 Beats the professional companies hands down! |
| Date Of Review: December 12, 2007 |
| Reviewed by: M. Ferrell, South Alabama |
If you've ever had, or like to have your carpets "professionally cleaned" than this is the machine for you. If you've ever had your carpets done by a professional company, then I recommend you take a rug doctor right after they leave and run it with nothing but just hot water in it. You will not believe the amount of SOAP (and dirt) those professional companies leave behind. The soap itself is a dirt magnet. Clean your carpets yourself with this machine a few times and it will pay for itself AND your carpets will be much cleaner than how the professional companies leave it.
My husband and I have five indoor pets (a lab, a sheltie, 3 cats - who seem to constantly be puking hairballs on the carpet) and an 8 month old daughter, who also likes to puke pureed carrots on the carpet when we least expect it! Can I mention the occasional leaky poopy diaper?
This rug doctor gets all of the nasty cat vomit, baby BM's and rainbow baby food (carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, blueberries) out of our lightly colored beige carpet. We have used this for dog vomit and dog diarrhea as well with no stains left behind.
My sister's dog stayed with us once and peed on the carpet in the master bathroom. We used the rug doctor to clean it up. If you don't get the smell out, once one animal pees in the house, they will all start doing it to mark territory! We cleaned the spot with the rug doctor until the water ran clear and I couldn't smell anything in the carpet. When we replaced the carpet with tile and pulled the old carpet up, I looked for the pee stain. You could see a very, very faint brown outline of an irregular shape where the rug doctor solution had spread the urine out while cleaning the carpet. Curiosity got the better of me and I wondered if you could smell the pee UNDER the carpet, so I gave it a whiff. I couldn't detect an odor (my nose is pretty sensitive).
We use this machine to clean the carpets in our home every six months. We vacuum (with a Dyson DC17) on a regular basis but still the water we pull out of the carpet is an opaque brown (I should probably clean my carpets more than every six months with five pets and a kid, but I don't make the time to do so).
Another user mentioned using a slower pace with the machine than what the manufacturer recommends. We also do this. It seems you have to go pretty slow for it to do a really thorough job. Yes, it takes time, but when your carpets are as clean as they will ever be without being brand new, it's worth it!
Some tips that have worked well for us:
-You don't need nearly as much soap as they recommend. We use 1/2 or 1/3 of the recommended amount mixed with hot water and it does a great job (will save money on soap too!)
-We usually go back over the carpets a second and sometimes third time with just plain hot water to get out any residual soap (yes, even with the reduced amount) until the water we pull out of the carpet is clear (or nearly so). THEN I feel like the carpets are really clean.
-When cleaning up pet urine (if this is an issue for you): Use a flourescent black light (you can purchase one from a party store). This will make urine (and some other stains) glow in the dark. This way, you know EXACTLY where it is. After cleaning, you can check with the black light to see if you got all of the urine up or if you need to go over it again a few more times. The room needs to be completely dark (do at night) for the stain to show under the black light.
The rug doctor makes your house smell nice and fresh.
We just use the plain solution. The rug doctor came with some "special" samples like pet stain remover, odor remover, etc... Which I will probably use if and when our first bottle of solution runs out. We have found that the original formula works just fine for all of our messes.
CONS:
Only one con that we are aware of: If you are spot cleaning and you mix up too much solution, you want to empty it out of the rug doctor so it doesn't sit in there for months (mildew?). This is a royal pain. You either have to use all of the solution in your carpet (until it's empty) or wrestle the rug doctor over a sink or bath tub and turn it upside down. This thing is heavy and somewhat cumbersome (especially if it's full of water!). Even after dumping it upside down, there will still be a little bit of solution in it. It takes both me and my husband to empty it. One of us holds it on the edge of the bathtub while the other person pushes the button on the rug doctor to blow out all of the remaining solution in the bathtub. The person not balancing the rug doctor on the edge of the tub has to watch to see if the rug doctor is indeed done spouting out the residual solution. Yes, it's a bit of a pain, but still very worth it.
We have not used the upholstery attachment, but if I ever do, I will come back and comment on it.
|
Better than expected - Wow
|
| Date Of Review: July 15, 2007 |
| Reviewed by: Eddie D, Fishing Capital |
| With two little kids and spills and food and a cat who ups his hairballs we had a lot of soil. I was expecting to have a slight shadow of where the dirt was...but no...the carpet looks almost new and its a light beige color. I had to change the water every 3x3 to 6x6 area depending on how many passes I had to make over it, which were about 3 on average and as many as 6-7 in places. I did NOT use the prespot and did not use the anti-foam. As long as you don't run the clean water directly on the OXY solution it won't foam. I used a measuring cup and poured the Oxy into the tank either before or after the clean water. The biggest issue is they recommend pulling the machine at the rate of 1ft per second. That is wayyyy tooo fast! For me it was more like 1ft every 5-10 seconds on average and up to 20seconds on tougher areas. My wife and I were tremendously impressed with the results. Drying time 4-5-6 hours in places I didn't have to make too many passes longer for other areas. Finally, this machine sounds like a jet engine, real loud. I strongly recommend use some sort of hearing protection. Even double protection with the ear plugs and Mickey Mouse ears on top of it. Also had to brush the fuzzies off the brushes halfway through using a medium bristle brush. |
Expensive, but well worth the investment
|
| Date Of Review: September 22, 2007 |
| Reviewed by: Jaiho, Virginia,USA |
The Rug Doctor Mighty Pro's are as close as a consumer can get to results that look professional. The difference between Rug Doctor and the cheaper residental machines, Hoover's, Bissell's are night and day.
