Maintaining a clean carpet is serious business. Ask someone with kids or pets and they will attest to that fact. It’s a little bit easier for those who live alone since you can decide on a cleaning schedule depending on your convenience. However, with third parties in the home, keeping your carpet dry and clean, you will have to double your efforts.
Not only does a good maintenance culture help you to get value for what you paid for your carpet, it also helps to improve the overall appearance of your home and prevent contagious diseases. Below are some basic tips that will help prevent damages to your carpet and ultimately keep it in good conditions for a long time to come.
1. Entrance Protection
The most frequent medium through which carpets get stained is through the dirt on the sole of shoes of those coming into the house. So to take care of this, carpet protection should begin right from the entrance to your house. Some tips entrance protection includes:
a) Make a “no shoes in the house rule”: Make it a rule and a habit to persuade visitors and members of your family to ditch their shoes at the entrance. Since wearing shoes indoors increases the chances of carpet stains, you can avoid wearing them altogether. In place of wearing shoes, you can encourage socks and house slippers as these do little to stain the carpet.
b) You need an entrance doormat: This is an alternative that you can fall back on when your guests cannot ditch their shoes at the entrance. For example, in the case of a respected visitor, requesting them to remove their shoes outside the door might sound impolite. Someone in boots might find removing it inconvenient too. To take care of this, you can purchase a doormat with which your guests can wipe and clean their shoes before coming into the house. You can even have more than one doormat. This way, guests can wipe their shoes off one and take off their shoes on the other one.
2. Stick to a Cleaning Routine
Periodic and consistent cleaning is another way to ensure that your carpets are kept in good conditions. With the right tools and equipment, you can schedule a cleaning routine and stick to it. Ensure that your cleaning routine covers all areas of the carpet. Some of the routine include:
a) Vacuuming: Since dirt can cause damage to the carpets if they are left unchecked, frequent and thorough vacuuming is one of the ways to keep your carpets dirt free. For example, you can schedule carpet vacuuming once a week to clean the carpet. One thing to keep in mind when vacuuming is to keep it slow and steady. When vacuuming is done in haste, you tend to miss vital spots and this makes the cleaning ineffective.
Some additional vacuuming tips you might find helpful includes:
- Sprinkle baking soda on the carpet before vacuuming: Baking soda helps to absorb odors and smells. By sprinkling baking soda on the carpet before vacuuming, you eliminate strong odor and replaces it with fresh smell. Apply the powder and leave it to sink in for a few minutes before you begin vacuuming.
- Use repellants: to take care of the unpleasant smell of pet urine, you can apply repellents on your carpet. By doing so, you discourage your pet from spending too much time on the carpet.
- Check vacuum cleaners before use: you must keep the vacuum cleaner in a good condition as this will help to maintain a clean carpet. Routine maintenance like replacing filters should be done regularly. This way, the cleaner maintains its suction power and cleans with better efficiency.
b) Clean stains immediately they occur: if a stitch in time saves nine, a stain wiped in time saves your carpet. When you notice a carpet stain, tackle it immediately and don’t let it settle in. You can make use of soapy water and a clean rag to gently scrub off the stain. You should also avoid using dyes, chemical-based cleaners, and rough brushes to remove spills from your carpets.
c) Carry out deep cleaning procedures: Although frequent carpet vacuuming is effective for carpet maintenance, carrying out deep cleaning can further help to keep the carpets in good condition. You can add a twice-yearly deep cleaning procedure to your regular vacuuming plan to get rid of strong stains. Here, you can apply some shampoo to the carpet and scrub it gently with a brush. You can thereafter rinse it off and allow it dry off before bringing it back into the house.
d) Engage the service of a professional: although you can do an excellent job of cleaning your carpet, you should hire a professional to handle the cleaning at least once a year. A professional will be able to repair damages and clean the carpet more efficiently.
3. The Furniture Rule
When furniture is not well placed on a carpet, it can ruin the carpet. As a general rule, the furniture will always leave a line on the carpet, however, the degree of dent will depend largely on how you position the furniture. One way to take care of this is to make sure that your carpet is not exposed to sharp furniture ends. To reduce the effect that furniture has on the carpet, you can move the furniture around, distribute the weight, and lessen concentration on some parts of the carpet.
Carpet Cleaning Mistakes to Avoid
- Stay away from carpet cleaning powders: this is because carpet powders leave residues in the carpet after application and can damage the carpet if it is allowed to accumulate. Click here for some other things you should never use to clean your carpet.
- Do not rub stains: This will only make the stain problem worse.
- Avoid discount carpet cleaners as they often do a sloppy job.
- Before making use of stain removal, apply it to a portion of the carpet
Conclusion
People don’t always find these rules and cleaning tips convenient. However, you need to enforce some ground rules if you want to maintain a clean carpet. Train your kids and pet not to mess the carpet, encourage your visitors to respect the carpet, and discipline yourself to clean carpet as often as you can.