How To Handle Your Carpet, Correctly.

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How To Handle Your Carpet, Correctly.

Most people have a love-hate relationship with their carpets. The floor coverings add texture, color, and warmth to a space, but they also seem to soak up stains better than anything else in your home. And because you eat, drink, and walk around on them, they’re constantly getting splattered with something. They also trap allergens and can make asthma worse, is you or someone in your family suffers from that.

Your carpet will naturally collect dirt and dander over time, so you need to vacuum it often. Depending on how heavily it’s used, vacuuming once or twice a month will likely be enough for maintenance. Choose a vacuum with a suction attachment, which will clean your carpets better than a standard rotary vacuum.

We suggest shaking out your rugs a couple times a month. Every few months, flip your rug over and vacuum the back. This will get the grit out of the foundation of the rug.

In addition to deep cleaning, you’ll also want to rotate your rugs. It actually helps to rotate your rug once a year to ensure even wear over time. And use a rug pad which will prolong its life. If it’s a wool rug, let it sunbathe once a year. Sun helps sanitize wool, but be careful of color fading. And whatever you do, avoid steam cleaning because it will damage the carpet.

Pet hair can be a nightmare to remove, but there’s a trick that will save you tons of time: Sprinkle the area with baking soda; then vacuum it up. The baking soda will lift the pet hair from the carpet.

They look bad and smell worse, but stains from your pet’s accidents are pretty easy to remove. Use a paper towel to blot up as much of the urine as you can. Then mix equal parts white vinegar and warm water in a spray bottle. Spritz the area to get rid of the odor. Blot this mixture with a paper towel once again.

If you’re not up for renting or buying a machine, and if a stain is really stuck on or your carpet looks like it’s on its last legs, the answer to how to clean a carpet may be to hire a pro. Professionals use detergents and steam to really get in there, and commercial machines are beasts when it comes to getting bacteria and dirt out of any pile of rug. If your home has wall-to-wall carpeting, you might want to do this once a year.