How to Clean Carpets at Home

Cleaning carpets thoroughly can present a challenge, especially if your carpet is stained or extremely dirty. Regular vacuuming will not always do the job. For heavily soiled carpets, shampooing is the best method of cleaning rather than simple vacuuming or spot-cleaning.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Steam cleaner
• Vacuum cleaner
• Prespray
• Carpet shampoo

1. Purchase or rent a steam cleaner. If you are not going use a steam cleaner very often, you might want to rent one because it is much cheaper than purchasing one. You can rent a steam cleaner, along with all of the necessary accessories, at a hardware or grocery store.

2. Vacuum the carpet thoroughly.

3. Spray heavily soiled areas and noticeable stains with prespray, allowing it to sit on the stains for about five minutes.

4. Fill the steam cleaner's reservoir with hot water and add one or two capfuls of carpet shampoo to the water.

5. Begin steam-cleaning in one corner of the room, pushing the cleaner forward and pulling the trigger to wet the carpet as you do so. After wetting the carpet, slowly pull the cleaner back so that it scrubs the wet area.

6. Repeat this process on the entire carpet, then allow it to dry for 24 hours before replacing any moved furniture or walking on it.

Tips & Warnings

• Wear socks and place garbage bags over your feet when steam cleaning to ensure that you do not get your feet wet or soil the wet carpet as you clean. Increase the amount of prespray rather than the amount of carpet shampoo for heavily soiled or extremely dirty areas of carpet.
• Do not oversaturate the carpet as this can damage the floor beneath it.

References

• Carpet-Cleaning-Tips
• Carpet-Solution
• How to Clean Carpet