Automatically saves your sanity – one 8″ circle at a time! Tips for use and cleaning the hose… Summary: A real time saver for cleaning the numerous spills stains and messes from kids and pets. Semi-Automatically (see details) cleans vomit and other unpleasant messes.We have 3 kids (ages 2, 4 and 7) and 2 cats. One of our cats (Pukey cat, AKA Natasha) is a Siamese and vomits regularly. Our youngest is potty trained but still doesn’t fully comprehend the concept of wiping one’s behind on toilet paper. Need I say more? We’re using this thing perhaps three times a week.This device is a bit larger than you’d expect. At approx 8″x16″x16 it’s about as big as a small canister vacuum.It cleans an 8″ circle with each cycle. This is typically good enough, when a mess is just larger, I find that it’s easier to use the hand attachment (which also has a sprayer) to clean the “outlier” than to run another cycle. With a fresh pot of cleaning solution and an empty collector, it will run 4 cycles. Although it has a “Surface stain” and a “Set-in Stain” cycles, I have yet to find an organic stain (Vomit and stuff from the other end) that needed the “Set-in stain” cycle (which scrubs for six minutes instead of three.) We’re pretty good at keeping food on the tile and hardwood floors so far.The carpet we’ve used it on are the very short berber (Basement) ~3/8″ and 1/” nylon carpet, all light colored / off white. One is a “twist” carpet, the other a pretty standard styleHere are some tips for using it:1) Use warm water to help soften dried on stains. This one doesn’t have an automatic heater (there is a model that does)2) Don’t feel like you need a lot of cleaning solution. The warm water gets out most organic stains on the first try.3) After each cycle the circle is pretty wet. Use the hand hose to suck out the excess water.4) Rotate the upper cord stowage hook to quickly remove the cord all at once.5) Be careful where you put it when you’re done – you’re supposed to be able to leave water in the (clean) water tank and it’s not supposed to leak but we have found that occasionally it will drip or leave a few tablespoons of water on the floor. Some of this is probably residual water in the hoses. We wouldn’t want to leave it on a hardwood floor where this might be an issue.A couple of minor complaints:1) The hand attachment isn’t the easiest to remove and re-attach. It would be nicer if the button was larger.2) The cleaning solution tank is no terribly stable. Be careful not to tip it over before putting the cap on – Don’t ask me how I know this.3) The unit is pretty big and storage is always tight4) Despite the “Microban” the hose still gets a moldy/mildewy layer of crud – super nasty. We run a pint of hot water with a little bleach through once a month. Run it through 3-4 times while vigourously shaking the hose and it breaks all that crud off. Then rinse.I received this through the Amazon Vine program, if you found this review helpful or have questions or comments, please let me know!