Home and Kitchen Reviews

I have owned this for a couple of years. With three cats in house, the opportunities for cleaning up hairball aftermath abound.

Pros:
1. The unit is lightweight and easy to manage
2. Spots will lift if they are recent
3. Suction is adequate to substantially remove the cleaning liquid from the carpet or upholstery
4. Cord length is adequate for the average size room

Cons:
1. Not adequate to remove older or dried stains
2. Heated water would be more effective
3. Disassembly for cleaning is a little cumbersome

Overall, this unit is better than nothing. However, I would recommend looking for a unit that heats the water internally. I have found that function adds cleaning power to the larger upright cleaning units.

We have two dogs...one VERY large and young...the other small and old. Without this tool (because it is a tool) and Resolve, I'd have spent thousands on carpet replacement.

Just tonight, my girlfriend who paints, left a plate with oil based paint on it on a table. My doberman thought maybe it was some food and decided to knock it down on the floor. We found it about an hour later. With the help of my trusty spotlifter, some paint thinner, and some resolve, we got it out to the point where I stood back and laughed. It's not perfect and someone who was really looking for stains will see it, but it is IMPRESSIVE.

Nobody without a pet should be without one of these.

When I purchased this item a year ago, I could not believe itworked. Seriously.

I have cats and with hairballs and precious little "accidents," I have a very hard time keeping the carpets clean. I bought this little ditty at a Target store and used it to clean some tough spots on carpet in my former apartment. I worked like a charm!

It's really easy to handle, to change brushes and refill cleaning solution. It works great on stairs, where it's tougher for me to vacuum. It pulls out dirt and other yucky messes - including color spills - and leaves the carpet fresh. You can also use your own solutions to clean, including bleach or peroxide and water and it doesn't hurt the machine.

I purposely waited a year to review this item so see how it was with wear and tear. It use it A LOT. And it's still going. For a purchase in today's cheaply-manufactured economy, that's a real plus.

I was looking for a crock pot that was a regular pan with a hot plate just like my previous one. I liked being able to brown meat on my stove first and then put it on the slow cooker. Also it was easy to clean, runs through the dishwasher just like any other pot. This slower cooker is good but has two drawbacks. There are no handles like my old one. It just has little metal grips which are hard to hold and get hot. I don't like the oblong shape because when I am browning meat in the pot on the stove there is a large portion of the hot burner exposed. I like this type of crock pot but I would advise looking for a round one with handles.

This is the 2nd pot of this kind that I have purchased.
Great for sauces, chili, soups and the griddle is an extra

This is a replacement for a similar West Bend Slow Cooker that I had for about twenty years. It is practical that I can brown the meat and onions in the pan on the stove, then continue whatever I am making using the Slow Cooker aspect. Handy Dandy. Love it! I couldn't find a replacement in the store and was glad to get another at Amazon.

I originally purchased the spot bot because I was looking for something simple to use. Brought it home, tried it....it was leaking out black stuff all over my carpet. Returned it, decided to purchase the better model...a Proheat 2x Upright. Boy, I should have gone with the Hoover. Even though the bissel was recommended by the sales associate at Best Buy...this was my biggest mistake. Brought it home, tried it again (on my WHITE carpet, might I add)....black spots left AGAIN! Brought it back to best buy...they tried to tell me that it was something that I did when I put it together. It was NOT as my fiance and I went over the instructions 5 times to make sure it wasn't us. I mean, how could this happen with 2 separate bissel models??/ I thought it was us too..but nope....bissel did us wrong!

Now, if you have dark carpet...great, you probably wouldn't notice the black, dirty water spots that leak out. But,if you have very light (white) carpet like me...it is VERY noticeable. Very disappointed...now I'm worse off than I was before. BEWARE DO NOT buy this if you have light carpet! I'm sorry that i did. I had great hopes for this machine, but it let me down, twice.

Others have gone into very good detail about this machine so I won't go over that again. What I will add, however, is that there are a couple weird things about this carpet cleaner that I didn't expect.

