My husband got me a Portable Shark Steam Cleaner for Christmas, so I spent part of Christmas day roaming the kitchen blasting gunk out of nooks and crannies. It’s a neato toy; it makes exciting amounts of steam, it sound like a perking coffee machine while it heats up, and according to its user guide, it’s used all over the UK by just everybody!
I hate it.
First, it doesn’t cut grease. The user guide assures me it will, by the use of super-heated steamtm, but I know that it will just melt the grease, and my wiping will just smear it around in a thinner layer over a wider area. My answer to this is to spray the area with 409 or something similar, then steam, then wipe. I could get the same cleaning results without the steamer, though.
In the bathroom, the super-heated steamtm is supposed to make easy work of those bathtub rings. This is a lie, lie, lie. Bathtub rings = mostly body oils and soap residue = basically grease. So again, I am using a cleaning agent, scrubbing with my cloth, and the use of the steamer is unnecessary… though the bathroom jasmine plant seems to enjoy the extra humidity.
Floors. Oh, the Shark is supposed to be super for cleaning all kinds of flooring. Through the use of super-heated steamtm, my floors will become sterilized – clean enough to eat off of! The cleaning attachment for floors, a swiffer-like rectangle with clamps to hold a folded cloth (not included) that will wipe up the steam-loosened grime, falls off when you apply too much pressure. About the amount of pressure needed to, say, scrub a stubborn drip of juice from the area around the fridge. Just pops right off. I suppose I should use a feather-light touch and let the super-heated steamtm do the work… except it doesn’t. Nope. There’s me with my cloth and cleanser again.
Plus the super-heated steamtm dulls the finish of my no-wax floor. “Work fast!” chides the manual. My work would go a lot faster if I didn’t have to keep re-attaching the floor-cleaning head.
The super-heated steamtm also stinks. Maybe part of this is due to the properties of our local tap water, which the owner’s manual encourages me to use. But the owner’s manual also says, “do not add scented perfumes, oils, or any other chemicals to the water used in this appliance” so I think they have some idea of the olfactory impact of steam. Using distilled water helps a little. Not using the steamer would help best.
My husband was really excited with this present, so I will continue to haul it out and use it occasionally, just to spare his feelings. Perhaps I can use it to make the hall closet into a sauna…