Home > Consumer Reviews > Dirt Devil Spot Scrubber

Oh, how I wish I had checked reviews before I bought this product! Whoever designed this product was apparently a hateful, vengeful person who secretly wants to ruin the day of housewives everywhere. Some of my favorite features of this product are:

When you are cleaning up a disgusting spot of something, this device will randomly spew the dirty water out of the side vents, usually all over your legs as you are crouched over the spot trying to remove it. This happens when the product has a bare tablespoon of dirty water. Would it have been so hard to, I don't know, make the holding tank big enough to hold the dirty water? Or maybe make it where, when slightly full, the dirty water goes ANYWHERE other than on you and your house? Have you ever smelled hot dog urine water that has been steamed out of a vent? That smell will stay in your house for MONTHS, and no amount of spot scrubbing will help.

The scrub brush is pretty much useless, it kind of scrubs the spot, but you have to put so much pressure on the scrubber to make it reach the carpet you end up with a cramp in your wrist. You also can't really get the brush clean, it's in an awkward spot on the device.

You need the strength of a gorilla to pry the plug that keeps the dirty water in the holding tank. (Haha KEEPS it in the tank? What a laugh!) You will have to grab an awkward green tab and yank and pull and curse and...BOOM it pops open and spews that dirty water (what is left of it after the vents steamed it all over you) all over your face.

The price is good, but do you really want to pay money to curse and hate and loath every time your dog makes a piddle on the carpet? This product is poorly designed, I've been using it for 6 months now, and I'm about to throw it in the garbage and buy something else. I won't even give this thing away to someone, there isn't anyone in the world I hate that much.

This is going back! Pros: price is reasonable, easy to figure out and assemble, good suction -- most of the water is removed from carpet. Cons: extremely noisy; parts are difficult to disassemble -- knobs are too small on screw tops while click-on parts stick and it's difficult to get a grip anywhere because of the design, knob on dirty tank is very difficult to open and close, wet or dry; brush seems useless -- most of the scrubbing action comes from manually moving the machine back and forth over the spot; sprayer never did work right no matter how long I held it down; difficult to clean afterward -- one has to remove screws to run water through the suction nozzle, the brush is attached so one must run water over the end of the machine to clean it easily; and finally, I got sprayed with puppy poop water which came out the air flow "out" vent, probably because I moved the machine too vigorously or it got too full (I hadn't used all the allowed solution in the first tank) -- the inside end of the suction tube is very close to the top of the solution in the dirty tank. This is not a happy camper! My advice -- try another spot cleaner!

I purchased this item from a traditional vendor. It was absolutely worthless! It is literally so loud you have to wear hearing protection to use it or your ears ring for several minutes afterward. Most of the water it sucks up gets sprayed back out the exhaust vent and all over your clothes and the room you are using it in. I threw it out after a couple of times using it. Don't waste your money.

I purchased one of these back in January and have used it every day since I opened it! Okay so it's loud, guess what!!! That's because it is so powerful! I get better results using this than with my large upright steam shampooer. With a house full of cats, I am constantly cleaning up after hairballs. For those who don't own a cat ... they throw up constantly because of ingesting so much hair while they are grooming themselves. My house has light colored carpet throughout and I could never get the stains up completely until this little wonder! The only down side is the dirty water reservoir is not as big as I wish it were and I have to empty it constantly. The stopper was hard to remove at first but became easier after time. I show this off to everyone that comes over and remarks about how clean my house looks in spite of so many cats! It is worth any extra effort needed to clean and maintain!

Well, at least this product is going to be in the Smithsonian one day: she looks just so, well, pretty. Those guys just out of electronic product design school really made this little girl beautiful for the prom. BUT oh no! I took her to the prom and, well, she did turn into a pumpkin at midnight.

If you take Dirt Devil out you'll need the following personal accessories: Ear plugs for the Airbus A320 thruster engine sounds she makes while dancing. Pliers to remove the breakable tank cover flap. Ice for sore thumb after pushing that silly sprayer 30 times a minute.

Oh - - you asked about cleaning power. Ok, there was this one spot on the dance floor - low pile carpet and viola! The Cleaning solution is great. But oh, if the carpet guys saw me using this toy they would giggle - - it belongs in the kindergarden play house.

Now remember this: a rug cleaner can look all techy and space age and all. But they all work on one simple early 20th century principle: wet the carpet with a proven cleaning solution and suck up the liquid with the most voracious vacume action possible. Don't be fooled by 21st century cosmetic packaging. You'll get your date home after curfew and her folks won't be any happier than users of this little Devil.