The booking says “Hallway & Staircases Vacuumed And/or Mopped”. You are standing at the bottom of a staircase you have never seen, with whatever machine you brought or the client left out. The line names stairs, a vacuum and a mop, and it names no tool, no flights and no surface.
Below is a one-page card for that decision, with two fictional visits. It is a suggested personal record for independent cleaners, not a Hometress requirement, training standard or app feature, and it does not tell you how to take a machine up a staircase. The pages are seven manuals from four makers, Shark, Kenmore, OceanBlue and Bissell, read on November 2, 2026. That is seven machines, not every machine a client owns, and this guide does not claim otherwise. The task line comes from our published cleaning checklist.
The short answer
- All seven manuals print a care sentence about stairs, and all seven use the words “extra care”. OceanBlue prints a second one on another page, as “special care”.
- Only Kenmore has a paragraph for stairs: handle upright, agitator stopped, crevice tool or fabric brush. The NV500 prints Lift-Away steps, a stable-footing warning and a hold-the-pod tip on the page that names stairs as one use. Two other manuals name something to use on stairs: Shark’s UV550 pet hair tool and OceanBlue’s Mini Turbo.
- None of the seven stair passages names a direction, and none says how to carry the machine up or down a staircase. The nearest lines are the NV500’s footing warning and hold-the-pod tip and Kenmore’s page 10 hose rule, and none of those sentences mentions a step.
- Kenmore says “Keep on floor” beside chairs and tables, puts a rule on where the cleaner sits when its hoses are used, and warns about a cleaner “placed on stairs”. None of the three says where on a staircase the machine should go.
- Ours, not theirs: the card records the stairs, the tool, where the machine sat, which page and what you left. It sets no method.
What the sheet says and what it leaves open
Hometress’s published Standard list has one stairs line, “Hallway & Staircases Vacuumed And/or Mopped”, under Entire House, and Deep, Move and Dream Home inherit it. It names a hallway, staircases, a vacuum and a mop, joined by “And/or”. It does not say carpet or hard steps, how many flights, which tool, or whether the machine goes on a step at all.
Three of our cards sit next to this one. The carpet beater-bar card covers what the carpet makers print and finds that its two carpet care guides, Shaw’s and Mohawk’s, do not mention stairs; this card is the machine side, from the vacuum and mop makers. The vacuum-filter card covers filters, and the floor-type card covers what a mop does to a floor finish. This card does not repeat them and does not decide what a tread is made of.
Seven manuals, four makers
The pages are the Shark UV725 owner’s guide (© 2021), the Shark UV550 owner’s guide (© 2019), the Shark NV500 instructions (© 2016), the Shark BU3000 owner’s guide (© 2024), the Kenmore owner’s manual L0811780 (no date in the text I read), the OceanBlue user’s manual (no date in the text I read) and the Bissell PowerFresh 1940 user guide (© 2025). Five of the seven PDFs are copies hosted by Home Depot, Lowe’s or Sears PartsDirect, one is on a Bissell-named document store and one is on a CloudFront address. None came from a maker page I opened, and a current manual for the same model could differ. Page numbers below are PDF pages.
The seven are not one kind of machine: three Shark uprights, a Shark cordless stick, a Kenmore upright, a vacuum with a water container and a steam mop. Each manual is about its own machine. Where a cell says something is not in a manual, that is a statement about the pages I read, not about the maker’s other documents.
