How to Clean Carpets & Rugs

Steam-cleaning machines and commercial floor shampoos can be a costly way to clean carpets and rugs in the home. There are a number of homemade carpet cleaner recipes on the Internet but combining commercial products and a little elbow grease is one way to save a lot of money on carpet cleaning and make rugs look like new. Spot test the cleaning method on a discreet area of the carpet or rug before tackling the whole project.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Carpet
• Vacuum cleaner
• Water
• Bowl
• Brush
• Soap
• Towels

Process

1. Vacuum the rug or carpet that you wish to clean. This will save scrubbing out debris and dirt that can be removed using a vacuum cleaner. A thorough vacuuming will remove all surface particles leaving only the ground-in soil.

2. Get a bowl of warm water, a bar of soap and a small handheld plastic scrubbing brush and bring them to the soiled carpet or rug. The temperature of the water should be warm bordering on hot to produce substantial foam with the soap.

3. Rub the scrubbing brush bristles along the length of the bar soap, dip in water and repeat. Repeat until the bristles of the scrub brush have a thick wet soapy coating. The type of soap doesn't really matter. An inexpensive generic bar will do the soap job as a brand name bar.

4. Push down on the soiled carpet with the soapy scrub brush and begin to scrub the mixture into the carpet fibers. Cover an area equal in size to a medium-sized bath towel. Be sure to scrub well enough that the carpet is saturated to the touch.

5. Place a dry clean medium-sized bath towel over the area scrubbed in the preceding step and push down with your feet or hands. Walking over the towel or pushing down on the towel with a reasonable amount of force will bring the embedded carpet dirt to the surface of the fibers and onto the towel. Results are quick and visible as the towel will soon become muddy from the soiled carpet.

6. Continue the soap-scrubbing and towel-stamping method over the entire area of soiled carpet. This method takes a fair amount of time and uses a lot of physical energy but produces results equal to commercial carpet cleaning machines.

7. Rinse the area by repeat the scrubbing method using only hot water and another clean towel. When the towel remains clean after pressing against the wet carpet, all the dirt has been removed.

8. Allow the carpet to dry thoroughly. This may take several hours or overnight depending on the amount of water used.

Tips & Warnings

• Rubber gloves aren't necessary but they can save skin from getting overly dry when using bar soap.

References

• Healthy Child.org
• Geyser Vacuum Cleaner

Resources

• Greener Choices.org