Keep Your Carpets Clean With 5 Easy Steps
Carpets, apart from protecting the floor of the house, can also be used to beautify and improve the general look of the home. In fact, most homeowners who make use of carpets now do so mainly for the purpose of beautification. However, while carpets generally have the potential to make your house look warm and comfortable, without adequate care, the carpet is bound to deteriorate, experiencing wear and tear much sooner than it ought to.
This deterioration doesn’t happen at once and is a result of the accumulation of overlooked damage such as little specks of dust allowed to gather up or spread around, drops of oil or any other substance not taken care of immediately, and in general, lack of proper carpet cleaning. While all these might go unnoticed initially, in the near future, they can become noticeable as they start to cause real damage on your carpet.
However, with the following tips, you can take adequate care of your carpet and make it look new, shiny, and attractive, nearly as it was when you originally bought it.
1. Make Use of a Carpet Brush
To rid your carpet of minor and easily removable grime that might not stain it but would nevertheless make anyone who sees your carpet conclude that you don’t do enough carpet cleaning, make use of a carpet brush.
This minor and easily removable grime include dust, sand, crumbs of food, fibers from your clothes, and more. Dirt that falls under this category really does not need a lot of hard work as all you need do is get your carpet brush, get on your knees, brush away whatever debris you might have on your carpet.
You can also take it upon yourself to carry out this carpet cleaning technique once or twice a week to ensure your carpet remains as clean and attractive as it was when you just laid it on the floor of your house. When using a carpet brush, you should brush the carpet two or even three times to make sure you have effectively rid your carpet of all the dirt.
2. Hand Clean the Carpet with Vinegar or Baking Soda
Stains that may prove to be stubborn or those that can’t be brushed out such as oil stains, coffee stains, and cereal stains take a little more work to remove. First of all, stay calm. All you need do is introduce the soiled carpet to vinegar or baking soda and watch the wonders these substances are capable of.
Conducting your carpet cleaning with vinegar is pretty straightforward and quick, albeit not as quick as simply brushing with a carpet brush. Fill a bucket with warm water and mix it with a small quantity of white vinegar, dip your scrub brush lightly into the bucket, and scrub away! While scrubbing, be sure not to get too much vinegar water on the brush so as not to saturate the carpet. Once you are done with the scrubbing, fill the bucket with fresh water, dip a rag into the fresh water and scrub away a second time. Once you are done with this, sit back and let the carpet dry completely.
You can add baking soda to the vinegar-damp carpets to bubble out stains – but don’t use too much, lest you make a volcano. You can also sprinkle it on non-greasy stains and mist with hot water. You will have to give the substance about three hours to fully soak up the dirt in the carpet before vacuuming it all up. However, despite being time consuming, baking soda performs wonders on carpets and can take care of a number of different types of stains and odors.
3. Thorough Vacuuming
While everyone might be aware that the vacuum cleaner is effective in cleaning carpets, most people don’t know how to effectively use the vacuum cleaner while carpet cleaning. For instance, you ought to go through each inch of carpet 10-12 times before it can be considered perfectly clean.
Before you begin, dust the room thoroughly and make sure your vacuum’s bag or canister isn’t too full. When vacuuming, make sure to take your time and vacuum in both directions to get the maximum benefit. Be thorough with it, using a crevice tool on the edges of the room or around and under furniture. Remember, what is worth doing is worth doing well.
4. Bonus Vacuum Session
A little bonus every now and then doesn’t hurt anyone, a little carpet cleaning with the vacuum every now and then is good for your carpet. You don’t have to wait until you can actually see a layer of dirt on top for the carpet to hide stains and allergens.
On those days when you have nothing doing or have a little time to kill before you go out, you can quickly carry out a freestyle vacuum session on your carpet. By doing this, you are ridding it of some dirt that would have done some harm to the carpet if left till the weekend.
5. Outsourcing
Not everyone has the time or the tools to properly clean a carpet as well and often as it should be cleaned. When you’ve tried your best to ensure your carpet is clean to no avail, it is alright to hand off the job to a professional.
There are tons of individual professional carpet cleaners and companies that offer carpet cleaning services. There is absolutely no shame in relieving yourself of this duty provided the person or company you are outsourcing this job to does it effectively.