The Ultimate Test: Which Portable Carpet Cleaner Really Conquers Chicago’s Toughest Stains?

Living in Chicago, between work, family, and trying to enjoy the city, finding time for a thorough clean can feel impossible. Spills and pet messes happen to the best of us, turning a relaxing night in into a frantic scrubbing session. While a good portable cleaner can be a lifesaver for accidents, sometimes you just need a fresh start for your whole space.

We put the top three portable carpet cleaners to the test against the most common (and stubborn!) household stains. Whether you’re dealing with a spilled merlot during a dinner party or a muddy paw print from your pup, having the right tool can save your carpets and your sanity. For those really set-in grime situations, remember that a professional home cleaning can provide that deep refresh your floors need.

Meet the Contenders

In the ring today are three popular models: the Bissell Little Green Max Pet, the Hoover Clean Slate, and the new Shark Stain Striker. These machines are perfect for targeted jobs—upholstery, spot cleaning, and pet accidents—but aren’t meant for whole rooms. A pro tip? If you’re a pet owner, investing in one before your new furry friend comes home is a smart move!

The Stain Challenge: Coffee, Red Wine, & Tomato Sauce

We created a real-world challenge with three notoriously tough stains. The golden rule for any stain, whether you tackle it yourself or later call for deep cleaning help, is to treat it immediately. The faster you act, the better your chance of a full recovery.

Round-by-Round Results

1. The Bissell Little Green Max Pet

This compact cleaner is a fan favorite. It features a handy trigger to spray cleaner directly on the stain for pre-treatment. For coffee and tomato sauce, it performed admirably. However, after a timed three-minute session, the red wine stain proved more stubborn. With more time or a specialized pre-treatment, it likely would have succeeded.

2. The Hoover Clean Slate

The Hoover’s larger cleaning head covers more surface area, which felt a bit cumbersome for precise spot cleaning. Its cleaner seemed potent, lifting the red wine slightly better than the Bissell in our time limit. The main drawback was the sprayer being set back from the brush, making the process less intuitive.

3. The Shark Stain Striker

The Shark was the clear winner in our stain-lifting showdown. It completely conquered the red wine stain in under two minutes! It also comes with multiple attachments, adding great versatility. When daily life gets too busy for even spot cleaning, a reliable cleaning service near me like Jikas can handle the messes so you don’t have to.

The Game-Changing Feature: Self-Cleaning Cycles

Here’s where the Shark truly shined. The number one complaint about portable cleaners is that they get smelly. The Shark’s self-cleaning function rinses the internal hose automatically, preventing gunk buildup and odors. This brilliant feature alone might be worth the investment for frequent users.

For the Hoover and Bissell, manual cleaning is required. It’s crucial to rinse all parts thoroughly and let them air-dry completely to keep your machine in top shape—just like you would with a regular vacuum. If maintaining cleaning equipment isn’t your thing, you can always book an appointment with pros who come fully equipped.

Final Verdict & Our Top Pick

All three cleaners are highly rated, so you can’t go completely wrong. However, for Chicagoans, especially pet owners, our top pick is the Shark Stain Striker.

• For Pet Owners: Spring for the Shark. Its power, attachments for pet messes, and self-cleaning function make it a standout.
• Great Value: The Bissell is a fantastic and more affordable option that handles most stains very well.
• Consideration: The Hoover’s larger head was less maneuverable for small spots, and it tended to mush stains slightly.

Remember, these tools are for spots and accidents. When it’s time for a comprehensive refresh, a Chicago cleaning company like Jikas offers the thorough, top-to-bottom clean that busy lifestyles demand.

When to Call in the Professionals

Portable cleaners are amazing for quick reactions, but some jobs are just too big. If you’re facing:

• Set-in stains from months (or years) ago
• Large areas that need attention
• A desire for a completely fresh, sanitized carpet
• Simply no time to deal with it yourself

…then it’s time to schedule a cleaning with experts. Sometimes, the best tool is a team of professionals ready to clean your apartment from top to bottom. As a leading provider of cleaning services in Chicago, we’re here to be that someone to clean my apartment thoroughly and reliably.

