How to Clean the Bissell Little Green After Every Use
The five minutes after you finish decide whether this machine still works in a year. Here is what to rinse, what to flush, and what you can genuinely skip when it is late.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This page follows Bissell's own published maintenance guidance rather than personal product testing. Sources and check dates are at the bottom.
Nobody's Little Green dies of overwork. It gets quietly ruined by the twenty minutes after a job, when the machine goes back in the cupboard with dirty water in the tank and something unpleasant still in the hose.
Two things go wrong, and both are avoidable. It starts to smell, because what you sucked out of the couch is now sitting in a warm plastic tank in the dark. And the suction drops, because debris has dried inside the hose where you cannot see it or reach it.
The part that is genuinely non-negotiable
Empty the dirty water tank. Tilt it slowly into a sink or a drain, then rinse the tank and its lid to clear the loose debris.
This is the one step that cannot wait until morning, and the reason is not fussiness. The tank is where everything you removed from the fabric ends up: dissolved dirt, skin, pet mess, old drink. Sealed in a warm cupboard overnight, that is a culture, and the smell it produces gets into the plastic and stays.
The step almost nobody knows about
Bissell's guidance for flushing the hose is the piece most owners have never read, and it is the one that keeps suction where it should be.
- Make sure the dirty water tank is empty and the clean tank is filled.
- Take off whatever tool is attached to the hose.
- Fill a container with water, deep enough that the end of the hose sits completely under the surface.
- Put the hose end in and let the machine suction the clean water straight through.
You are using the machine's own suction to rinse its own hose. Anything stuck partway along gets carried into the dirty tank instead of drying in place, which is exactly how a machine ends up with mysteriously weak pull three months in. Then empty the dirty tank again, because you just filled it.
The tool, and the timing that matters
Press the button, pull the tool off the hose, take the nozzle off and rinse it under the tap until the debris is gone.
While it is off, look at the brush edges for wrapped hair and fibres and pull them off now. This is the one place where waiting genuinely costs you: cleaning solution dries like glue, and hair that lifts off with your fingers tonight needs picking apart with something pointed next week. Ten seconds now, or five awkward minutes later.
What you can actually skip when it is late
Not everything on this list carries the same weight, and pretending it does is how people abandon the routine entirely.
| Step | Can it wait? |
|---|---|
| Empty and rinse the dirty water tank | No. This is the one that causes the smell. |
| Pull hair off the brush | No, but it takes ten seconds while the tool is already off. |
| Flush the hose with clean water | Yes, if the job was small. Do it after anything greasy, or pet mess. |
| Rinse the tool nozzle | Yes, briefly. Do not let it dry with debris in it. |
| Wipe down the body | Yes. This one is cosmetic. |
| Leave the tanks open to air-dry | Yes, but it is free and it is what stops the smell coming back. |
The honest short version on a bad night: empty the tank, pull the hair off, leave the lids open. That is most of the benefit in under a minute.
If your model has its own page
Bissell publishes a separate maintenance page for each machine in the line, which is exactly why searching for one straight answer returns a dozen near-identical results. The steps above are the shared core. If you have a Max Pet, Pet Pro, Mini or Mini Cordless, check your model's page for the extras, because the pet models add a brush assembly the base model does not have and the cordless ones have battery guidance that does not apply to anything else.
Your model number is on a label on the body of the machine, not on the box you threw away.
If it already smells
You do not need to buy anything for this. Empty and rinse both tanks, run a tank of plain warm water through with the hose flush above until what comes back is clear, then leave every lid open somewhere with moving air until the plastic is dry to the touch. Most smells are damp residue, not a permanent fault, and a machine that has fully dried out generally comes back.
If it still smells after that, the residue is somewhere the rinse is not reaching, and that is a support question rather than a technique question.
Where to check the current listing
If you need a replacement tank, tool or hose, start from the exact model:
- Bissell Little Green on Amazon: match the model number on your machine's label, since parts differ across the line.
Sources
- Bissell Support — Little Green: Getting Started With Your Machine, official support, checked 2026-08-16
- Bissell Support — Little Green Max Pet: How to Clean & Maintain, official support, checked 2026-08-16
- Bissell Support — Little Green Pet Pro: How to Clean & Maintain, official support, checked 2026-08-16
- Bissell Support — Little Green Mini: How to Clean & Maintain, official support, checked 2026-08-16
Each of these answers a different question, so start with the one that matches yours.
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Maintenance guidance varies across models in this line. If your machine came with its own instructions, those govern. We have not physically tested this machine, and we do not claim to have.