Quick Guide To DIY Carpet Cleaning In 10 Steps
Easy Steps To Clean Your Own Carpets
While some people’s first thought whenever their carpets are stained is to break out the carpet cleaning machine or to call a professional service, not everyone has that luxury. Fortunately, you can clean your carpet using the tools you have in your kitchen and bathroom. Here are some steps you need to follow to make that stain a thing of the past!
Step 1. Blot the Stain As Quickly As You Can… Don’t Rub
Taking a towel and dabbing at the stain, regardless of the stain, will have to be your first response. Blotting is the best method for quickly absorbing excess liquid and picking up any solid pieces. While your first instinct may be to rub the stain, you will actually be pushing the stain deeper into the carpet fibers and breaking any solid bits apart. Thus, making it more difficult to clean.
Step 2. Figure Out The Type Of Stain You Have
This should be easy, but knowing what is staining your carpet is going to tell you what you need to do to clean it up. Sticky areas, watery stains, thick stains, and grease stains are all common stains that can occur to your carpet. However, they all have very different ways to be cleaned.
Step 3. Freeze Sticky Areas
While no one likes getting gum in your hair, it’s even worse whenever gum or other sticky stains get into the carpet. That problem isn’t going to be solved with a pair of scissors, but instead with some ice. Ice makes sticky and stretching things cold and brittle, making it much easier to pick up. Check out this video to see how it’s done.
Press some ice to the gum and let it freeze. Use a spoon to lift up the frozen glob and cut away any excess still stuck to the carpet.
Step 4. Use Grease Soap To Battle Grease
Grease can be a nightmare to remove from your carpet. This is because water typically doesn’t do a thing to get it out. However, there’s a product in your kitchen designed to remove grease from surfaces: The humble dish soap. By combining the dish soap with some warm water, you can spray the stain and blot it up.
Step 5. Use Baking Soda and Salt
Baking soda can easily collect most stains and dirt. You just need to coat the stain with some soda and a few drops of warm water. Wait a couple of hours or overnight, and come back with a towel. Remove the baking soda with the towel and the stain should be gone.
Salt can be used if you end up spilling red wine on your white pristine carpet, because the salt absorbs the liquid. Once it turns red, you can simply vacuum up the salt and keep going with this process until the stain goes away.
Step 6. Aerate Your Rugs
Sometimes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, The easiest way to keep rugs clean is to get them outside and scrape them with a brush. Shake them out to get any other scraps loose and then leave it in the sun for a while. It does prevent bacterial growth and stops those scraps from festering.
Step 7.DIY Disinfecting
If you want to disinfect the carpet without renting a steam cleaner, you can once again turn to vinegar. Mixing three parts of water with one part of white vinegar, will allow you to do a deep clean of your carpet. Dip a brush into the solution and scrub into the carpet, using a towel to dab up any excess.
Step 8.Remove Odors With Vinegar
You might find that while the stain is gone, the odor remains, and if the odor is strong it can cause a lot of problems. In order to remove the odor at its source rather than simply covering it up, you can use vinegar to remove it. Mix a solution of half vinegar and half water, spray it over the carpet, and then just vacuum it away.
Step 9. Clean Pet Hair With A Lint Brush
Even if you have a pet that isn’t a shedder, there is going to be an instance where you find hair that isn’t yours on your carpet. If you don’t have a vacuum, then you can use a lint brush to collect the loose hair to prevent the hair from building up.
Step 10. React Quickly
Finally, whenever you have a stain or a spill, react quickly. While it can be an instinct to freeze and watch the stain spread, you need to make sure that you are moving quickly. The faster you can get a handle on the stain, the less time it has to get into your carpet.
