Others say...

"Rescued our carpet"
We adopted a troubled dog from a rescue program earlier this year. The little guy had been pretty badly abused and while he's making great strides he continues to engage in "submissive urination." You can imagine the effect that this had on the carpet in our home. The constant scrubbing was a real pain in the neck. A very expensive carpet cleaning from one of those companies touting their "dead sea salts" really didn't work very well at all, and even if it had we couldn't keep spending that kind of money. This product rescued our carpet from the "rescued" dog.

When one of my wife's co-workers (who serves as a foster person for rescue dogs and has several in her home at any given time) recommended a spot bot to her I was skeptical. My wife's a clean freak and is constantly bringing home products like this. We have nearly every kind of floor or carpet device known to man, including two other Bissels that we haven't been thrilled with. But I was desperate enough to give it a try and grabbed one off of Amazon. It turned out to be one of the best purchases ever. To my amazement, the thing actually works really well. It's extremely simple to use . . . just fill the tank, drop it on the accident spot, plug it in, and decide whether you want a surface or a deep clean. You hit the button and walk away. When it's done you're left with a damp circular impression on the carpet as the only evidence of the accident. The beep it makes when finished is a bit annoying, but it reminds us to pick it up and put it away so the damp spot can air out and dry.

As I said, we have two other Bissell's - a small hose type portable unit that doesn't work all that well (or at all, really), and a much larger, more expensive unit that does a so-so job and is a pain in the neck to use and an even bigger pain to take apart and clean afterward. The spot bot does a much (Much!) better job than either of those. When it finishes there is no sign of soiling and no residual odor. We've used it on more conventional jobs like tracked in mud, etc., and it has not disappointed.

We've had it a few months now. If it holds up over time this will likely qualify as the best purchase of this kind we've ever made.

"Not worth the hassle"
We have off-white carpet and a small child. The time it takes to haul the Spot Bot out of the closet and fill it with expensive cleaner, is longer than just spraying and scrubbing out the stain with the red bottle cleaner. This machine sucks down the cleaner and dumps it into your carpet, leaving it totally soaked. After the machine "cleans" the stain, you have to manually suck up the cleaner and water left in your carpet. Otherwise you will be left with a dark circle because the cleaner will attract dirt, as other reviews have also noted. We had to use the machine several times on various non set in stains; rarely did it clean a stain on 1 cycle. This is definitely not worth the cost for the machine, not to mention the amount of expensive cleaner it uses. I would buy a steam cleaner instead and clean your carpets regularly with that. In the meantime, the tried and true "red bottle" is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to clean our carpets.

"Gets the job done. No muss, no fuss."
We have two dogs, and hound and a chihuahua. The small one occasionally has issues overnight, and the larger one will backslide on his training every once in awhile. The SpotBot does an excellent job taking care of these accidents in between professional carpet cleanings (we have the major rooms done every year or two).

On the plus side the SpotBot does exactly what it's supposed to do. It thoroughly cleans small stains (pet or otherwise) on carpets with virtually no effort on my part (hey, you do have to fill it, plug it in, press a button, and empty the waste water when it's done).

As others have noted, it does tend to use a lot of cleaning fluid. I think other reviewers have suggested a way to deal with this. Mix the solution and water in appropriate ratios and put it in a spray bottle. Fill the SpotBot with just hot water when you need to use it. Spray the solution on the spot and get it thoroughly wet, then use the SpotBot normally. Saves on solution and gets the stains out just as well (maybe better since, if you let the solution soak in for a few minutes, it acts as a pretreatment as well).


"gets the job done well enough"
i've got cats and one of them is barfy. he throws up or leaves nasty hairballs all over my carpet every few weeks. plus there's a few urine stains around the house from when i attempted to train them to use the human toilet but that's a different story.

i was hesitant about this product because it was kind of pricey to just get rid of a few stains... but my carpet's unsightly and something needed to be done.

tried it out with the oxy stuff it came with, it surprisingly got rid of the stains! however weeks later, i realized the oxy stuff must be sticky or something because it left a perfect discolored dingy brownish circle wherever i used it. also, i hated that this uses so much expensive solution so i came up with my own mixture to save money. i will not buy their carpet cleaners again.

i mix a bit of laundry detergent with hot water and run the thing. so far no issues. it smells better, carpet's softer, no residue. i might try vinegar to neutralize urine too.

i prefer the manual hose too. it just seems like such a waste to run it auto. you can only clean 2 spots before it must be refilled again with more solution.



"Great find"
We purchased the spot bot about 3 months ago. We have been very pleased with the results. I especially like the hand held tool that it comes with. We have 3 dogs and a cat that will sometimes urinate on carpet. For those that have cats, you know how difficult it is to get the smell out. This works great in getting the stains up and helping to get the smell out as well. Would recommend this product to anyone.