The first is that if you have pets you will have to go back and pick up clumps of hair - even if you've just ran the vacuum cleaner. This is a good/bad situation as it's good that it's getting up all the hair that the vacuum cleaner missed but it's also a pain in the back (literally) to have to bend over every minute or two to pick up clumps of hair or risk clogging up the carpet cleaner with hair. We've lived in this house for 2 1/2 years and have had 2 cats the whole time, 2 dogs for 2 of those years so we expected some pet hair. We've ran the vacuum cleaner twice a week on average ever sinced we moved in, however, so you may not have that problem if you don't have as many animals as we have.

The second quirk - and one that will effect everyone - is the fact that it seems to leak. We have a "green machine" (portable hand held Bissell) that we have the same problem with so it seems to be a problem with all Bissell's. After you turn off the carpet cleaner and wrap the cord up you'll be surprised to see a mess of dirty water under where the carpet cleaner was. Tacks such as running a minute or so (continually moving it) before shutting it off doesn't work either. We have to store the carpet cleaner in the garage as it will continue to leak out over the next few hours or so and leaves a puddle of water about 6 inches in diameter.

The final little quirk is that, even though it cleans well, be prepared for the carpet to be very wet when you're done. The carpet cleaners that we're all familiar with that we rented when we lived in an apartment (rug doctors) dry your carpet better I believe because they're heavier. Bissell had to walk the fine line of making it light enough for the petite among us to use it while still cleaning the carept without doing damage to it. Like I said above, it cleans pretty good but the carpet is very wet afterwards. This quirk isn't that bad as long as you plan ahead.

Overall I give it 4 stars because it does it's job but the quirks keep it from being a must have product.

I have never owned a carpet cleaner like this before. I used an upright Hoover a couple years ago that a friend owned but that's my only experience with this type of machine.

My wife and I have a large area rug approx. 12x16 and it needed cleaning bad. It had many stains from over 4 years of use. Most of the stains I had tried to remove with good'ol elbow grease but no luck. We decided to have it professionally cleaned but when we realized how expensive it was going to be ($300!!) we decided to buy our own. We purchased the Bissell Proheat 9200T from Target for $200 (Sorry Amazon!).

The unit was easy to assemble and use. Of course it took some getting use to but overall very easy. It ran out of clean water twice while I was cleaning and each time I didn't realize it for a couple of strokes. I wish there was an easy way to know if it needed more water. Also, like the previous poster mentioned carpet gunk gets stuck under the machine behind the rollers and it needs to be wiped clean periodically while cleaning. You also have to dismantle the front roller assembly by removing 5 screws in order to properly clean the unit when finished. I wish this was easier but I don't see it as a major problem as I don't anticipate using this everyday.

Our carpet is now spotless! We are thrilled with the results. There were dark black stains on our light beige colored rug for years and they are all gone now. I was only expecting a minor improvement but this machine made the rug look new again!!

For only $200 we have a brand-new rug and a great machine that will hopefully last for years. I can't recommend Bissell enough
.

Pretty expensive considering these little paper wicks will last you about 2 months until they start smelling and looking really bad. I recommend opting for a "wickless" humidifier. I ended throwing these out along with the humidifier for the new Vick's humidifier which is has the option for a warm or cool setting.

I looked in all the local store websites for 2 days because
I needed to replace the wicks....Well no luck so I found them on your website,Amazon! the Vornado wicks are not readily available
in any of our local stores in fact,no one carries them!!I was so glad to find them on your site Thank you

Love the vornado for my baby boys! And Amazon is the best deal around for Humidifier Wicks!
Thanks

The design of the lid is such that you have to tilt the filter to get it into the carafe. As a result, it is quite easy to get floating grounds on top of the filter.

A fatal flaw, as far as I'm concerned. I'll probably go with the Chambord instead.

I heat the water in directly in the carafe part in the microwave. (Probably the legalese in the initial directions advises against this, together with using it to pour boiling water in your eye, etc.) The carafe portion doesn't have any metal. It then makes a good cup 'o joe. Simple! Good for making one or two cups.

definitely works at least as well as a glass press and I am no longer in fear of breaking another beaker

This is a 5 star item.
I've never owned a slow cooker and was a bit concerned after reading that Rival slow cookers received significantly lower ratings than other brands of slow cookers. This one works like a charm. I was also concerned because I read that older models of slow cookers cooked more slowly on low, and that some newer slow cookers cooked at a heat that was too high.

