Carpet stains are inevitable!
Carpet has become one of the home necessities that add value to houses nowadays. Apart from keeping them warm during the winter months, carpets also serve as a sound checker by absorbing disturbing noises and vibration created by footsteps and household musical sound equipment respectively. Carpets can also serve as an indoor particles-filter that arrests dust, dander, soil, dirt, and other forms of debris that might enter the house through the air and outdoor activities. Hence, there is need to take proper care of carpets to prevent some health issues such as asthma and other respiratory problems. Carpets can be a source of allergens and bacteria that contribute immensely to these health problems.
Besides trapping particles, carpets can become smelling after an extended period of use if not maintained properly. However, if carpeting is not regularly managed with due diligence, it may lead to complete replacement, and this may require huge investment as the cost of replacement cannot be compared to minor and affordable routine maintenance you can carry out yourself or a professional carpet cleaner.
Carpeting is designed to last more than ten years with proper care and maintenance. As much as your commitment to investing a huge amount of money in getting one, you should make every effort to protect it from being messed up, which is bound to happen. Unfortunately, accidents happen!
You can guard your investment by making sure it serves you as long as possible. Many people leave their carpets to get messed up for a long time before calling a professional cleaner to maintain them.
However, there is a way you can do it to avoid professionals’ costly fees charged by protecting and preserving your carpets. Clean House Melbourne is not only about rendering carpet cleaning services to their customers, but we are also concerned about how to minimize your maintenance cost on your carpets and enjoy the best of your carpet.
This has made us come up with these tools and techniques to keep your carpet clean through some simple steps that you can take yourself to protect your carpeting. Read on to learn these useful strategies and techniques to keep your carpet fresh and new for years continuously.
6 Ways to Keep your Carpet Clean
You can’t help it; carpets tend to get stained one way or the other. Pets, kids, and as well as other members of the family walking and running around the home may mess, spill, and accidentally stain the carpet. Though you can clean up these messes in many ways; however, there are ways you can prevent these stains from taking place and keep your carpet clean every time. Below are the ways to keep your carpet clean:
1. Apply a carpet stain protectant or treatment
If you just procure a new carpet or you newly carried out high-end carpet cleaning, apply stain protectant or treatment to provide a sort of seal or protection over your carpet against any form of stain. Carpet stain protectant is in the form of invisible shield against possible stains on the carpet. This treatment is an active polymer ingredient that is used to coat the carpet from foreign substance; thereby offer protection to the carpet. If you have a kind of light colored carpet or your carpet is prone to stains due to its uses, apply carpet stain treatment or protectant.
Stain protectants are capable of resisting stains and dyes that can alter your carpet color, and as well as give you more time to remove any stain on the carpet without getting deep into the carpet. However, carpet stain protectant doesn’t mean it can prevent all stains, but it can surely minimize the way your carpet gets stained and also helps in removing stains easily. It is worthy of mentioning here that some new carpet designs come with these stain protectant or treatment, but if your own doesn’t come with it, you can get one.
2. Clean those messes as soon as it happens
Whether you like it or not, domestic accidents are bound to occur as you cannot help it but only minimize it. Children can stain the carpet during their plays, or you can accidentally spill drinks on the carpet, or your pet can do the deed. However, the quicker you handle them and remove the stains, the better you reduce the damage they cause to your carpeting. There are many first aid actions you can take to achieve this aim. They are as discussed below:
- Act quickly: Cultivate the habit of acting fast on any carpet stain as soon as it happens. Studies have shown that there is a 99% chance that stains can be removed if cleaned immediately after it occurs. So, remove the stain as quickly as possible. The longer you allow the stain to sit and react chemically with the carpeting, the deeper it will go and the more difficult it will be to remove it from the carpet.
- Don’t scoop spills of food to the carpet: Sometimes, when there is a spill of food on our carpet, we make the mistake of scooping or digging the food spills with a view to remove the stain. However, this single act is capable of working the stain down into the carpet. What is expected of you at the time is to remove the solids from the top of the spill, if there is any. Then, starting from the edges, systemically scrape the spills towards the middle and immediately clean the stain. You can read further on “16 ways for best carpet stain removal”.
- Blot the stain not scrub: In the process of acting fast to clean the stains, do not scrub the carpet, rather blot the stain out. Scrubbing has been studied to cause more damage to the carpet fibers and makes the area fuzzy. Only blot the affected area from the edge toward the middle of the mess.
- Avoid spreading the spot: In your quest to remove the stain faster, be meticulous enough to prevent the stain from spreading to non-affected areas; thereby causing more problem during cleaning. Always start from the outside and then go towards the centre; Never the opposite to avoid spreading the stain.
3. Dust and vacuum regularly
Dusting and vacuuming are part of the routine maintenance your carpet needs to keep it always clean. This exercise needs to be carried out either once or twice in a week based on the nature of use of the place and the type of carpet. For instance, if your carpet is of plush type, you need vacuuming as much as possible to keep it clean. Also, because of dirt, dust, soil, pet dander, and other potential foreign particles, you must carry out dust and vacuum maintenance regularly. By doing this, you are enhancing your environmental health due to the removal of bacteria and allergy that can cause health issues in the home.
