Workin' for the weekend

Byrne is coming over this weekend, and so I thought we'd better do some housecleaning before he gets here. I recently bought a new Bissell 9300 Steam Cleaner at Costco to replace our old Hoover, and Jess put it together and put it into action. With three dogs, the carpet gets rough treatment, and even though the carpet's not quite two years old, it was looking more like four or five years old.

We had stains that had been set in for some time, and we had attempted to clean them several times with the Hoover without success. A double-hit of brilliant yellow dog vomit (yeah, gross, I know) wouldn't come out with the Hoover, it would only fade. There was also some black spot of something that wouldn't budge either. The reviews of the Bissell I had read had spoken highly of its cleaning ability, and it was reviewed especially highly by several pet owners. Still, I was surprised that it got out every old stain we had, and it made the carpet look like new. And the cleaning solution smelled great, too.

There were a few drawbacks. One, the Bissell left the carpet wetter than I would like. The Hoover was far better at getting the water out of the carpet. Next time, we'll use the Bissell to clean and the Hoover to extract (it still runs, just doesn't clean well). Two, it was somewhat difficult to get the Bissell to begin operating after the water tank was put on or changed. Three, the water tank isn't as big as the Hoover's, so you're constantly changing it. Four, the clean and dirty water tanks are in the same chamber. The clean water is in a bladder that is surrounded by the dirty water. That, to me, is a dopey, dopey design. But it cleans like nothing else!

At any rate, the house will be clean when Byrne gets here, carpet and all. That is, if the dogs don't spoil it.