After suffering two bathroom floods, and one kitchen sink flood within a week or so, my carpets were really taking a beating. I had contacted the maintenance men at my apartment complex and asked them to bring their wet/vac in to help me deal with all the water in the carpet. And in the typical style of our apartment complex, they never got to it. So we did the best we could with towels and fans. Eventually the carpet seemed to dry. However, the wet, mildew type smell did not seem to go away, instead it seemed to get worse. I tried carpet deodorizer, I tried vinegar water, I tried any number of sprays and powders. Unfortunately, I still had this prevailing smell of mildew and wet carpet that never seemed to get any better. Finally, I decided it was time to clean the carpets. I looked into renting a carpet scrubber, but after hearing the horror stories from several friends about getting broken machines, the cost, and the poor job they did – I turned my thoughts to buying one. I figured it made sense since I could then clean my carpets whenever I wanted. 

Off to Walmart I went to see the selection of steam cleaners they had. I knew what I wanted – an upright cleaner, heated water tank, but not too heavy for me to push around. I have no steps, so carrying it up and down wasn’t an issue, but I didn’t want a beast of a machine. Walmart’s selection was very limited, and I found nothing that fit what I wanted, at least not at a price I was willing to pay. So I headed next door to Lowes to see what they had. They seemed to have a wider variety, and more of what I was looking for. I found two models, both Bissell, that seemed to be what I wanted. One was less expensive, but seemed too wimpy for the job. It seemed more like a more expensive version of the Swiffer Wet Jet. Probably not going to hand le the job. But they had a Bissel ProHeat 2X there that seemed to be what I was looking for. With a heated water tank, an 11 inch cleaning path, and even a spot cleaning attachment, I made up my mind. The other facts listed, such as a 12 amp motor, 6 rows of dirt lifting brushes, a .75 gallon tank, didn’t mean a whole lot to me. It sounded good – but I have never owned a steam cleaner before, so had no clue really what to expect. It did worry me some that I was not able to lift the large box into my cart, and had to have them load it into the back of my car. But then, I have joint deterioration in my shoulders, and so struggle with this kind of thing. I was hoping once I got it home, out of the box, and put together that it wouldn’t be this heavy to push around.  The box also didn’t say if it had any of the carpet cleaning liquid. So, after perusing the shampoos that went into the machine, I settled on the Bissell Pet Stain Remover. I figured if it would handle pet stains, it would be strong enough for anything. At 150.00 dollars for the machine, and another 20.00 dollars for the concentrate, my wallet felt the pinch as I paid for my purchases. But I felt certain that it was going to make my life better. 

Upon getting it home and unloading it – some assembly was required. Looking at the instructions, I did see exactly what I needed to do – although I did have a little trouble getting the screws in to attach things. But it was together before long. I did read the instructions before operating. It said that it would heat the hot water I put in there to 25 degrees hotter. It sounded good. The tank that you remove from the back had an inner bladder and an outer tank. You filled the inside bladder with the water and the soap, using the attached measuring cup (which was nice). As you spray down the water, it sucks the dirty water up into the outer tank, which keeps the two separate. Again, nice so that you are always spraying down clean water.  The directions told me to move all the furniture out of the way, vacuum well, and be sure to allow time to dry. I thought I knew everything I needed to know. 

I moved the furniture, vacuumed twice, filled the tank with soap and hot water, made sure everything was secure. They say to turn on the water heater first and allow to sit for a minute before turning on the rest of the machine and starting. This done, I began to clean the carpet.  While pushing forward I sprayed, then released the spray button and pulled back. I thought I was doing pretty well. I didn’t think I was spraying over much water.  I went back over the area without spraying a few times. Oddly enough,  I guess my sweeper isn’t as good as I thought because balls of wet cat hair began to form on my carpet, but not being sucked up by the steamer. I have a black cat. So, I now have a ton of black cat hair wet and balled up all over my carpet. But other than that the carpet seemed to be getting cleaner. The smell was definitely improving. I did the hall that had flooded and all the way into the dining room, where the kitchen had flooded.  Half way through, I did have to stop and refill the inner bladder. However, the outer tank did not seem to have that much dirty water in it. Hm, that doesn’t look right. Well, maybe the cat hair, of which there was now a ton of, had sucked up some of the water. I finished the areas I wanted to clean. Now for an inspection. 

