Keeping your carpets clean can be challenging, especially if you have young kids or pets who seem to always be tracking dirt through the house or spilling things on them. If you’re wondering how some people seem to always keep their carpets looking like they’re brand new here are 5 secrets from professionals that will make everyone envy how clean your carpets are.
Always Blot Stains
So someone spills something on the floor, and you’re panicking because scrubbing it just seems to be spreading the stain. Take a cloth, with your cleaning solution on it, and dab, or blot, the area affected by the stain. By blotting it, you’re putting pressure on the area and that pressure will help the stain transfer from the carpet to the cloth.
Use Shaving Cream
You may be thinking that’s weird – but it works. Many professionals have agreed that shaving cream will help get almost any stain out of carpet. To do this, you should apply the shaving cream directly to the affected area of the carpet and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Once it has set, take a dry cloth and blot away the shaving cream working your way from the outside of the stain inwards. Finish this secret by spraying the area with a solution of one part vinegar to one part water and wiping it away.
Dish Soap
If you have spilled something greasy on your carpet you can remove the stain with a little dish soap. This kind of soap is designed to break down the grease on your dishes, so it only makes sense that it would work for any other kind of grease stain. Mix a couple drops of soap with about a cup of water, and then spray it onto the stain. You’ll want to blot away the stain – as mentioned – and you might need to repeat this process a couple times depending on how big or deep the stain is.
Hydrogen Peroxide
Paper cuts, scrapped knees and other injuries happen in our homes no matter how careful we are. Sometimes a little blood drips on the carpet, and there are very few things that are as noticeable as a blood stain on light carpet. If the blood is dried, you can loosen it up with a soap and water mixture. After that, put a few drops of the hydrogen peroxide on the affected area. When it comes into contact with blood it will foam but you can easily dab it away with a dry towel.
Gum Removal
If you have kids running through your house it’s likely only a matter of time before there’s gum on the carpet. If this happens, you likely know that trying to pick it out of the carpet is just going to making it worse. Take some ice cubes and hold them over the gum for about 30 seconds to a minute. This will cause the gum to harden and make it easier to pry off the carpet, which you can do with a spoon or a fork. You may have to cut a few strands of the carpet, and if you need to then use the spoon to pry the gum up so you can cut them as close to the gum as possible.
If you have tried all of the above tactics to clean your carpet but you just can’t seem to get that stubborn stain out, call a carpet cleaning company to do the job.