| Document | The stairs sentence | A tool or steps for stairs | Carrying and where the machine sits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shark UV725 owner’s guide (© 2021) | “Use extra care when cleaning on stairs.” Page 2, item 18. | No stairs tool or steps in the text I read. | Nothing on stairs. |
| Shark UV550 owner’s guide (© 2019) | “Use extra care when cleaning on stairs.” Page 3, item 17. | Page 6, pet hair tool: “was engineered for fast and easy removal of pet hair and ground-in dirt from carpeted stairs and upholstery.” | Page 10, in its Lift-Away section: “Use the handle on top of the dust cup to easily lift and carry the canister.” Not tied to stairs. |
| Shark NV500 instructions (© 2016) | “Use extra care when cleaning on stairs.” Page 5, item 38. | Page 14, Lift-Away: “remove the pod from the floor nozzle to easily clean stairs, above-floor areas with accessories, or hard floors”. The page then prints numbered Lift-Away steps, the first “Press Lift-Away to lift pod off floor nozzle.”, and does not mention stairs again. | Same page: “Lift-Away mode requires stable footing. Using Lift-Away mode without stable footing may result in personal injury.” And “Hold pod in hand when cleaning in Lift-Away mode.” Neither sentence mentions a step. |
| Shark BU3000 owner’s guide (© 2024) | “Use extra care when cleaning on stairs.” Page 2, item 17. | No stairs tool or steps in the text I read. | Page 2, item 30, in its battery list: “ensure the vacuum is powered off before picking up or carrying the vacuum.” Not tied to stairs. |
| Kenmore owner’s manual L0811780 (no date in the text read) | “Use extra care when cleaning on stairs. Do not put on chairs, tables, etc. Keep on floor.” Page 3. | Page 11, “Stairs.”: “Put handle in full upright position.” “Agitator stops rotating.” “Use the crevice tool or fabric brush.” And “move the Agitator On/Off selector to the OFF position.” Its attachment chart marks the crevice tool and the combination brush for stairs, not the dusting brush. | Page 11 warning: “Use care if vacuum cleaner is placed on stairs. If it falls, personal injury or property damage could result.” Page 10, hose caution: “the cleaner should be on a solid surface on the same level or below the level of the user’s feet.” And “DO NOT use the hoses when the cleaner is above the level of the user’s feet.” The page 10 caution does not mention stairs. |
| OceanBlue user’s manual (no date in the text read) | “USE EXTRA care when cleaning on stairs.” Page 6, item 13. Page 7, in a list of precautions: “Take special care when cleaning stairs.” | Page 12, Mini Turbo: “Perfect tool for upholstery, stairs and hard to reach places.” | Page 7, in its liquids list: “DO NOT carry the machine with your hand while using the machine for cleaning operations.” Not tied to stairs. |
| Bissell PowerFresh 1940 user guide (© 2025) | “Use extra care when cleaning on stairs.” Page 2, in its safety list. | No stairs tool or steps in the text I read. Nothing about steam on a step. | The same list prints “Do not carry the appliance while in use.” and “Keep appliance on a level surface.” Neither mentions stairs, and I do not read either as an answer for a step. |
Where the manuals agree and where they go quiet
They agree on the warning. Seven manuals from four makers say “extra care” about stairs, and OceanBlue adds “special care” on a second page. That is as far as agreement goes: the sentence is a caution, and only Kenmore follows it with a paragraph about stairs.
Kenmore is the exception, and its page 11 is specific: handle upright, agitator stopped, crevice tool or fabric brush. It is written for the machine that manual covers, and I do not claim it carries over to another machine. The same manual prints three placement lines for different jobs: “Keep on floor” beside chairs and tables on page 3, a hose rule on page 10 (the cleaner on the same level as the user’s feet or below them), and a warning about the cleaner “placed on stairs” on page 11. None says where on a staircase the machine should sit, so I do not read one into another.
Shark’s answers are tied to features, not to a method. The NV500’s Lift-Away page says the pod comes off the floor nozzle so you can clean stairs, then prints the mode’s steps, a footing warning and a tip to hold the pod in hand; it does not say how to take the pod up or down a step. The UV550 names a pet hair tool for “carpeted stairs and upholstery”; the UV725 and the BU3000 print the sentence and nothing else about stairs. OceanBlue sells a Mini Turbo it calls a tool for stairs, and prints no steps. The other carry sentences are general: the UV550’s is about lifting its canister by the dust-cup handle, the BU3000’s is about unintended starting from the power switch, OceanBlue’s sits in its liquids list, and Bissell’s is about use. None mentions a step, and all seven also bar carrying the machine by its cord, which is not about stairs.
I found no direction in any of them, so this guide takes no side on top-down or bottom-up. Bissell’s page 2 gives stairs one sentence and says nothing about steam on a step. I make no claim that a steam mop is approved on stairs, or that it is barred.
