NOW CLOSED Kärcher steam cleaner feedback thread: Non testers – win a steam cleaner (RRP: £219.99) for yourself by letting Kärcher know your home’s ‘dirty secrets’

[AlexMumsnet]

This is the thread for the lucky 30 testers who were sent a steam cleaner by Kärcher and our currently using it to do the spring clean.

Kärcher say their Steam Cleaners "revolutionise home cleaning, tackling any and all frequent and difficult cleaning tasks with professional results and abolishing the need for hours of endless scrubbing! Our steam cleaner is a natural and environmentally-friendly solution that provides a family-focussed alternative from chemical cleaners that aggravate allergies and are harmful to children, killing 99.99% of all common household bacteria without the need for detergents"*

Testers are trying the SC 2.500 C

Testers: we'll be asking you to add feedback twice - we'd like your first impressions now and in a week we will add some more questions.

So, for your first impressions, Kärcher would love to know:

~ Did you find setting up the Steam Cleaner easy, were the instructions helpful?
~ Where have you used the Steam Cleaner?
~ What were your impressions from the first few uses?
~ What cleaning chore have you been most pleased with the results from using a Steam Cleaner?

If you're not an official tester but you'd like another chance to get a steam cleaner (RRP: £219.99) for yourself then please share on this thread where in your house could really benefit from a bit of a deep-steam-clean. What's your home's 'dirty secret' ? the place where you've let the grime build up and now can't bear to look at? Where would you most want to use the steam cleaner?

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

*When thoroughly cleaning with the Kärcher Steam Cleaner 99.99% of all common household bacteria will be killed on common household hard floor surfaces.

Non tester here, but boy oh boy would I love to win one of these, with twelve week old twins and an 18 month old toddler I want anything that can make my life easier. We also try and be as environmentally friendly as possible, no mean feat some days.

My first job if I were to win one would he the shower room, we live in rented accommodation and never managed to get all of the black marks and lime scale off the shower when we moved in, the floor has weird Lino on it that just never gets clean no matter what we do, and there is a crack in the sink that needs cleaning before it can be filled. Then after I've tackled the shower room I'd do the bathroom and the kitchen closely followed by the floor everywhere as the laminate needs a clean I just keep managing to not get around to.

I would love one of these - mainly for the lime scale / streaks in the shower, but also for the hall floor - it looks fab when mopped but quickly dulls again and I would love to get it really sparkling clean. I reckon a new gadget would persuade me to do it more than once or twice a week too!

We have a hideous hard water problem in my area. That, plus a dodgy leaky old shower has resulted in actual stalactites forming under my shower control panel. I think I may just grow them until my children do Geography GCSE & they can take them in for show & tell.

I am ashamed, but at least it will help them educationally in the long run!

I'd love one of these cleaners for my bathroom. It was redone - in gleaming white tile - before I moved in and while I try and try to keep it clean, I feel like I'm losing the battle. The grouting seems to be going especially grey which is not a good look when the first thing you see as you walk through the door is a wall full of tile - I have nowhere to hide!

I've scrubbed it and bleached it and made myself cough from the awful chemicals but it's still grey.

Even worse, my Mum suggested that I coat the tiles in Turtle wax to try to keep them clean and it stained all the grout green!!

So then it was back to the scrubbing and the bleaching and the coughing

Dirty little secret: 2 places, firstly the skirtings particularly near the children's beds where juice gets spilled. Then, the kickboards and behind the kickboards in the kitchen - amazing how many times they have to come off for plumbers etc.

Not a tester. The kitchen floor tiles behind my fridge freezer are My dirty secret and desperate for a deep clean. It's been 3 years since I last pulled the fridge out to clean behind. That was only out of shame as I was having the painter come & decorate! I found enough stale food for a three course dinner so goodness knows what's there now two messy kids later.

Dirty secret: I've just spotted the gap underneath the dishwasher door. Oh my days.

I'm sitting here wondering if one of these would get rid of all the yellow staining around the toilet floor/behind the pipes ... it just wont clean, after 2 small boys!

Non Tester.

Dirty secret? Are you serious? Where do I begin... Dare I say it? - it's the whole house?
I mean EVERYTHING is under scrutiny right now as we are MOVING. The house is up for sale so all the dirty secrets are out in the open - shameful!

