My husband and I have an apartment with all hardwood floors, and I've been doing a ton of research on Consumer Reports, Amazon, Target (which has surprisingly extensive reviews on several of their vacuum products), Bed Bath & Beyond, and more, and it seems like there just aren't any good steam mops out there. Even the Eureka EnviroSteamer, which seems to come out on top in just about all the reviews I've checked, still has a huge number of people saying that theirs died after 10 washes, a few months, less than a year, etc. We would love a steam mop because it seems to keep the floors cleaner longer than simply vacuuming, but we don't want to waste $60-100 on something that won't even last until our first anniversary.
We have a Swiffer with the dry pads that we use for a quick sweep-up when we don't want to break out the vacuum, but we don't want to use the wet Swiffer pads because of the chemicals (we have three cats, two of them less than a year old).
Does anyone know of a steam mop that is reliable and reasonably priced?
Re: Steam mop that isn't a dud??
We have the Bissell Steam mop and LOVE it. I have had it for over a year. My mom also has one and has had it for 2+ years with no issues. She uses it all the time too, since all of her downstairs (2,000+ sq. ft.) is tile.
The key is to get their older one, not the newest one they offer. We bought the newest one when it came out a year or so back because it had a larger mop head and a longer cord, but it did NOT clean nearly as well as the original. Here is the one you need to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Bissell-Steam-Hard-Floor-Cleaner-1867-7/dp/B000RPVHZU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319146301&sr=8-1
If some of the complaints about it failing bother you, just buy the extended warranty. I don't think it's much extra and it'll give you piece of mind. There are over 800 reviews for this one and it has 4/5 stars, which I think is pretty good.