I had a Hoover steam cleaner that I bought almost a decade ago when I lived in an apartment that was fully carpeted and I sung the praises of it to everyone I knew. I still have that steam cleaner to this day and I still always felt it did a good job. However, last year I bought a Shark vacuum on instant savings, even though we had a vacuum that I felt did a good job, until I used the Shark and the bin looked as if we hadn't vacuumed in years. After that, I was sold on Shark products and had my sights set on replacing our carpet cleaner.
While the price was still pretty steep on Instant Savings, I just knew this thing would blow our current steam cleaner out of the water. And it did! It revived a 4-year-old area rug to as close as brand new as you can get. The pile is fluffy again and there's no dingy tinge to it anymore. The water was almost black, even though we had just steam cleaned it maybe 5 or so months ago, and we do not wear outside shoes in the house nor have pets that go outside or children. I was also disgusted at just how much of our cat's fur it picked up, considering we vacuum every week. It's really getting deep down into the fibers and pulling everything out.
It even saved a cream area rug we have in our guest room that my mother destroyed last year by wearing her shoes during a week-long visit. We had steam cleaned it with our Hoover after she left and you could still see the sad grey line running up and down the rug where she regularly walked. This Shark made it disappear and made the rug look good as new.
The price is high, yes, but so is the quality. As with every steam cleaner I've ever come across, the tank is frustratingly small. I probably had to empty it at least a dozen times from start to finish on our 8x12 area rug. There's also not an ideal place to grip it when emptying it. The cleaner does have a hard time on higher piles. In fact, when I first turned the machine on, it instantly turned off due to the brush roll not being able to spin on the pile. I got it to work but still ran into the problem a few times while cleaning the rug and would have to turn the machine off and back on again, which is annoying. But the clean the machine provides makes it all worth it, in my opinion. Little tip, unless you're planning on using the hand tools, don't fill the small blue tank with cleaner, as the instructions say. Only the hand tools pull from that tank. So now, annoyingly, an entire bottle of the cleaner is sitting in the tank and who knows when we'll use the hand tools.
If you're on the edge about buying this machine, buy it! And if you have pets or kids that track stains, dirt and messes into your home, you definitely need this!
Customer reviews for Shark CarpetXpert HairPro with StainStriker Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner for
