We moved into our new home, a first floor two-bedroom maisonette, exactly one week before our baby arrived. This hadn’t been the plan. House-hunting had proved difficult and stressful, never mind expensive, and by the time we’d found our place, we were both happy that we’d have over a month to get it into shape before baby came along. Scuppering our plans by putting in an appearance five weeks early, our baby obviously became the centre of attention, with our new home becoming somewhat neglected on the housekeeping front.

The new baby and the new home had left us out of pocket, and we were grateful to accept the small, blue Hitachi (unknown model) vacuum cleaner, “kindly” donated by a relative who’d purchased something better. I’d imagine anything would have been an improvement on this pathetically feeble, smelly little machine, which seemed to simply move dust around the house and emit an odour of very old socks. It also claimed not to need a dust bag, which seemed strange, as emptying it proved to be a very dirty business, and I’m sure it would have benefited from one, although it was so stupidly small that I couldn’t imagine there’d be a lot of room for one inside. Oh, and the baby was terrified of it, even though I’d stuck on a pair eyes and a smiley mouth to make it appear friendlier. Baby’s vacuum cleaner terror limited the number of times when vacuuming could be done to the times when baby was asleep. As any new parent will tell you, once baby is asleep, you also fall into bed, exhausted, and vacuuming is probably the last thing on your mind.

So there’s the background: new baby, exhausted parents, rubbishy vacuum cleaner. The carpet suffered. Baby sick, mum’s hair falling out, various drinks kicked over by a staggeringly tired and clumsy mum, baby’s bright yellow vitamin drops and brown gloopy iron supplement inadvertently squirted and dri

pped from the fiddly syringes, followed by stains from slushy baby food and biscuit crumbs. All of this contributed to the increasingly grubby appearance of a dull looking blue-grey synthetic carpet in the front room. Add to this the stains from a portable weeing air conditioner, and the fact that the carpet had an unusual, musty smell from the time we moved in, plus our sad excuse for a vacuum cleaner, not to mention a baby with a fear of it, and you have one very dirty carpet. It was a sorry state of affairs. I’d resorted to using a dustpan and brush, supplemented by a damp cloth for the more worrying and stubborn aspects.

Baby reached toddlerhood, and lost his fear of the vacuum cleaner, but after over a year and a half, I’d lost my patience with the loathsome little machine, and using it just seemed a pointless, smelly exercise. We now had some money to spend and so we searched the internet and discovered dooyoo.co.uk. Many people offered their opinions on a large number of makes and models of vacuum cleaner, and we eventually plumped for a Henry, based on people’s recommendations. Our budget had allowed for more, and as we were so appalled by the state of our carpet, we decided to purchase a carpet shampooer in addition to Henry. There were no opinions of the one we finally selected, the Hoover Jet ‘n’ Wash, but it was in our price range at £129, the brand name was something we could trust, the ‘jet’ bit sounded promisingly powerful, and at 1500 watts, we reckoned it would have some impact on our disgusting carpet.

Setting up the machine was easy, and it comes with a bottle of cleaning solution, so I was ready to go within an hour of it arriving in our home. The hoses and exentions are very sturdily constructed, and they fit together very well with many a satisfying click. The unit itself is bottom-heavily bell-shaped, which makes it rather more stable than some other carpet shampooers
I ha
ve used in the past. Wanting him out of the way during the process, baby was taken on a shopping trip whilst I set about getting the carpet clean.

First of all, Henry vacuumed the front room, as recommended in the instructions. Then using around 8 litres of water plus the recommended amount of cleaning solution, I excitedly got to work. The stains left by our weeing air conditioner lifted out easily and the carpet was only slightly damp to the touch, as the Hoover Jet ‘n’ Wash jet-sprays the solution onto the carpet and sucks it out almost simultaneously. I’d accidentally spilt half a bottle of the baby's vitamin drops the week previously, and due to the deepness of this stain, I employed the jet-spray only option of the Hoover, leaving the solution to soak in and work on the stain for a few minutes before I went over it again on spray and suck mode, lifting out the stain almost completely. It took another going over later on for it to vanish entirely. I was very impressed. The carpet looked fresher, and was almost entirely stain-free, and the musty smell had gone. When I came to empty the dirty water from the recovery tank, I was hoping to see dark brown muddy sludge, and that’s exactly what I saw. It was a satisfying sign that the Hoover had done its business properly. Having the benefit of a floor to ceiling balcony window open resulted in the carpet being dry enough to walk on by the time baby came back from his excursion an hour and a half later.

Now this is only one third of the story, as the Hoover Jet ‘n’ Wash is actually a 3-in-1, so it can be used for wet pick up and also as a standard vacuum cleaner. I haven’t tried it in these modes, as I had intended only to use it as a carpet shampooer with the main vacuuming to be done by Henry. However, I’m sure the wet pick-up will also come in handy on our newly-lino’d bathroom floor. Judging by the way the Hoover
performs
in shampooing mode, I can see that the suction is very powerful, so I assume it would work very well as a standard vacuum cleaner. It may seem a little extravagant to have two machines, but we felt we needed a dedicated shampooer, and after struggling with the pathetic Hitachi, we also really wanted to get a Henry, especially when we’d read all the rave reviews, I mean, who could resist? And both machines at such a reasonable price, it seemed very cost effective.

Having used the Hoover only once since its purchase, I am not able to comment on its reliability, but I am very pleased with the results, especially considering the state the carpet was in. I’m sure it will get is fair share of usage as soon as baby has contributed some new stains, now that potty training is just around the corner!

Update: I have used this machine a couple more times, and it continues to provide excellent results, although now the weather is colder, it takes longer for carpets to be dry enough to walk on.