CARPET CLEANING

CARPET STAINS are divided into three types.

The whole purpose of a carpet is to hold the dirt. It gets in the fibres and stays there. It fact it falls to the base of the fibres and gets into the backing as well. Lift your carpet and you will see what we mean. Just when you thought you were clean, as well. Nice home for things.......... So after time the dirt abrades the fibres.
This is why carpets wear out. The heavier the traffic, the faster the carpet wears out. Those fibres also hold grease and organic soiling and this traps smells, so after a time that piece of wool mix or propylene really starts to reek. So having looked at the foul thing once too often you decide on a clean.
Especially after a hard dirty winter.
Carpet cleaning should not be undertaken lightly. Most of the money you spend on it will be wasted. However the money you spend on a very good, high suction vacuum cleaner will not be. Why? Because a good vacuum cleaner will get virtually all of the dirt out of your carpet, from the base upwards, whereas a full carpet cleaning system will remove the discolouring from the pile. It will not act in place of a vacuum cleaner and should not penetrate below the base - a soaking carpet goes mouldy very quickly.
There is also the littlematter of a washed carpet turning dirty very quickly after cleaning. This is entirely due to the detergent residue left in the carpet. So even carpet cleaning with the dry method leaves residue deep in the pile which acts as a magnet to soils. Your carpet gets even dirtier as a result. This is why carpet cleaning is a waste of money if you do it too frequently.

HELP YOURSELF TO AVOID CARPET CLEANING

From the outside, put rugs over the carpet by the entrance to the room, and especially by all the main entrance doors. About 90% soil is trapped here. Now vacuum these rugs daily.
Vacuum your carpet as often as you can. Take your time over this. As you start to do this on a more frequent basis, you will see an extraordinary amount of dust coming out of the carpet at first - this is abrasive if you will feel it between your fingers. By keeping the dust down you are extending the life of your carpet - you
should not think about the surface of the carpet but below. That is where all the damage is caused.
Read our article on care of the vacuum cleaner to help you further. You will find that carpets near cooking areas will get greasy and covered in food. And they smell. And they trap grease. Forget it if you are going to worry about the grease all the time. Or cover the carpet up with a rug. Use sense with a carpet in this area mainly because it won’t be practical to keep washing it
STAIN REMOVAL In carpets is treated in greater detail in our stain removal guide

1. General, indeterminate stains which are probably food drink or water based.
2. Organic, as in petroleum based - these are lipstick, nail varnish, oils, inks, paints. etc.
3. Organic as in whatever something human or animal produces

1. Unless you are extremely careless or leaky, most of your staining lies in 1. Treat with washing soda or bicarbonate of soda in solution and dry the treated area quickly. On an already soiled carpet, the area will show cleaner than the background. So you now have a spotted carpet. THAT is what was meant by leaving stains untreated.

2. Petroleum based stains clean up with nail varnish remover which is acetone. Not brilliantly, mind you since you will have a tendency to scrub at the stain and this tends to fix it. So you will always know that you spilt ink there and the paint dripped there..... But acetone does do it's bit in more areas than you would think. If there is a chance that this could dissolve the carpet - as with some propylene based carpet - then use alcohol instead. You are bound to have some gin or vodka handy. Again, dry the carpet rapidly after treatment. Open the window, while using either of these solvents. Have a look at the stain area after treatment, and if it has lessened the stain, but not quite removed it, treat it again Many, if not all, stains of any category may need several treatments to be removed.

3. Oh dear, the nasty ones. The ones you do not want to be near. Spoon it up. Wash the area with bicarbonate of soda solution to neutralise stains, smells and anything else. Leave to dry. Wash it again with enzyme washing powder solution if there is any further staining which you have missed. But note that ALL excess water has to be removed from your carpet very quickly indeed and the washing powder and the bicarbonate of soda solutions have to be rinsed out. Never leave detergent in your carpet. You won't see it for weeks afterwards until the carpet turns sticky and looks approximately as it did before you first had it ,cleaned.
Blood stains may leave a rust-like stain behind after cleaning, depending on how long the blood has been left in contact with the carpet. For this and rust stains generally, a solution of oxalic acid will work - not exactly miracles but the stain will fade.

AND FINALLY - FLEAS!

Yes, you too can have fleas! Especially if you have cats. One cat can put a lot of fleas in a carpet. Just one cat, long deceased, caused this cleaning business to have to treat the van, and all our cleaning equipment after cleaning a house. We were bitten everywhere! Worse, those fleas got onto some of our animals. Is there an in-built resistance of ferrets to fleas? Once the fleas are in your carpet, then they are very difficult to eradicate. It is no use just treating your animal - you have to treat the underlying floorboards and skirting boards. Use a proprietary flea remover, and continue through the lifecycle of the flea. This means continuous spraying. Or use regular applications of tea tree oil.
If you have more than a few fleas then it is probably easier to get rid of the carpet. More than a few fleas means that there is probably a massive infestation out of sight. I suppose getting rid of the cat is out of the question?

CARPET CLEANING

CARPET STAINS are divided into three types.

HELP YOURSELF TO AVOID CARPET CLEANING

AND FINALLY - FLEAS!

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