I want to clean my carpet but stainz and deep down dirt is a problem, is there something i can add to the water of my carpet cleaner along with the cleaner i would use to improve the results? And maybe there is a home remedy for this and something for a pre-spot cleaner to help break up the stains? Thanks for the help
White vinegar works excellent, add 1 cup to the water in your carpet cleaner, it's a natural antibacterial cleaner and deodorizer and leaves no residue behind. To remove stains, fill a spray bottle 1/2 water 1/2 vinegar and spray liberally on stain, let sit 5 mins. fold up a white cloth, lay on stain and stand on it, turn it over and repeat, open cloth and rub stain, fold cloth, repeat until cloth comes back clean. To prevent stains after cleaning the carpet, buy a can of scotch guard carpet protector ($5) and spray carpet evenly while carpet is wet, avoid walking on it til dry, spills will bead on top of the carpet for easy clean up. Vinegar aroma will dissipate totally when carpet is dry.
ok,lets face the facts.home carpet shampooers are only for touch up they don,t deep clean no matter what you try.i use stanly steamer.to do the deep sanitizing and deep cleaning once a year and touch up with my rug doctor shampooer as needed.well worth the money and when you add up the time and cost of trying to do it yourself it is darn near a free bee.check them out.don,t cost to ask.
1 Mix some powder laundry detergent with some water; use common sense with how much you're mixing. Mix together with a cloth. #2 Vacuum your rug. Once over is good enough, and start from a corner. #3 Wipe down a small area of the carpet with the cloth to make it damp, and collect any lint from the top. #4 Scrub the area gently with the scrub brush until clean. #5 Throw down some old towels or sheets so the carpet doesn't get dirty, and to soak up excess liquid. #6 Replace your soapy water with fresh clear water after finishing the entire area. #7 Go over the cleaned areas with just water and the scrub brush to remove any excess soap, then let it dry. It will dry faster with fans or open windows. #8 When it's done, your carpet will smell like the detergent you used and will be sparkling clean. #9 Try extremely hard to remove all detergent from the carpet, as the excess detergent will pick up soil very quickly. #10 Be sure to vacuum when it's dry to fluff it up.
Better is probably relative. Answer # 1 gives a great detailed account of how to, so I'll just add some thoughts. I mean you no disrespect but regular vacuuming helps as does not having food where you have carpet. If the stains are dirt or pet issues, then they should be addressed as well. The major issue in using a machine to clean a carpet is residue from any detergent used and a pro will very likely use low foaming. Soap, or detergent residue actually attracts dirt, after the fact, and I am wondering about something # 1 said. RINSE?? The idea of carpet cleaning is to remove whatever is wrong with the least amount of liquid, hence a good, strong vac to begin. The problem with soaking is that the water leaches to the padding, which has very likely sponged up any stains, such as wine, coffee, soda, pet urine, etc. As the carpet looks beautiful again, the padding has to dry, as it drys along with the carpet, that moisture will be re-absorbed into the carpet fibers, and suddenly a stain might reappear. Steam cleaning in that sense is best, and many pro's use a Bonnet technique to remove obvious, surface stains in the fibers, with a minimum of any soaking DOC