Today I’m going to test out some of the top selling portable carpet cleaning machines. These do like upholstery. They do spots on your carpet. They don’t do the whole entire room, but it’s really good if you have a pet to invest in one of these before you even get the pet because it’s just bound to happen. So, let’s test them against each other. I have a little bit of experience with this Bissell. I’ve also used the Hoover. I haven’t used this new Shark. All of these come with their own solution, which is like a nice thing. Okay, so the Shark one actually came with a bunch of attachments. We’ve got like three little heads. We’ve got some cleaner. Uh I haven’t used it yet. Oh, look at that. Here’s the attachments that the Hoover came with. Plus, we have the cleaning solution. And then here is what we have for the Bissell. We just have the cleaning solution. I feel like that is it. That was all in the box. I’m going to make some stains. I’m going to do coffee, red wine, and tomato sauce. Those are like really hard stains to lift and they’re one of the most common ones that happen on carpet. So, let’s do it. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> For the tomato sauce, I’m just going to blot up any of the excess cuz I don’t want any of these chunks going into the machine. It’s just not good for it. But also with every stain, you guys, if you see a stain, treat it immediately as soon as you can because that’s just going to make it way easier for you to lift it. Starting with the Bissell Little Green Max Pet. Okay, so turn it on. Right here, we have a little trigger and that is going to release the cleaner. So sometimes I just like to spray the stain first you guys just to saturate it to help pre-treat it so it’s not look how good that already has clean in it stain slider or whatever is so I know it’s going to work really For the red wine stain with the Bissell, it’s not fully lifted. I went for 3 minutes. I’m going to use 3 minutes on all the stains, okay? And see what happens. Like, I’m going to run max 3 minutes. If it lifts it faster, like that’s who’s going to get the winning medal. This is the Hoover Clean Slate. Is there a smaller attachment for this? Okay. So, I feel like this is a little bit lifted a little bit better than this one did. Maybe the cleaner’s a little bit stronger, but that was like a bigger surface area. So, it was a little bit like cumbersome how big that thing was. And I wish that the sprayer was closer to the brush. I I feel like if I could have kept if I would have kept going, the stain would have fully came out. But, I’m doing a time limit just to make it fair. So, I do think that eventually it would get this out. I think a stronger cleaner cuz red wine is a really hard stain to lift up, too, guys. Now, I’m going to try the Shark Stain striker. Woohoo. Come see me. based on the red wine stains. The shark has won by a mile. It’s was pretty good. Like lifted the whole entire stain by 2 minutes, but I kept going just to be fair. Now, let’s do the other ones. Hey, hey, hey. running the self cleaning cycle from the Shark Stain Striker. So, I just clip this little thing on here, turn it on, and push. And it’s going to suck through the hose. So, see how it’s doing that? And going, you leave the dirty water tank cuz it’s rinsing out the hose. So, it’s going to stop it from getting gross and stinky. Oh my god, this is so freaking smart. This is like the main complaint people have is they just smell and the hose gets dirty and they can’t clean it. That’s like worth the extra 50 bucks. Now to rinse it all the way through, I just pulled this up high enough sucking everything with suction. I can feel it. It’s like a wind tunnel. It probably if I keep pulling it like this, it’ll probably dry it. Okay, so that’s the inside of it’s just a suction, not a dome. Okay, we got a stream to clean out. Make sure you clean them really, really well so that and let them air dry overnight before you put them back together. It’s the same as cleaning out a vacuum. You don’t want this water to sit cuz it’s going to wreck your machine and make it really stinky if you don’t do it. This is the Hoover. This is the hose rinse tool. So, it’s just kind of like a little tiny plug. And then what I’m going to do here is run it cuz it’s just going to And then he’s going back into the dirty water. I like when the nozzles have this extra like piece that comes off so that we can rinse it cuz this gets a lot of pet hair and everything stuck in it. Then you can just hose this out underneath the sink. Okay, so one thing that I like about this one is the old one doesn’t have the Pro Heat doesn’t have this. You can remove this little tiny thing and then clean it out cuz it always gets stuck with like gunk and pet hair. Here’s my results. I like the Shark the best, you guys. Honestly, if you have a dog or a cat and you want to do it has those extra functions for like the pee and the poop suckup, but it also picked up absolutely everything. It did so good. It has the selfcleans function. It’s a little bit higher on the price point, but the Bissell is really, really comparable, too. Like, it picked up almost everything. The only thing I think it kind of left behind is the red wine. I feel like I could have still got it off if I would have treated it with like a stronger stain pre-treat. Um, and then the bottom one is the Hoover. But again, these are all like these are the top three rated ones. So, I don’t think you’re going to go wrong with any of them. But I do feel like the Hoover because the like attachment was so big, it kind of mushed stuff into the carpet and spread the stain around a little I thought it was just like cumbersome to use compared to the two other ones that had a smaller handle. I understand the concept of making it bigger so you can cover more surface area, but it’s actually easier if it’s smaller, especially if we’re dealing with like a like an upholstery spot carpet cleaner. We’re not doing the whole entire carpet with this. We’re really working on just doing like spots pet messes. If you have a pet, spring for the shark. The Bissell will do it for you, too, you guys. But that shark is really cool. I’m really excited to try that. Take that shark to like someone else’s house and test it on like a pet house with the pet hair. But be and also just some pet carpet pet stains in the carpet because those are really really hard to lift like and if you guys have any stains that you haven’t been able to lift, let me know what they are in the comments and I’ll try to give you some tips. Thanks for watching.