If you’ve taken the time to seek out this article, then chances are your carpet is looking a little less than clean right now. That, or you’ve got designs on becoming the latest Instagram cleaning influencer and are looking for new tips to impress your new followers. If the latter is true, don’t forget to give us a shout out. Just sayin’.
Regardless of what brought you here, one thing’s for sure; after a year spent in a seemingly perpetual state of lockdown, our carpets have taken one hell of a battering.
The living room has never seen so much action. TV dinners, home workouts, Sopranos marathons…they’ve all become an increasingly regular thing, and inevitably, stains from runaway marina meatballs and scuffs from an over zealous burpee session have also increased in tandem.
Working from home has also meant clumsy coffee spills happening daily, and don’t get us started on all those qurantinis getting sloshed all over the floor. Come to think of it, they’re not the only thing getting sloshed.
Now Spring is here, we’ll hopefully be welcoming guests back into our humble abodes once more, and as such, many of us are suddenly reaching for the carpet cleaner for all those stains, splashes and spills that have become embedded deep into our carpet piles. To prepare for the Big Spring Spruce Up, here are 4 tips for cleaning carpets and rugs.
CONSIDER A PROFESSIONAL
First things first, if your carpet is in dire need of a deep clean, then it’s probably time to call in the professional rather than trying to tackle it yourself. Doing so may only lead to damage, after all.
Carpet Bright UK, an award winning carpet cleaning London company, tell us that ‘’over time and with regular wear, even the best factory-applied stain resistance treatments to a carpet will become less effective. By the time you’ve vacuumed your carpet around 200 times, much of the protection it had to begin with is gone.’’
They also recommend that you get professional cleaning once every six months, at least. Yes, we know what you’re thinking, they would recommend that, being carpet cleaners and all, but dirty carpets are like a luxury hotel for dust mites – a real pain in the neck for those of us who suffer from allergies – and are the home’s number one accumulator of bad odours, too.
INVEST IN A CARPET CLEANER
Many of us clean our carpets only when they get visibly dirty. However, bacteria, bad odours and those dust mites we just mentioned can quickly get out of hand.
If you have lots of carpet in your house and plenty of room for storage, it may be worth investing in a heavy duty carpet cleaner. The Good Housekeeping Institute Home Appliances and Cleaning Products Lab recommend:
- The Bissell ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet Pro Carpet Cleaner as the ‘best overall carpet cleaner’.
- The Hoover Smartwash Automatic Carpet Cleaner as the ‘best carpet cleaner’.
- The Bissell CrossWave Floor and Carpet Cleaner for area rugs.
- The Bissell Pet Stain Eraser 2003T as the ‘best handheld carpet cleaner’.
If you’re renting or not blessed with storage space, you can always hire a carpet cleaner. According to Which, “The Rug Doctor Mighty Pro X3 is one of the most popular rentable models, and costs around £33 to hire for 24 hours and are available to hire from stores across the UK including Asda, Homebase, B&Q, Morrisons, Johnsons Cleaners, Tesco, the Co-operative and the Range.”
On the subject, the guys at Good Housekeeping concur, rating it as the “best carpet cleaner to rent”.
THE RIGHT CLEANING PRODUCTS
When you’re shopping for home-cleaning supplies, there’s naturally a temptation to use cheaper products to save a few pennies. That’s money being spent on something which tangibly brings no pleasure or improvement to your life, so who can blame you for wanting to cut corners? But the best cleaning products will significantly cut time, and are actually a smarter investment in the long run.
When it comes to shampoo for your carpet. Rug Doctor Carpet Detergent works well with a heavily ingrained dirt that the day-to-day life of lockdown has imparted on your rugs and carpets. Alternatively, Dyson Zorb Powder is probably our favourite powder carpet cleaner, and if you’re looking for a carpet shampoo to use in a machine, then try Vax Ultra+ Carpet Cleaning Solution, which is pretty much foolproof. Not that we’re saying you’re a fool, of course.
REACTIVE STEPS
We certainly don’t plan to spill things – unless you love the thrill of everything going into slow motion as that glass of wine falls to the floor, of course – but taking proactive measures to prevent spillages is certainly better than the reactive cleaning of them.
Our pals at Carpet Bright who offer upholstery cleaning London services tell us “If spillages do occur, you can prevent stains from becoming permanent and embedded into our piles with a couple of fantastic products.
For fast, swift action, we’re huge fans of Dr Beckmann Carpet Stain Remover which comes with a built-in brush. Bear in mind that some stains like wine and mud should be treated when they’re dried and others should be removed immediately when wet, before they set. Check out these tips on how to remove various common stains for a little more insight.
Speaking of Dr Beckmann, we’ve just found that the company has launched a podcast series on cleaning. If you’re looking for a new podcast to listen to while you carry out domestic duties, what could be better than listening to how to clean, what to clean and when to clean, while you clean? A fully immersive experience, we think!
