Carpet ruined by a drunken relative? Get a Bissell!

May 22nd, 2013

Small Appliances Vacuums & Floor Care

It was a Friday night, and after a hard week of appliance blogging, I was in the mood to let loose:

So there we all were at the pub, having a merry old time indeed. However, not all was well with my lovely aunt – who I had spontaneously decided to invite along:

“I’m fine!” she insisted, whilst trying to use a beer coaster as a pillow.

“I think it might be time for you to go home,” I said, but she wasn’t having a bar of it – leaving me with no option but to take her back to my house and install her in my bed.

After a protracted argument about the necessity of wearing pyjamas whilst living in a house shared by three other people, I finally convinced her to give sleep a chance. I was just snuggling down to a well-deserved rest in the lounge room, when a terrible sound began to emanate from behind my bedroom door:

BLLLLLLLLLELELELEEERRRRERRRRGGHHHHGHHGHHHHH!!!!

No, it was not a faulty Samsung washing machine. It was something much, much worse. Something that I did not get there in time to be able to prevent:

I do not have a photo of what my bedroom looked like immediately after it happened (you would not want to see it), but this photo shows you the stain that remained embedded in the carpet for a good six months after what I will from hereon in refer to as ‘the incident’:

Oh boy, it was horrible.

(In case you are wondering, she was totally fine the next day. “Must have been food poisoning!” she quipped, while stepping over me at 7am Saturday morning, fresh as a daisy. Then she said: “Last night was fun, let’s do it again!”)

At which point I was like:

Over the next few weeks, I did everything I could to remove that stain. I tried baking soda, vinegar, supermarket carpet cleaners – to no avail. It was looking like I was going to be losing my rental bond money, a depressing fact I was reminded of every time I looked down:

That was, until I received a call from the good people at Bissell.

“Hello Louise,” they said. “Would you like to test and review one of our carpet cleaners?”

It was like the guardian angel of appliances was smiling down at me, sending high-quality cleaning products straight from heaven.

I responded with my usual composure and aplomb:

“Yes,” I said. “That would be acceptable.”

Not long after, a box arrived containing one of these:

It’s the Bissell PowerWash™ – a home carpet washer similar to those used by the professionals. To get it out of the box and working, you’ll need a screwdriver (there are a couple of screws in the handle), but all up it’s pretty easy to figure out – a fact I can truly attest to because I somehow managed to lose the instruction manual.

Before you begin, Bissell recommends that you vacuum your carpet thoroughly, which I did, after removing approximately 7,000 metres of my housemates’ hair from the rollers. (For the record, I was bald for the better part of last year, so I’m totally justified in blaming other people for that particular catastrophe).

Anyway. After the business of vacuuming, I pre-treated the stained areas with this:

…which only needs to be left on the carpet for about 5 minutes before you can begin. (Thus making it suitable for people without the ability to forward-plan, such as myself).

Then, it was simply a matter of filling the tank with hot tap water and the cleaning solution that came with the machine. At which point I was ready to tackle this:

Now look, I’ll be honest with you. At the beginning of this adventure, I was skeptical. Although I totally appreciate that Bissell is one of the biggest names in home floorcare, I just didn’t think it was possible to remove a stain that had been embedded for such a long time. And so my attitude going into this was like:

Imagine my surprise when, after a mere matter of minutes, my carpet started to look like this:

Which is amazing! I was floored!! (Uh, get it?)

Check it out:

I promise you, this is the result I got after only about 10 minutes of cleaning. I mean sure, I had to go over the same patch of carpet quite a few times, but it wasn’t a terribly big deal. The cleaner is surprisingly easy to manoeuvre despite its size (compact it ain’t) – it was simply a matter of pushing it back and forth a few times until the stains started to fade. (You should have seen the gunk it raked up! I couldn’t believe I’d been living in an environment that was so disgusting for so long, ew).

So there you have it, a rave review from someone who had some serious reservations to start with. But the results speak for themselves:

I would recommend the Bissell PowerWash™ to anyone with:

* Allergies or asthma (carpet is one of the biggest causes of allergies, and this Bissell carpet washer has official approval from the Asthma Foundation).

* Dirty housemates

* A partying lifestyle

* Pets

* Frequently drunk relatives

Furthermore, if you consider the cost of hiring a professional cleaner, one of these babies virtually pays for itself after a couple of uses.

So thank you, Bissell! You have made me a very happy person, and you have provided redemption for my dear aunt, who I might even invite round for a reconciliatory dinner. …One day.

Until next time, party people.