Steam me up Scotty

I am a bad blogger. I know in my last post that I promised there wouldn't be a huge lapse in time between posts. I lied a little but not on purpose. So here we go.

Steam cleaning devices seem to be taking over the household appliance industry by storm. How well do they really work? I inherited a Monster steam cleaner. It very closely resembled the Shark cleaner.  I thought I would try to create a video blog of me using the Monster to clean, but it required both hands, and I am a solo act without a tripod.

I looked over the attachments to my Monster-a few brushes, a nozzle, an upholstery steamer and a window cleaner. Oh, and it requires some kind of antibacterial solution that you can only order from Monster. If you buy the product online, they'll include the sanitizing solution for free whenever you need it. I was lucky enough to have inherited quite a collection of the sanitizer.

I decided to clean my bathroom using the upholstery steamer because it most looked like the attachment used in the infomercial on the Website. Water dripped out the bottom and everything was covered in a layer of saturation. I used a towel to go over everything making the instant dry and sanitized look you see on television not happen at home. So if you use one of the steamer mops, you may want to watch your step as to not slide across the kitchen floor on your fannie.


The steam did get my bathroom sink and counter top clean. It even seemed to work on the toilet, but again it left everything sopping wet.


The upholstery steamer would work great to steam the wrinkles out of clothes but again, the water dripping issue would just make a wet mess.

I tried to use the steamer to clean the brake dust grime off my wheels that the car wash missed. The steam didn't do anything to cut through the dirt. The cloth I pulled out to wipe the wheels off worked 10 times better than the steam power.

The Monster is small and lightweight yet bulky. It almost requires using both hands, and you can only go as far as the cord lets you. By the time you fill the steamer with both water and the sanitizing solution and wait for it to warm up, you would have been better off just grabbing your regular cleaning tools and chemicals. Just a thought-if steam powered cleaners disinfect then why do I have to add a sanitizing, antibacterial solution to the steamer? That just doesn't make sense to me.

I would say the Monster steamer is probably just a waste of money and time. If you're into not using any type of cleaning chemicals, avoiding the clean smell and wanting to spend three, wait two easy payments of $33.33, then maybe this could be for you, however, I think I'll just stick to my sponge and scrubbing bubbles.