Your carpet, being the biggest decorative item in your home, can impact a lot on the looks and feel of your interior space. When taken care of properly, the carpet will not only look good but also last longer and serve you for many more years. Unfortunately, many homeowners make mistakes when cleaning their carpet, and this often causes the carpet to either stain, damage or wear prematurely.
In this article, we will share 6 most common carpet cleaning mistakes to avoid in order to make your carpet last longer. Have a look.
1. Vigorous scrubbing
We understand that some carpet stains can be rather stubborn, and it makes sense to many people to scrub them vigorously in an attempt to remove them. This, however, is wrong because when you use too much elbow grease, the stain substance will only go deeper into the fibers. In addition, rubbing too hard damages the carpet fibers by causing them to fray, twist and fade. Instead of rubbing, you should blot the stain using a clean white cloth for shallow, simple stains.
2. Using A Wrong Stain Remover
You won’t believe how many people make this mistake. There is a lot of misleading information online about stain removers that do not take into account your type of carpet. Carpet fibers are made from varying materials, and each material demands a specific cleaning agent and method. The best way to know which stain remover to use is by checking your manufacturer’s recommendations.
3. Not Vacuuming Often Enough
Many people wait until they see noticeable dirt and debris on their carpet before vacuuming, and that’s a huge mistake. The standard recommendation for most types of carpets is to vacuum once per week. But if you have pets, kids and many members in your household, you might want to vacuum every other day. There is always invisible dirt, dust, and oils deposited on the carpet each day, and you might not see these particles, but they’re wearing down your fibers in your carpet as you walk on it.
4. Not Removing Stains Soon Enough
Another biggest mistakes most people do is letting the stains stay on the carpet for too long before cleaning them up. If you wait for too long, the liquid will be absorbed deep into the carpet fibers and further into the padding. Oftentimes this leads to permanent staining, discoloration, mold growth, and odor.
5. Using Cheap Carpet Deodorizers
There is totally nothing wrong with using deodorizers on your carpet. However, using cheap powder deodorizers often causes a build-up of gunk in the carpet fibers over time. Your ordinary vacuum cleaner won’t be able to remove the entire powder, and when your guests and family members walk on the carpet, the powder gets ground and worked into the carpet fibers.
In addition, regular use of these deodorizers can give a false sense of cleanliness, tempting you to forego professional carpet cleaning and even vacuuming. In the long run, your carpet will deteriorate much faster.
6. Not Hiring a Professional
Many homeowners only rely on vacuuming as their only method of carpet cleaning. Unfortunately, vacuum cleaning has its own limitations –for instance, it doesn’t remove the deep-seated dirt and dust particles from your carpet fibers, and over time this can build up to the detriment of your carpet. Vacuuming is only meant to supplement professional cleaning if you really want your carpet to remain appealing and last longer.
Now, you might be wondering if you should take the option of hiring a carpet steam cleaner and clean your own carpet. That’s not a bad thing, but, those rental units often come with wrong configurations, are poorly maintained and simply do not match the cleaning power of the commercial carpet cleaning equipment used by the pros. Hiring a professional carpet cleaning service ensures careful, thorough and efficient cleaning for your carpet. And you only have to do it about once per year.
The bottom line
Cleaning and caring for your carpet is extremely important for its optimum performance and durability. It’s important, however, to avoid carpet cleaning mistakes such as the above so as not to damage your carpet and reduce its useful years. It’s also important to have your carpet professionally cleaned at least once a year to get rid of the deep-seated stains, gunk, and organic growth.