**REVIEW** Resolve Easy Clean Pro Carpet Cleaner Gadget

This apartment is tiny and I am tidy but the carpets are terrible. The fibers are cheap and flatten if you look at them. Also, the carpeting shows every speck of dirt. 90 percent of the time, I am the only living being here so I've managed to keep it decent. Mostly. I have had to blot up a few coffee and juice spills. Also, I have knocked over more than one potted plant.

My 3-year move-in anniversary is just around the corner so I guess my carpets aren't that bad. It probably helps that I have a really good vacuum. Still, dirt happens.

I have tried all kinds of foams, sprays, and powders. I misread somewhere once that I could get up more grime by sprinkling a mixture of baking soda and vinegar. Misread. The article was actually about using the concoction to get rid of odors. At any rate, I ended up getting the sticky powder mess all over the outside of my vacuum and clothes. It was a total ache in the hind parts. Never again.

I was almost to the point of pricing carpet machine rentals. Then I ran across this:

And then this:

Look how happy she looks. Happy to be cleaning...

That's the Resolve Easy Clean Pro Carpet Cleaner Gadget, folks. I love that they call it a gadget and didn't give it some fancier b.s type of name.

This is what I want: to use a scrub brush without having to do kill my back and knees. And then I saw the price and was very happy. When I got mine a few days ago, the price was just under $19 for the gadget and a can of the foam. I checked back just now and see that the price has skyrocketed up to - get this - over 40 bucks.

unassembled

Let me tell you all about how I love this thing first, then I will tell you that there is no way I would pay over $25 for it. So all the positives I list are for the price I paid (or up to $25):

The worst part of the carpet is in the immediate entryway and it looked like before cleaning:

You can see how dirty it is leading to the kitchen from the front door

Less dingy and much softer

PROS:

• Fairly easy to assemble (took me 15 minutes only because I had a little trouble getting one part of the handle to connect).
• Comes with a can of cleaning foam.
• The foam had no chemical-ly or overly toxic-like odor. I did have the windows open and ceiling fans going but there were none of those cough-inducing fumes some products have.
• Disperses the foam in even patterns. This made it easy for me to clean the carpet in grid sections.
• With the scrubber, it was even easy to get the edges clean (where the carpet meets the linoleum) and I always had trouble with that area.
• I didn't have to kneel to scrub and crawl around on the damp floor.
• The included foam was decent enough. For my moderately dirty carpet, this worked really well. I don't think it would do a great job on heavier staining.
• The scrubber works really well for brushing the foam into the carpet fibers. I have cheap apartment carpet where the fibers flatten easily. The scrubber helped raise the nap which made the carpet look "revived".
• The dried foam vacuumed up well without leaving a lot of residue and it felt so much softer afterward. 
• The device is easy to rinse clean when finished and the handle can be disassembled for storage if needed. (It doesn't take up much space as is so I am leaving it assembled and stored with the rest of the mops and brooms.)

CONS:

• The handle is slightly flimsy. I had to grip with one hand higher up and the other hand lower down to apply good pressure without worrying about breaking the handle. (I am thinking of wrapping the entire handle with packing or duct tape to strengthen it.)
• One can of the foam isn't enough to treat even a small section of medium-soiled carpet. I am guesstimating that my entryway (more than seen in the photos) is around 6' x 8' and I used over 2.5 cans of foam.
• The foam worked better when I lightly dampened the carpet with a spray bottle first. The water helped the foam penetrate better and helped cut back on the amount of foam I had to use so I highly recommend that.
• The Pet Xpert foam that came with the device didn't seem to work as well as the additional High Traffic foam I bought.  This is fair because the High Traffic is advertised as having "3 times more dirt removal.  (And I noticed that the Pet Xpert that is sold separately is different than what came with the device. All the single cans are marked with "5x" the benefits. The can I got did not have this on the can.)
• I don't have pets or kids so I can't comment on the smell "removal" but I didn't get a hint of any kind of "fresh" smell afterward. But the foam didn't stink either so... 
• In the humid climate I live in, the foam took way more than the suggested 2 hours to dry. To be fair, I did dampen the carpet and I did go over some areas more than once with the foam. In the end, I started cleaning around 3 and finished in a couple of hours. I checked the carpet at around 8 and it was still damp. I left it to finish drying overnight.