The areas were now much cleaner, apart from the wet cat hair which I would sweep up. The smell was most definitely better. But the carpets seemed much wetter than I thought they should be.  They were not soaked like when they had flooded. But they were definitely damper than I thought they would be. Granted – it smelled much better than before. And obviously it had some suction power, since it pulled up all the cat hair that my sweeper missed. So I can’t say it wasn’t doing its job. But the wait for the carpets to dry was much longer than I had imagined, and I can only think that there was probably a lot more dirty water left behind than sucked up. I did wait for it to dry, and yes, the cat hair was very easy to vacuum up when it was dry. So, all in all, I was happy with the job it did. The real test is yet to come however. We are moving out of this apartment in a little over a week. When we get everything emptied out of the apartment, I am going to scrub the whole place. This will be a big test for how well it works. But for now – I am happy with it. Not over the moon, but satisfied that it did get my carpets cleaner. 

Final thoughts – This steamer was a little difficult to assemble, though the directions are very clear. Once assembled, it is easy to operate, although I only did a small portion of my apartment. It is a bit heavy but not hard to maneuver really.  I felt it used a lot of water compared to how much it sucked up and left my carpets wetter than I would have liked, even after repeated passes to suck up the water. But it did do a good job of cleaning the carpet and pulling up all the cat hair that has been left behind by my vacuum. So, all in all , I am fairly satisfied with the job it did.

 

 

 

I am a fairly easy customer to please when it comes to banking. I’m not one who has multiple accounts, complex finances, or even high expectations of my bank. I cash my paychecks there, I have a small savings account, I like friendly and fast service. I expect them to not charge me outrageous fees when I do make the occasional mistake. My husband and I are not big money makers, often living from paycheck to paycheck and cutting corners. But for the most part, we get by. I have used many banks in my lifetime, finding most of them the same. When I moved to Virginia, I opened an account with Wachovia bank. I didn’t do a lot of shopping around, choosing it instead because of location. But I was happy with the bank. Over the years, the same tellers remained, watching my son grow up as I banked at least once a week. Friendly, helpful tellers who knew me by name made me feel satisfied with my banking. 

One of the perks of using Wachovia was that my employer banked with them as well – which allowed me the ability to not have to deposit my paycheck. I was able to go in and immediately cash the check without having matching funds in my account, or having to wait for the check to clear. They also allowed me to deposit the check as cash instead of having to wait days for it to clear.  A very big bonus for a family who needed that money on Friday. So, as far as banks go – Wachovia was a pretty good bank. Now, why am I talking about Wachovia on a review about Wells Fargo? Because Wells Fargo was nice enough to buy out Wachovia and convert all of the Wachovia banks over to Wells Fargo. When I told my mother in law about the switch, her warning was to switch to another bank as soon as possible because Wells Fargo is not a good bank. But being a creature of habit, I didn’t want to move banks. I was happy where I was – and I’m stubborn. It didn’t take long for the problems to start. The first week in fact. I went in to cash my paycheck as always. My employer was still at the bank. I asked to cash it and the cashier who had been doing that for years looked a bit sheepish. She explained that the new rules required me to either deposit as a check and wait for it to clear, or cash the check and then go outside and deposit the cash into the ATM machine in order for it to be credited immediately? I asked if I could cash it – get back in line and then deposit cash. She kind of shrugged not sure how to answer that. Being a Friday, and payday for more than half the town, the line was long and it seemed ridiculous to me. But, cashing the check, I then exited the building, drove around and deposited the cash into the ATM. Sigh, this was stupid. 