The more you ignore this exercise, the more dust is piling up in your carpet and the harder it becomes to remove the dust. It is recommended to concentrate more on the high-traffic places such as dining rooms, living rooms, hallways, entranceand as well as your foot mats. Experts suggest that you vacuum these areas twice a week and the other regions of the carpet once a week.
Also, ensure you dust and vacuum your carpet after every guest entertainment or night party, irrespective of your routine vacuum timing. Performing this maintenance exercise regularly will not only keep your carpet clean but also lengthens the lifespan of your carpet and even protect you from inhaling unhealthy particles.
There are different carpet maintenance equipment such as vacuum cleaner you can buy to performing this task. However, if you cannot be carrying out this exercise, may be due to your busy schedules or you don’t want to go through the hassle involved in doing it, you can employ the hands of a professional cleaner and a regular cleaning service that includes vacuuming all carpets with professional vacuum cleaner which have the HEPA filter (which does not allow the small particles to escape from the filter and keep them inside its bag)
4. Keep those shoes outdoor
Another way to keep your carpet clean always is to allow those shoes to stay outside or at the entrance. You can achieve this by providing footwear or walk-off mats for both outdoors and indoors. This prevents you and your guests from bringing in the soil, sands, and other contaminated particles from outside to inside the house. Experts recommend coarse-texture walk-off mats and water-absorbent mats to perform this work. These coarse-texture walk-off mats keep stains away from your carpet as they get trapped by the mat before entering the house. Also, the water-absorbent mats placed at indoor help absorb water-coated dirt from wet shoes before stepping on the carpet.
5.Carry out deep cleaning every 6 – 12 months
This cleaning task is a must every 6 to 12 months and can be either performed by yourself or a professional service. If you want to do it yourself; you will need to either buy your own equipment or rent one. However, renting one is more economical than buying one as you would only make use of the machine once in a while unless you want to start a carpet cleaning business. Deep cleaning is essential in removing hidden dirt and stains that you couldn’t remove during your routine maintenance or stain removals. It is a high-end carpet maintenance that brings the best out of your carpeting and elongates the life of your carpet.
6. Leave it for the professional cleaner
To carry out quality and unbiased deep cleaning, let a professional cleaner handles the task. The professional carpet cleaners are experienced and will use different sophisticated equipment to perform this task without compromising any area, and you cannot compare it to your DIY. However, you have to choose the right cleaning service to handle this deep cleaning task for you. How can you select the right professional cleaner?
Follow these simple steps:
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- Check through their cleaning equipment: Some cleaning services don’t have the right sophisticated equipment to perform quality deep cleaning. Ask them to give you their list of cleaning equipment to do the work before considering asking for a quote. For example, most carpet manufacturers suggest that synthetic carpet should be cleaned with professional hot water extraction method. What if they don’t have this right equipment to carry it out?
- Avoid taking quotes over the phone: Quality professional cleaner would first carry out inspection activities of the work to be done before quoting for any job. Calling a professional and giving you a quote without seeing the level of cleaning to be carried out suggests to you they may not carry out a quality job. Prior quoting for any deep cleaning, references need to be provided, inspection to figure out square footage, the condition of the carpet, and other determinants required to be carried out. So, don’t take bids over the phone.
- Check through their cleaning equipment: Some cleaning services don’t have the right sophisticated equipment to perform quality deep cleaning. Ask them to give you their list of cleaning equipment to do the work before considering asking for a quote. For example, most carpet manufacturers suggest that synthetic carpet should be cleaned with professional hot water extraction method. What if they don’t have this right equipment to carry it out?
- Beware of carpet cleaners who quickly offer a discount: Those professional cleaners who quickly offer discount are mostly not committed to delivering quality job but always want huge sales. They only carry out a shoddy job by spraying soap on your carpet, wet the carpet, and do a rush job to leave your house quickly. Quality professional cleaners quote you based on the carpet types, the required services, and as well as footage size of the carpet.
Conclusion
It would be observed that keeping your carpet clean always requires only your commitment and focus, to ensure regular protection and maintenance of your carpet. Your carpet needs your regular touch as much as you are taking care of your clothes and vehicle. Simply because you are stepping on it every time does not mean it doesn’t need your attention. Apart from this, the health of your carpet plays a significant role in your health as well. With a little maintenance, you carry out daily on your carpet; It means much about giving you conducive and healthy environment.
Because you cannot help it but have stain come in contact with the carpet, you can only control it to a minimum level through prevention and regular maintenance.
This article has shown some ways to keep your carpet clean always. It has also gone in-depth in suggesting and sharing some strategies to achieve this aim. Go through them over and over and follow the step indicated, as contained in the article.
Being one of the leading experts in carpet cleaning, Clean House Melbourne prides itself on delivering top-notch and exceptional deep carpet cleaning to every home with carpeting. In the same vein, we are also committed to providing customer-friendly services, advice, and information on how to take care and enjoy most of their carpets. However, if you have any question in regard to these approaches or you want us to help you in setting up or putting in place these strategies, don’t hesitate to contact our experienced team. We are always at your service to help you out.