The card
Copy this into a note, one card per staircase. Work down the rows in order; the right-hand column is what to write when you cannot fill a row in.
| Field | What to write | If you cannot fill it in |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Line and stairs | The sheet line (“Hallway & Staircases Vacuumed And/or Mopped”), the number of flights and a rough step count, and whether the hallway was part of the job. | Write “count not made”. |
| 2. Steps as seen | Carpet, wood, painted or tile, a runner, loose items on the steps, and how you know: a client note or only what you can see. | Write “surface unknown”. Our floor-type card covers the finish question; this one does not. |
| 3. Tool used | The tool or the hand brush you used on the steps, and why that one. | Write “none” if the steps were not cleaned. |
| 4. Where the machine sat | On the hall floor, on a landing, on a step, in your hand, or not used on the steps, whether you carried it, and what your footing was. | Write what happened. No manual above says where on a staircase to put the machine. |
| 5. Page followed | Shark (which model), Kenmore, OceanBlue, Bissell or none, and that the page is about that maker’s own machine. | Write “none”. No page above covers a machine of unknown make. |
| 6. What was left | Steps or a landing you did not reach, and why. | Write “none left”. |
| 7. Ask the client | Stairs you cannot identify, a runner or loose items, a machine of unknown make, or a request to steam the steps. | Tell the client and write what you left. |
What to send when you cannot tell
Two lines, ours, not from any page. First: “I cannot tell from here what the staircase is made of or which machine you want used, and the manuals I have read differ on what to do on stairs.” Second: “Is it carpet or wood, how many flights, and is there anything on the steps I should leave where it is? Until I hear, I will write down what I did not do.”
What the sheet does not define
It does not define a staircase, a flight, a tool or a time, and it does not say whether a machine goes on a step. The card is the habit that fills the gap: write what the steps were, what touched them and what you left. The same habit is in our final walkthrough scope check and our surface-by-surface check.
Two fictional visits
These visits are fictional. The staircases belong to no real client, and none of the makers has endorsed the card. The circumstances are invented; what a page says and what is our suggestion are marked separately.
A Standard visit, carpeted stairs and a Shark in the closet
Line: Standard, “Hallway & Staircases Vacuumed And/or Mopped”. Stairs: one carpeted flight and a landing, no runner. The client’s machine has an NV500 label. Page followed: the NV500 instructions, page 14, for the Lift-Away steps, the footing warning and the tip to hold the pod in hand, and page 5 for “extra care”. What touched the steps: the pod, lifted off the floor nozzle, held in my hand, with an accessory; the floor nozzle stayed on the hall floor, and I wrote my footing as the carpeted treads. I wrote the page, the tool, where the machine sat and my footing in rows 3, 4 and 5. The page says to hold the pod and to have stable footing, and it does not say how to move between steps with the pod, so that part is mine, and the card records what I did, not that it was right. Unresolved: how the maker means the pod to be handled between steps, which the page does not say.
A Deep visit, wood stairs and a steam mop
Line: Deep, which inherits the Standard stairs line. Stairs: painted wood treads, no label and no note on the finish, and a steam mop in the closet next to a client note that says “mop the stairs”. Page followed: Bissell’s page 2, which says “extra care” and nothing about steam on a step or on painted wood. What touched them: a dry hand brush and dustpan. I did not use the steam mop on the steps. I wrote that in rows 3 and 6 and asked about it in row 7, using the two-line note above. Unresolved: whether the client wants the steps steamed, and what the finish is.
What this guide leaves out
It recommends no brand, product or price. It names no direction for cleaning stairs, because no manual here does. It claims no approval or bar on steam, and it gives no injury or damage figures: the Kenmore warning appears only as Kenmore’s own sentence. It covers no maker other than the four, because no other maker’s manual was read, and no robot or handheld vacuum. It gives no advice of its own on who is responsible if a step is damaged. It does not cover pay.
Where a platform fits
Hometress is a cleaning marketplace in Philadelphia. It is free to join, and cleaners carry their own insurance. If writing down what the steps were is how you already work, the application takes about five minutes. This guide does not cover pay.