This came in the mail on Friday and I got to use it Saturday. It was triple packed so no damage was incurred via shipping. ASSEMBLY & USE: This floor cleaner was easy to assemble - almost intuitive. Using it needed directions. I didn't realize that while cleaning I should be pressing down on the dispenser button built into the D-shaped handle. Solution still is released even if you don't push it (it can be tedious to press down constantly) but just not as much. Then there's a boost button to press for extra detergent which was intuitive and self-explanatory. Using it while pressing down on the solution dispenser button does not "drown" your floor. When NOT pressing down on the solution dispenser button when pulling the cleaner back, it expedites your floor drying. VACUUM: A word on the vacuum part, which can be "activated" by switching to the "Dry" mode - keep in mind that this is primarily a wet floor cleaner and not a dry vac. Just like your advised not to order a steak when you go to a seafood restaurant, you shouldn't use this as a vacuum the way you'd use your regular dry vacuum. You're going to wear out the squeegee faster, for a start, but the solids you vacuum up will go into the dirty water tank making it more disgusting to clear out. If you have hairs on the floor from yourself, family members, or pets, that will more likely tangle in the suction parts or the filtered part of the dirty water container and that's sick to clean and weed out. Then when you dump that in your sink, you're dumping solids that don't always dissolve in water, so you're in turn doing your sink a mis-favor. True, one of the reasons to get this is the superior cleaning this does to traditional cleaning methods and the ease, oh, the ease! Nonetheless, you're way ahead if you sweep away solids with a broom and dust pan first, or use your regular dry vacuum instead of this. Cleaning that gunk will have to be done manually one way or another. Better to get at it before using the floor cleaner than not. If you use the floor cleaner to get it, the energy and extra work you thought you saved will get you anyway when cleaning out the suction section, brushes, filter of the dirty water container and from the sink hole. I did sweep very thoroughly before I used this but I didn't vacuum. There was a minimal amount of gunk and hair, but I was grateful it wasn't worse, like if I hadn't swept. Get it? Good :-) CLEANING QUALITY: Most of my house is carpets but my kitchen and hallway (connected) are imitation wood laminate and my bathroom floors are ceramic with brown grout. I did the bathrooms last - the dirty water dispenser wasn't so bad. But the kitchen... Check out the photos some people have shared (black mud water) and that's how my dirty water container looked after the first run. Nevertheless, the floor felt different. My spouse said it even looked lighter in color (blushing cheeks). After the second run, it was a slightly lighter black mud water. With the third run it was mud colored... I tell you, it was starting to get tedious and I was starting to grow suspicious that maybe the solution had a chemical reaction when touching the floor to turn a certain color. My suspicions were wrong and yes, paranoid. There was sediment with every cleaning in the dirty water dispenser. Then I went over the floor a fourth time and the water was a lot closer to looking clean. Really it needed a fifth or sixth time but I was beat (I had to move heavy things out of my hallway and bathrooms, plus I was house cleaning other things in between.) While the floor cleaner didn't get the corners and baseboards, doing so the old fashioned way - by getting down on my hands and knees with solution and a brush was infinitely easier and definitely way more enjoyable since with the floor already cleaned. And that's when I noticed something else: the smell of my floor: fresh. There was a slight solution smell but that is only close up. Before cleaning the floor, I remember dropping something that creeped its way under the stove. The floor smelled like it had a lot of foot traffic - not a foul smell, but like black pepper mixed with floor, if that makes any sense. Side note - I cleaned under the stove and refrigerator too...got rid of so so so so so much dust (first sweeping it, then wiping the floor with a Clorox wipe). Behind the fridge I found a collection of dust around the fridge vents, thank goodness I found it before my motor burnt out or a fire hazard happened. It was time to wrap everything up so I made sure both containers were empty and relatively dry. Then I popped out the brushes and rinsed them and cleared out the squeegee. That was that. EFFECT ON ALLERGIES: Normally I wake up slurpy - thanks to the "benefit" of allergies. This morning was different. Even though my bedroom is wall to wall carpeting, much like the rest of my house sans kitchen, bathroom, and hallway, I didn't think about how the minority clean hard floors would impact my allergies. I woke up still having allergies but no slurpiness - no runny nose and less crusty eyes. Yes, cleaning under the stove and the booming Dustopolis under, on, and behind my fridge I'm sure were a great help, but I also believe having such clean floors for the first time really made a difference! BOTTOM LINE: I love this floor cleaner. If I move, I'd try to find a way to take this with me in my car instead of ship it with the movers. I'd use this magic machine to clean floors in a place I'm moving out of to make the floors as good as new and definitely use it in a new place to clean the floors like they've never been touched, even if it takes more than 4 runs like my floor did (blush).