Not to worry. On low, it's exactly that. Perfect and slow and will cook roasts to perfection in 8-10 hours. On high, it works perfectly too. It's a lovely looking black ceramic stoneware insert too. I'm on my way to being a crock pot fanatic. I am a brand new fan.

I love this Slow Cooker. My friend recommended it to me about three years ago but the only thing I cooked in it was whole chickens. Then I moved to SD and my mother-in-law showed me how to use it for EVERYTHING. Now I cook roasts, steaks, sooups, and even spaghetti in this thing. It's a time saver! And so easy to clean up.

Like everyone else, I bought this blender because it looks good, is not expensive, and seems like a good product. My Cuisinart blender recently died; the plastic mechanism that turns the blades split in two. This blender has an all-metal mechanism, which virtually no other blender has (none of the expensive blenders at Williams Sonoma have a metal mechanism). So I was sold on all of these things. Reading the other reviews I thought that people were just being overly picky about the noise level---all blenders are noisy! But not really. This blender literally made my ears hurt. Maybe it is the aforementioned metal mechanism, I don't know, but it is not pleasant to use and it is considerably louder than the Cuisinart. That said, it does seem to blend well (much better than the Cuisinart) and I can live with the noise. If I really used a blender a lot then I might consider a quieter model. I have no idea how you would be able to test noise level in a store, though.

I'm not too worried about the noise, though I woudn't turn it on if someone in the next room was still asleep. The blender blends, and for a decent price.

Occasionally I have to open the lid and stir it, but it's an extra step I'm willing to take for quick, smooth smoothies. This, and the acrid burning smell that appears briefly if you run the motor for 45 seconds or more are the reaons it's not getting 5 stars from me.

Overall, a very good blender at a reasonable price, with good looks to boot.

This is a simple, solidly-built blender that does exactly what it's supposed to. It blends. It also crushes ice and makes smoothies and other blended drinks - and it doesn't "complain" (i.e. slow down, bind up, or smell like a burning motor)!
We recently got the beehive to replace a 3-year old Hamilton Beach blender that never did any of the above-listed things very well, and which did "complain" when it tried. We got used to using a spoon to poke all the ice/fruit/etc down towards the blades with the Ham Beach, but that is no longer necessary.
I mainly picked this blender due to good reviews here, the metal drive shaft, and the 500W motor. I haven't been disappointed, and I'd highly recommend this blender.

I purchased this for my brother in Nevada who currently has not been able to eat solid food for some time now. I felt nutritionally that he was deprived due to his status and that this blender/food processor would allow him to eat balanced meals at a consistency he could tolerate. So far it has and he is experimenting more and more with it and states he is enjoying the ability to eat more variety and normal.

I spent several weeks researching blenders. Even the top rated Braun has reviews that aren't that great when it comes to crushing ice, which is what I was looking for. This thing completely pulverizes ice to a smooth, soft, slushie consistency. I was looking to recreate a certain frozen drink that I get at a restaurant, and the one we made with the Oster was even better than the restaurant's! And they use one of those expensive frozen drink machines! It's loud, but it works like a breeze. The only thing I noticed is that it's so powerful, you need to put a towel over the lid because it will splatter out a little through the middle cap. A small price to pay for the power this Oster has! All the extras it comes with are a great bonus too!

I just bought one of these bad boys and it crushes ice unlike any other blender I have ever used. I even enjoy that it is loud because I know it is getting the job done. A side from being power house, I really bought it for looks. Thank GOD for plenty of counterspace in my kitchen. I keep it out just because it makes the kithchen look nicer.

I love the handy crevice tool. It doesn't have the power I thought it would but it does a pretty good job. Heavier than most handhelds.

I use it the most of all my different vacuum items. It picks up cat litter from the carpet, it picks dust off countertops and other hard surfaces with ease. My only complaint is you have to buy a lot of filters, although you can usually wash off the dirt a couple times and put it back on. And it doesn't last long, maybe 20 minutes per charge. But I still love it, I love machines that work, and this one does deliver the goods!

Very powerful and easy to use. It is great for use with or without the concentrator that comes with it and is mounted on the same unit. Highly recommended.