Carpet Cleaning Tips
Is your carpet beginning to look like it needs a good cleaning? Maybe you just have a few stains and won’t have to clean the whole carpet. If you happen to have a sample, or extra piece of carpet saved from when it was installed, you can use that to test your cleaning method for colorfastness. You wouldn’t want to clean a spot and be left with a bleached out area.
A few carpet cleaning tips would be good to remember. The most important trick is to treat the stain as soon as possible after it occurs. As a rule, don’t use hot water unless you have tested it on that same type of stain on a sample of your carpet. Hot water tends to set stains instead of remove them. If you use detergent on a stain, be sure it does not have bleach in it before applying to your carpet.
If you have dripped candle wax on the carpet, cover the area with a white paper towel first, and then place a piece of waxed paper over that. Use a hot iron to press over the waxed paper and the wax will stick to the paper towel. Keep using new paper towels over the stain until it is all gone. If the area of wax is thick, carefully scrape off as much as possible with a dull knife before using the hot iron.
Pet stains can be treated with rubbing alcohol or a dry cleaning solution, if you try it first on a sample of your carpet. Blot up as much as possible with a dry cloth, then use a circular motion, from the outer edge of the stain to the center, with the alcohol or dry cleaning solution on a cloth. For any odor that may remain after removing the stain, sprinkle the area with baking soda and rub it in to the carpet. Let it set for a few hours, at least until very dry, and then vacuum it up.
Two tablespoons of ammonia to one cup of water works well for blood stains, using the same method of cleaning as you would for pet stains.
Be sure that your cleaning solution is not flammable. Some homemade solutions, when mixed with certain chemicals, could catch fire. If it is possible that the stain could contain any chemical, such as shoe polish, it might be better to use commercial carpet shampoo.