The Compact Bissell Little Green Cleaner Can Tackle Kid Stains, Cat Puke, and Other Things No One Wants to Touch

It’s hard to think about making space for another cleaning device, but bear with me. At only 17.25 inches wide and 12.75 inches high, the Little Green cleaner is pretty true to its name. It’s roughly the width of two basketballs—but it’s much easier to manage with one hand because it has a handle. It also has a 15-foot power cord and a 4-foot cleaning hose, which may sound like clutter waiting to collect dust, but everything wraps around the device neatly. We typically keep the Little Green cleaner on our laundry shelf or in the bottom of a closet next to the cleaning solution.

You dilute that solution with water in the tank on the left side of the device. When ready, you just flip the Little Green cleaner’s on switch, find your spot, and pull the trigger on the handle to spray the cleaning solution. After you’ve covered the spot, you go back over the area with the brush once or twice, but without pulling the trigger—at this point, you want the unit to suck up the spray, not add to it. After you’re finished, the area will be damp but clean.

If you’re not a fan of perfumes, you may not love the smell of the cleaning solution. There are versions loaded with strong scents from Febreeze and Oxy, but the smell dissipates pretty quickly. (And it helps if I light a candle once I’m done cleaning, as well.) If you find that it’s still too strong, you can try diluting the solution further with a little more water, though a Bissell spokesperson told us that it’s best to use one of the branded cleaning solutions, as other detergents could damage the machine or your fabrics. However, you can also opt to do a rinse cycle with just clear warm water after you’ve finished the initial cleaning with your formula.

There’s also a plant-based cleaning solution that I’m interested in trying, but the bottles last a while—my family is still working on the 32-ounce one we purchased over a year ago. (The Little Green cleaner comes with an 8-ounce, trial-size bottle.)

Once you’re done scrubbing, the Little Green cleaner needs a little love itself, because the thing gets nasty. It’s actually kind of satisfying—and nauseating—to see how gross the collection tank becomes. You know you’ve done something good!

The first thing you need to do is dump the dirty water tank into the sink or toilet. This is, of course, after you’ve taken a photo and sent it to your significant other, parents, and whoever else would be impressed, amazed, and horrified by the Little Green cleaner’s success. (It’s shocking to see what you’ve been living with or sitting in.) Then, just rinse the tank with water.

Next, you need to clean the brush and the hose. You can easily do that by preparing a bowl of clean water and sucking it through the hose as if you were cleaning that bowl. This step should rinse both the hose and the brush.

You can also rinse both pieces separately for a deeper clean, if you prefer. To be honest, I don’t clean the hose every time I use my Little Green cleaner. I’m just that lazy. But it’s very easy to do: First, push the button on the back of the brush to detach it from the hose, and then attach the included HydroRinse Self Cleaning Tool. Some Wirecutter staffers have said that their Little Green unit didn’t come with the HydroRinse tool, but it’s a weird, tiny doodad that’s easy to lose in the box—and once you find it, you’ll probably be like, “What’s this?” It’s a little piece that connects to the end of the hose to clamp it off. After you put it on, just run the Little Green cleaner with the cleaning solution or plain water, and the tool keeps the liquid circulating, without any leakage. (And when you’re finished, you can clamp the tool right onto the outer part of the hose so you don’t lose it.)

Since the brush does most of the dirty work, cleaning that part is a bit more important, so naturally, it’s more difficult to do. Most of the time, just rinsing works, but if you have pets or especially messy humans in your household, you may need to get in there to clear things out. And that isn’t always easy because it contains a little clear barrier above the bristles that doesn’t snap off, which means debris can sometimes get caught.

I’ve used a cotton swab to root around for cat hair, but also just soaking it for a bit usually helps. Bissell offers two replacement brushes that have a removable barrier: a 3-inch brush and a 6-inch brush. We have not tested them, but when I reached out to customer service as a customer, not a Wirecutter staffer, the representative offered to send me one free of charge.

Although I have used the Little Green cleaner on large pieces of furniture, Bissell suggests using it only for spot cleaning—and that’s what we recommend in our guide, too. For bigger jobs, use a larger machine; we like the Bissell ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet Carpet Cleaner and the Bissell CrossWave for that purpose. Your results may differ depending on your stains—no spot cleaner we tested was able to completely remove dried-up Nutella and peanut butter, for example.

But it’s just so hard to limit myself when the Little Green cleaner does so well. I’ve had no issues with it, and I hope that it never gives up—much like I did before getting it.

This article was edited by Rachelle Bergstein and Catherine Kast.