I have had my Rug Doctor now for over 2 years, not a single problem. I had my Hoover V2 Steam Cleaner for a little over 1 year before I replaced the solution tank.
The warranty is a 5 year warranty covering everything, you can't go wrong. I was tired of replacing the cheaper units every 2-3 years (I have a very big dog, and active household, I use the machine weekly) and decided to get the best.
I like to test every machine to their limits, so the first night I had the Rug Doctor I spilled red wine on the carpet, just so I could test the Rug Doctor. It worked so well, the section of carpet where I spilled red wine, was noticably cleaner then the rest of the carpet (I had been using the Hoover V2 previously). I had to clean the whole carpeting to make it match, but WOW what a great machine. The only downfall I can see is that the machine is rather heavy. Carrying them up and down stairs would be quite the work out. I would recomend this product to anyone with an active household (kids and pets). If you don't have a very active household, and just use a steamer cleaner 2-3 times a year, then it's probably a better idea, and more cost effective just to rent this machine at Safeway. |
What are yor problems.
|
| Date Of Review: August 30, 2007 |
| Reviewed by: David Siegele, Cambria Ca. |
| I rented one of the store units after a bad spill at my Bistro to try and save my new carpet. It blew my mind so I boought one. I took it home and used it right after I had spent over $700.00 to clean the carpets at my home and it was night and day. I took it to my neighbors to try before she replaced her pet urine stained white carpet. The results you would have to see to believe as the carpet was almost black in area's. Before I was done she bought one I am getting a second one for my home. Just remeber take your time till you get your carpets clean. I would take your time and do it right the first time or if it needs it a second time, but if your carpet is that bad there is nothing you can do but replace it and buy one of these and keep it clean. |
Professional quality
|
| Date Of Review: September 5, 2007 |
| Reviewed by: Suburb guy, Bay Area, California |
Professional quality. This is the same kind that you can rent in Safeway.
But if you buy it like I did, don't have to waste money to rent anymore.
I had 2 other carpetcleaners before, this one is the best by far.
:-) |
Simply Incredible!!!
|
| Date Of Review: October 7, 2009 |
| Reviewed by: Art Vandelay, Atlanta, GA |
| I and my dog recently moved to a new house. She was house-broken, so I was comfortable leaving her in the house by herself until I got home. However, she must have gotten into something one morning because when I arrived home from work one evening, there were 14 piles of diarrhea in almost every room!!! My house smelled terrible, and I thought my carpet was ruined. So I went to the local grocery store and rented the Rug Doctor along with several bottles of cleaning agent (save your money on the "anti-foaming agent" and use a couple teaspoons of salt instead). I went home and began cleaning the spots up. I could not believe my eyes, or my nose for that matter!!! It cleaned up each and every area of mess as if it were never there. Using the machine took a little getting used to at first, but you learn to let the machine do the work and keep a light touch on the controls when pulling it back toward you. I was sold on this machine and purchased my own. It beats any of the so-called "steam cleaners" out there, and I think does a better job than most professional companies. I'm not one to right a review on a product, so take this for what it's worth. |
Fantastic and Essential Household Product
|
| Date Of Review: August 25, 2010 |
| Reviewed by: LazyChick, |
Okay, so people are probably looking at this and balking at the price tag, but I assure you that it's well worth its weight in gold. I purchased the Mighty Pro directly from the manufacturer's website about 3 years ago, and only wish I had thought to check here on Amazon first to get the free Prime shipping!
I got this because we often have a tendency to move a lot and we always rent one before we move into place and also before we move out. I figured that after so many times of renting it, we pretty much paid for one anyway. I also live with 2 dogs and 2 cats in the house. I wanted something to help eliminate the dirt that flies inside and to eliminate animal and Man odors. This thing easily does the trick and I use it religiously.
It's more than durable and by saying that I use it religiously, that means once a month - if not several times a month - of thoroughly abusing it. I've had no trouble with it so far in the last 3-plus years that I've had (knock on wood). The owner of the house has commented a few times on how great the carpet looks, and the attachment is great for cleaning couches, mattresses and so forth. It's heavy but easy to push, but it may be a pain to haul upstairs and downstairs often--though not impossible.
If you're considering paying for more in order to get the floor attachment, however, I would say to save your money and go with this deal. The floor attachment (for hard floors) is OK, but tends to leave the floor sopping wet afterward, no matter how often you go over it, and never feels entirely too clean. I now love and often use my steam mop to do floors and it's much more efficient and sanitary, drying in less than 5 minutes.
Should you happen to be unsure about this, I would recommend renting it for a time from your local grocery store, since it's the exact same thing. The soap can be pricey, but you only use a little each time, and a bottle will last me up to 5 months or more with consistent use. I also like the anti-foam product as well as the odor eliminator stuff, but the regular cleaning solution works just fine on its own. The suction power is more than impressive and the agitating brushes do their job well.
This is probably one of the most expensive purchases that I've gotten just for the house and I don't make much money, but I don't regret buying it one bit. In fact, I'd go insane without it and it's turned me into a slight germaphobe/clean freak, but it's come in handy more times than I can count. Have I mentioned that we haven't had fleas since I got this thing? Tut! |
|
There are no video reviews for this item.
