it is:

We had planned on buying the "Little Green" spot cleaner, but both stores hubs went to were out of stock, so he purchased this one instead. And I'm very glad that he did! Our little Dirt Devil Spot Scrubber (the exact model shown - I've read that the smaller hand vac type doesn't work nearly as well) works like a dream. We used it on an old tea stain (that one was entirely my fault - I was climbing into bed one day with a full cup of hot tea, and well, I ended up in the bed, but the tea didn't make it onto the nightstand. It splashed dramatically all over the carpet!) and a few old kitty-tummy-upset stains with much better than expected results.

On the oldest, most stubborn stains, I think it will take 2-3 runs of the machine to get the stain out entirely, but we were both impressed by how it slurped up the old messes. The dirty water container got muddy-looking very quickly! I was thrilled to see those old stains start to disappear before my eyes. And relieved to see the demise of my old, mocking enemies...

Good Points:

• Large tank size! We would only need to fill this and empty it occasionally. Considering it's just for spots - you could do a LOT of spot removal before the tank would need refilling.
• Worked great with just hot tap water, about a quarter cup of white vinegar and the tiniest drop (literally) of liquid laundry detergent. I think you could very easily get away without even adding the detergent, but I knew these stains were particularly tough ones.
• Powerful suction - you spray the solution on (in our case, vinegar and water and a drop of detergent - I didn't even bother with the freebie cleaner solution that came with the unit), scrub it with the brush and at the same time it sucks all the mess away. The suction was impressively powerful - better than I'd expected for this price.
• A great bargain! Ours was on sale for $59.99, but is on regularly for $69.99 at Amazon and other online vendors. I thought it was well worth it...

What I Would Change if I Could:

• Make the brush bigger - it's about 3 inches in length, and it would be nice to have a slightly larger brush to cover a larger area more quickly. It's not a serious flaw, though.

All in all, I really love this little gizmo. Now, when my beloved kitty has a stomach upset, I won't be in a tizzy to get the stain out, because this machine on fresh stains I think will be a true powerhouse. (And on old stains, it's proven itself already!)