As many of you know, I'm a no-nonsense, keep-it-simple kind of gal. I prefer to stick to the basics in most areas and am definitely not a big fan of keeping up with having all the supposedly "latest and greatest" things on the market.
However, when BISSELL contacted me regarding doing a review of their brand-new Versus Bare Floor Vacuum I decided to try it since we'd just moved and I was struggling to figure out how to clean my new Pergo "wood" floors in our rental home. Since nothing I was doing seemed to be working well, I figured that trying this out wouldn't hurt anything. And, I'll admit, the thought of foregoing a broom and dustpan in favor of a new-fangled vacuum cleaner was quite intriguing to me.
Over the last few months, I've enjoyed trying out this modern homemaking contraption. And surprisingly, I've come to like it quite a lot. I'm still not convinced that I can entirely do away with a broom and dustpan, but the Versus Floor Vacuum is quite handy.
PROS
::The Versus Bare Floor Vacuum is very lightweight and easy to maneuver around. Since this vacuum is small, it's simple to pull out and quickly run over our floor surfaces. I've found that it has cut my sweeping time by about 30% as a result.
::The Versus Bare Floor Vacuum picks up the dirt as you go. This is a huge plus for a mom like me with little children. When using a broom and dustpan, I've
found that I'll often be in the middle of sweeping and be interrupted
by a child needing immediate attention. More often than not, my dirt
pile will get messed up in the process and I'll have to redo what I
just did. The Versus Floor Vacuum eliminates this problem.
::The Versus Bare Floor Vacuum does exceptionally well at cleaning up big floor messes. If you have young toddlers in your home, you are probably well acquainted with the frequent spills of Cheerios or other such small items on your floor surfaces. I've found that this is one of the greatest advantages of this vacuum–large messes can be quickly eliminated in minutes! And I certainly love that!
CONS
::The Versus Bare Floor Vacuum doesn't seem to clean edges and corners quite as well as a broom would. While this vacuum was specifically designed to easily-access hard-to-reach areas, I found that those areas were still harder to reach and clean with this vacuum than a broom would be.
::The Versus Bare Floor Vacuum costs quite a bit more than a broom and dust pan. As you'd expect, a vacuum of this sort is a bit on the pricey side; it's average retail price is $79.99. I'm not sure that I'd encourage you all to run out and buy one of these if you're happily content with a broom and dustpan.
To read more information about the Versus Floor Vacuum, you can check out the website here. And if you've tried this vacuum yourself, I'd love to hear what you thought.
I just bought one of these a few weeks ago. I agree you can’t replace a regular vacuum with it or a broom, but it did do well. I was just disappointed in how short the cord was, I couldn’t even make it the whole way across my living room.
I am on HGTV.com and this is one of the gifts the 2009 HGTV home winner gets in the prize package.Loved the review of it as when I win the home package, I’ll remember what you said about this vacuum. SMILES!!
I think the BEST gadget out there for kitchen and dining room floors is the Swivel Sweeper. It swivels 360 degrees to get exactly where you want, and it gets right up close to the wall, just as well as I could with a broom. It picks up the dirt. The only con compared to a vacuum is that is has a small dirt tray that needs to be emptied more often. My kids love to use it, I love to use it. It has a rechargeable battery, which you slide out of the sweeper and put into a charger, so you don’t have to mess with a cord. And the cost is better than a vacuum. It’s $40 at Bed, Bath and Beyond. (And you can use your 20% off coupon on it!) It even works on carpet for touch-up between vacuuming.
We have pergo floors throughout our 1000 sqft home and I use a Swiffer Sweeper Vac – it’s a DREAM!! It charges up and then is cordless to use around the house. Its light weight, has good power and very easy to get into the hard to reach places. It takes less than 5 mins to clean our whole house (all floors, under beds, even the bathroom tile). The vac sucks everything right up there is a Swiffer cloth attached to the bottom of the vac so the cloth picks up any micro dust.
I have had mine for over a year and still runs great, only about $30 at Wal-Mart plus $2 for filter (lasts for a few months if cleaned out now and then) and the Swiffer sheets are around 16cents each (I use ours more than once). If you are still looking for something easy, cordless and quick to use you should try the Swiffer vac. It’ll make cleaning your floors quick and painless!
Just a note on the Pergo floors. We have had one for well over 12 years and it still looks brand new except for a few nicks where something was dropped on it. I was told by the installer to only use ammonia in water to clean it. Or spray windex on it and wipe it up. Never to use soap. This was put in when Pergo was relatively new. I think the newer Pergo floors you can use soap on.
Hope this helps
Cheryl
just out of curiosity how to you get contacted to do this type of survey of a product? do you get reimbursed in any way to do this trial for bissel (or other companies)? thanks 😉
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Money Saving Mom here: I somehow got on a number of marketing and PR lists and get contacted rather frequently to do reviews, etc. I rarely accept them unless it’s something I’m really interested in. There is no reimbursement for reviews, but you do get to keep the products–which is a nice perk if it’s something you’re interested in. Hope that helps!
I actually bought this for myself not that long ago because I’m buying a house with all hard floors and it was time for a new vacuum anyway. I’m not in my new house yet so I haven’t had a great chance to test it out, but I tested it out on my tiny apartment kitchen floor and it did pretty well. Good to read your comments on it so I know what’s in store for me. I was thinking I’d need to use the hose and attachment to get the corners and other hard to reach places. I was also planning on saving my attachments from my old vacuum (which I think will work) to add a little more versatility to it.
Every time I sweep a pile of dirt one of the little ones runs thought it, without doubt! I bought something similar to this last month and it is helpful for little spills and quick pick up, but I couldn’t replace my regular vacuum with it, not way. Thanks for the review!
Is it plug in or rechargeable? I find rechargeable stuff (ie no cords) is what I turn to more and more as my kiddo grows up.
We got an Electrolux Ergorapido which has a detachable ‘dustbuster’ on it. I LOVE it. Not only can you suck up the dust and crumbs really fast in vacuum-like fashion, but if you have a pile of bigger things like cherrios or whatnot either on the floor or elsewhere, you can quickly snap out the dustbuster and the mess is gone! I agree with your ‘cons’. It isn’t the end all to cleaning, but it really makes my life easier with a preschooler and toddler.
I am curious – how do you think it compares to a regular vacuum with a bare floor attachment? That’s what I use (not very often, ahem) and I’m not sure what this vacuum does that is different. Thank you for the information!