Some Tips in Carpet Cleaning
Though a fairly obvious thing to point out, the best tip for carpet cleaning is to keep a carpet clean in the first place. To do this, always take off shoes before walking onto your carpets, to help keep the dirty and grime from the outside off of your carpet. Next, when you come across stains, you’re going to want to treat them immediately, before they set in. Vacuuming is the obvious regular step to keep your carpet clean, and should be done at least once a week.
Once a stain has hit your carpet, you’re stuck dealing with it. To do this, be sure you aren’t rubbing the stain directly in: that will just smear it around and make it larger. You’ll want to blot it instead. The ideal basic method to clean is to use a mixture of shaving cream and water, blot it down, then afterwards rinse, don’t blot, with a mixture of water and vinegar. This will usually do the trick to deal with stains.
Stains from dye are a totally different situation, and with those you’ll want to try and a mix of hydrogen peroxide and water. With any stain removed, always test an area of the carpet out of sight, to be sure it doesn’t damage the color or weave. If it is a stain from food, often brake cleaner will do to get the stain out: it helps dissolve some of the compounds involved. Blot the stain with it, then blot it away with water.
Animal stains, with their odors, are the domain of enzyme products. Once you’ve tried one of those, a good follow up with peroxide and baking soda can help remove the smell. Blot with water afterwards to remove residue.
If you wind up with oil or grease on your carpet, these tricky stains may require a more specific product to deal with. Orange Clean, DeSolvit, Simple Green, and WD40 all can work in that regard. Blot on with the solution, wait 30 minutes, and then blot away. Sometimes it necessary to repeat, but it usually does the job.
When it comes to deeper cleaning, you may need to rent a carpet cleaning device. This is for carpets that are showing signs of mattering, or deep discoloration, or for stains you’ve missed. The best advice when using these is try for single strokes with the cleaner. Try not to put pressure on the machine. When you’re done, fluff the carpet to help it dry, and keep the room ventilated. And once the entire cleaning is finished, always stay off of it until it has dried, to avoid new stains.
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Posted: September 1st, 2010 under Home.
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