Secret places that need a clean -behind the washing machine, and under the oven.

Well, not a tester, but have plenty of dirty spots in my home . Now I've started looking, I'm thoroughly ashamed, and must run out and buy a Karcher steam cleaner forthwith! Unless those kind, lovely folks from Karcher would like to send me one anyway . I think i would have to start with under/alongside the fridge, then behind bathroom pipes, then crannies in skirting...need I go on?

The sofa in our playroom is utterly grim, the kids sometimes have picnic lunches in there when I'm feeling lazy tired and the amount of yoghurt and squished sandwiches I've wiped off there have left their mark. I've been eyeing up a Karcher steam cleaner for a while to attempt getting some of the grime off because I'm far to ashamed to get a professional cleaner in to do it as it'll be so useful in those other places I ignore miss, like behind the toilet, under the kitchen table and around where the cats eat.

I'm a non tester & have a few dirty secrets!!!

Behind the bathroom door is hideous! Enormous dust bunnies lurking and I just pretend I can't see them!

The skirting boards in the hallway are also filthy - I know it would take 5 minutes to clean them but I just can't face it!!

Sorry, forgot to add I'm a non tester too.

I am a non tester but I have a few dirty secrets.

My curtains are in desperate need of a clean and my kitchen floor never seems to be clean!

Non-tester here.

My dirty secret is that I've moved into a house that might have been previously occupied by someone that Kim and Aggie would have had trouble wrestling towards cleanliness.

the landlord has obviously had a professional cleaner in but things, horrible things have been missed. When I was lying on the bathroom floor the other day (as one does...) I saw something that looked like splattered gravy on the tiles under the radiator. Shudder.

I am pretending desperately that i have not seen this abomination but a steam cleaner might jolt me out of my denial!

Not a tester

Our garage is connected to the house so is really handy for carrying rubbish through to the bins. Trouble is we also have kids' mud traffic from the back garden to the front, we trail the green recyling waste bins through for collection each week too. It's a holy mess. There's a build up of muck of which I'm truly ashamed. Would dearly love to bottom it all and get it deep cleaned so that I could start from scratch again.

And now my cooker has broken and I have no choice but to clean it by hand before the engineer comes out to look at it. If I had the steam cleaner it would already be sparkling!

My oven, underneath it, in it the hob all round it. ugh

Non tester
Dirty Secret?! My children's car seats and underneath or infact my entire car! I have dogs, horses and children oh and a husband, need I say more!
Oops just realised my car is not in my house, inside it would be my sofa. On it, around it and under it. I dare not look.
When people come round I chuck a throw over it but the rest of the time the dog and children use it as a bed/trampoline/cafe.
Would love to see if I could steam it back to its former glory as its not that old.

I'm not a tester.
I moved house last year to one with an all tiled bathroom. I find it really hard to get the tiles to stay clean and avoid the build up of pink tinged residue.
I have eczema, and have to avoid most chemical cleaners.
I seem to be on a hiding to nothing, and have yet to find any product that I can use that will shift the grime.
I also have a problem in the kitchen with grease, crumbs and food residue getting trapped under edges of the built in hob.
Again the problem is my allergies to chemical cleaning products.
Even spray residue in the air makes me itch like mad.

I was desperate to be a tester, but was not lucky.
{crosses fingers, legs and eyes for this one...}

the bathroom could do with a big clean; the tiles are grimey and around the bath

I am a non-tester

My house's dirty little secret is the wardrobe in the spare room. It is my Monica cupboard and is very mouldy! I would love to tackle it with a good steam!

Non tester's dirty secret here: we have black tiles in our bathroom. And black grouting. But it was once white . I'd start there!

In all honesty, I have so many household dirty secrets that it's difficult to choose. The oven is one of them but I've recently discovered products you spray around, shut the door for 30mins and wipe (genius!).

So... my number one dirty secret is having pretty dirty bathroom taps. It started so well when we had our bathroom re-done 3 years ago and I vowed to clean them every week. But the yellowy limescale has built up around the base of the taps and no amount of scrubbing will remove it. I did resort to scratching it off with a pin last year but it's back again. The rest of the taps are okay, it's just that stubborn limescale. I've tried bleaching it and all manner of products on it but I'm now resigned to it staying there (or finding a pin again!!)