You can tell that the cleaner highlights the slight dinginess of the parts I didn't clean. I will deal with that later by going over the rest of the carpet lightly,

Overall, I am really glad that I got this thing - especially at that good price. I hate cleaning my carpet just because of the bending and scrubbing by hand. I get dirty, my clothes get dirty and wet and, ugh! This way was also better because I was able to do more scrubbing with less work. The High Traffic cans of foam did an amazing job.

Because this made carpet cleaning easier, I am thinking of doing the chore on a more regular basis.

The one thing that stops me from recommending this as highly as I could is the more expensive price. I would suggest watching the price (maybe use Honey or another price-watch app) for a drop. If they were selling it at under 19 bucks so recently, they'll probably do that again. By the way, the 4 cans of High Traffic foam cost me around 16 bucks. Since I still have a couple of cans left, I think that's a bargain. Because the carpet is now clean, I will be able to use those additional cans for spot-cleaning.

This will make a great gift for someone older or with a back bad. Just make sure to wrap the handle if you feel it's too flimsy for you. And don't forget to slightly dampen the carpet first!

Peace
--Free

**REVIEW** Cosco 2-Step Steel Folding Step Stool with Resin Steps

A ladder might not seem like a big necessity to a lot of people, but this one has been a lifesaver for me. And I'm a little scared of ladders if they are more than 5 feet high.

My place is very small and so storage is at a premium. We tenants do each have a little cubby in a room off the hallway in which to store some things, but it's a locked door system and best used for things you don't need often. I personally keep spare decorative items and suitcases in mine.

I needed to be able to use all the space in my kitchen, bath, and bedroom. In the kitchen, there is a lot of room overhead the cabinets and fridge. That I can't reach. Same for the bathroom. The bedroom has a wonderful closet with a built-in rack but the top shelf is too high for me to keep anything I might need more than once every blue moon. Until now. Now, I have this cool and cheap (super cheap) little stool and I for a little surprise because of a mishap between Walmart and FedEx. More on that later.

When I first ordered this I was thrilled because of the $18.97 price tag. (I had almost opted for this one. Glad I kept looking because I didn't want to spend that much money.)

I was only a little worried that I would end up sending it back for quality issues because... well, that price. It seemed almost too good to be true. On the other hand, I was having to borrow a neighbor's scary-tall ladder every time I wanted to store something up high. Once, I had a panic attack while I was up on that ladder and was fear-frozen at the top, trying not to cry. It took me about half an hour before I could slowly ease my way back down off that thing. Never again.

I waited a week after I ordered before I started to wonder where the heck the stool was. Walmart is not as fast as Amazon for shipping, but they don't slouch. Usually. Finally, I tracked the item and saw that it was stuck in  Mahtomedi, Minnesota. I never even heard of the place but my stop stool had been sitting there for about 3 days. I googled and found that it was less than 3 hours away. And that's where the stool stayed for another 3 days. I contacted Walmart and FedEx. Walmart said they would send out another step stool asap and FedEx said they would "investigate".

The replacement ladder arrived in around 4 days and I was SO glad to see that is wasn't a bad item (I almost said "crap" item, but with "stool"...).

It's very sturdy and I love how it folds up to almost nothing so I can store it in the closet without taking up a lot of space. Right away, I started putting it to use. Now, all that empty and previously unreachable space in my kitchen is...

All that room overhead!

The very best thing - and I mean this seriously - about the step stool is that it's not so high that I have to worry about falling. Now, I can't use it on certain days when my balance is off, but I can use the heck out of it any other time. I do have to make sure I am close to a wall or appliance so I can hold myself steady, but this thing has made such a difference.

Okay, I have not finished hanging the rest of the drapes yet because I have to wait until my balance evens out, but you see what I mean. (By the way, I got those "drapes" aka loose fabric free from a giveaway table in the common room.)

I feel like I gained another half of kitchen space. I love being able to use that above-fridge space that some giant designed to frustrate average sized people.

Just when I was getting used to having the step stool around, a few days ago, FedEx showed up with... the missing one!

I emailed Walmart to let them know about the second one. Since I haven't heard back yet I suppose I get to keep the twin stool for free. Now I have one stored in the closet up front and the other in the bedroom. Perfect.

By the way, here are a couple more photos showing latch, the height, and front/back.

I''m telling you, for less than 19 bucks, you can't beat this ladder.

Peace
--Free


P.S.: By the way, the same stool is available via Amazon as a Prime item for the same price.