The next problem came when I realized the order of actions they took on my account. Being a broke person, often times I would post for payments to hit on Friday, the same day I would deposit money before 2pm. It has never been an issue before. However, this was now to change also. After several refused payments, and large 35.00 dollar fees, we were to learn that Wells Fargo will process debits and payments before they process deposits. So that if there are not enough funds in our account to cover things in the morning, we will get hit by these fees, even if we make a deposit to cover them in the same day. At first, it was a little difficult to figure out what was happening, since my old, user friendly website was gone and a new, streamlined website was up – where I couldn’t figure out anything, see my ongoing balance, or even locate any of my transactions. But eventually I started to get the hang of their online system. The first time or two, they were generous enough to take off the fees, but they then explained that they couldn’t continue to do this. This complicated things when making payment arrangements in advance for bills. I could not schedule payments to be taken out on Fridays anymore, because they would be taken out of my account in the morning before I made my deposit – ensuring that Wells Fargo got their large fees. But, the tellers were still nice, right? 

After a few months, I noticed a change in our tellers. What use to be a friendly, relaxed environment became tense and business like. No more friendly banter, no more big smiles, no  more teasing about swiping an extra lollipop for Daddy. They seemed to be as unhappy with the changes as I was. Then some of them disappeared and new faces came in. Unsmiling, but ever so polite, tellers who didn’t understand that I had been banking there for years and did the same thing every week. Instead it became all about the rules, and how Wells Fargo did business. A business style I did not like. I was starting to waver on my stubbornness of not wanting to change banks. 

The final blow came when Wells Fargo ate my money. I had almost gotten use to the process of entering the bank, cashing my paycheck, going out to my car, driving around the building, and depositing my cash into the ATM machine. Then, they got a new machine. I thought it was a cool upgrade. You no longer needed deposit slips, you no longer needed envelopes, you simply put in your card, entered your pin, and then slid the cash or checks in. The machine counted your money, verified the amount and you were done. Wow, pretty cool. Until the ATM got hungry one day. After cashing my check and driving around, I put my card in, punched in my pin, hit deposit and fed all the money we had to our name into that hungry machine. It whirled, clicked, and clunked. Then it sounded almost like it wanted to throw up – if machines can throw up. A screen popped up stating that there had been an error and that my account had been credited with one penny until the error could be fixed. That could take up to 72 hours or 3 business days. 3 day? 3 whole days? When I had no food in the house, and two hungry kids in the car wondering why Mommy was looking ill. So, back around the building we drove, in we went, and I waited to speak to a manager. When I explained that the machine ate my money, she nodded and smiled and informed me that they had been having trouble with it. Then she stood there. What do you mean? You knew about this and didn’t warn people? Okay – no problem. Just give me my money back. Oh, they don’t have authority to do that. I would have to wait. Wait? It took ALLLL my money! All of it – not just some – all. MY money – not the bank’s money. I want my money back. You are a bank. You have money. Go into the machine and pull it back out. Or go into a drawer and give it back. Or go into your own wallet and give it back. You can’t just take all my money and say oh well. But yes, it turns out they can. So, I point to their complimentary phone where customers could reach customer support directly and tell her that she needs to get someone on that phone that can get me my money back. So sorry, can’t do that. So I march over, get on the nice, free phone and can’t reach anyone who can get me my money back. No luck – we just have to wait. And starve. I inform the manager that as soon as I do get my money back, I will be closing all my 2 accounts with them and moving to another bank. Without blinking an eye, she shrugged and said have a nice day. 

While I realize that my account was not a large one, and I was not some millionaire that would hurt them when I pulled out my few dollars, the fact that I was a very unhappy customer should have at least made a ripple. But it didn’t. Not once did any of them say they were sorry to see me go. And they should have been, with all the free money they got from me in fees. Needless to say – we have moved banks and I have made sure to tell everyone to be wary of banking with Wells Fargo where they have hungry ATM’s and robots for tellers. 

Final Thoughts – I honestly can’t think of one good thing to say about Wells Fargo and my experience with them. Their customer service was horrible, their banking practices were predatory, their fees were higher than other banks, the online account system was confusing, and they were always out of lollipops.